2010 Volume 15 Issue 2

Kimberly Kotrla, Preston Dyer, and Karolina Stelzer

ABSTRACT: The Hispanic population is the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. It is also a young population that faces a number of challenges including high rates of divorce and teenage pregnancy. Although marriage, or relationship, education is certainly not new, it is relatively unstudied among Hispanic couples. The Hispanic Active Relationships Project (HARP) was an initiative specifically designed as an outreach effort to Hispanic couples. This initiative was designed to provide participants with relationship and communication tools to increase relationship satisfaction, improve communication and conflict resolution skills, decrease negative interactions, and increase commitment to the relationship. The present study reports findings on the effectiveness of the HARP program based on data gathered from 550 individuals (275 couples) over a two and half year period. Participants were primarily Spanish speaking and at least half were first or second generation immigrants.

V. William Harris, Elizabeth Davis, and Katherine Chartier

ABSTRACT: Empirically-informed teaching is driven by empirically-based teaching methodologies and techniques. In this article the effectiveness of the Attention, Interact, Apply, Invite (AIAI) – Fact, Think, Feel, Do (FTFD) Start-to-Finish Teaching Model is explored through data collected from 41 students at a Western university. Results suggest that the AIAI – FTFD Start-to-Finish Teaching Model can be an effective tool in improving educators’ abilities to meet their own and their students ‘needs through quality teaching preparation and delivery.

Kate Fogarty, Jonnali C. Mayberry, Suzanna Smith, and Silvia Echevarria-Doan

ABSTRACT: Florida’s Marriage Preparation and Preservation Act (FMPPA) went into effect in 1999 and provides incentives to couples for receiving premarital preparation, similar to policies in six other states. Since the FMPPA’s inception, no studies have examined whether state policy incentives are achieving the desired impact of increasing couples’ likelihood of seeking premarital preparation. This study address ed contextual, external motivators including policy-based incentives and internal motivators contributing to couples receiving premarital preparation, testing a model combining facets from the Health Belief Model (Stretcher, Champion, & Rosenstock, 1997) and Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Results indicated that couples’ values, indicated by the influence of respected recommenders; and positive attitudes held about premarital preparation (PMP), explained the influence of external motivators, such as limited time and funding on whether or not couples received PMP. Implications for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers are discussed.

Kevin N. Wright and Cherie Wooden

ABSTRACT: Previous research has found that parental empowerment is associated with a variety of positive and negative outcomes for parents, their children and parent/child relationships. Interestingly, most parent training programs do not directly address parents’ lack of confidence, feelings of incompetence and reluctance to assume the role of parenting. Instead, programs attempt to improve the skills of parents, which, in turn, is presumed to result in improved perceptions of competence by participants. The parenting training program described here attempted to address and boost parental empowerment directly by taking a “bottom-up” rather than “top down” approach to program development and implementation. In conceptualizing the approach, the project drew upon three bodies of theoretical work: 1) it considered the role and distribution of power between participant and service provider, 2) it utilized a group process model to facilitate group cohesion and productivity, and 3) it drew upon the pragmatic nature of adult learners to engage participants and foster ownership. This article describes the first phase of a project to develop a parent-developed, parent-run parent training program in which a diverse group of parents were brought together to develop a training curriculum.

The article describes the approach by which responsibility for developing the curriculum was vested with parents rather than professionals, the empowerment formula the parents incorporated into the resulting curriculum, and the influence of participating in the process on participating parents. Implications for practice are discussed.

Steven M. Toepfer

ABSTRACT: This study reports on the relationship between perceived family social support [FSS] and family intrusiveness [FI] in a sample of young adult women. These family system variables were hypothesized to be inversely correlated. The potential for a positive correlation was also explored to determine whether or not family support can coincide with deleterious intrusive social interaction. Results of the study showed an inverse correlation rather than positive. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Rosemary V. Barnett, Tana Lynn Jackson, Suzanna Smith, and Heather Gibson

ABSTRACT: This study examined the effects of religiosity and sibling relationships on the timing of sexual debut. The sample was comprised of 352 students randomly selected from a university in the Southeastern United States. Sibling relationships had a small but significant effect on the timing of sexual debut. There was a higher chance of an individual not having had, or delaying, their sexual debut when their sibling relationships were characterized by low sibling warmth/closeness, high sibling relative status/power, high sibling conflict, and low sibling rivalry. Religiosity had a significant effect, with higher levels of religiosity resulting in later age of sexual debut. Furthermore, level of religiosity was more significant in emerging adulthood than in adolescence. Both sibling relationships and religiosity independently had an effect on the timing of sexual debut. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Paul C. Rosenblatt and Xiaohui Li

ABSTRACT: The focus of the literature on the problems of cell phone use while driving has been on how driving is more risky while talking on a cell phone, but there are reasons to think that cell phone usage while driving is also risky to the relationships of the parties involved in the phone conversation. The same factors that make driving more risky while using a cell phone (for example, longer reaction times and impaired attention) can also make family communication in that situation more risky. This article provides a speculative theoretical analysis applying cognitive models of the effects of divided attention and distracted communication to suggest why cell phone communication when one of the family members in the conversation is driving can be risky. The analysis is applied to five hypothetical family conversation scenarios that could create difficulties.