Self-regulated learning of Natural Sciences and Mathematics future teachers: Learning strategies, self-efficacy, and socio-demographic factors.

Teacher education programs should have as one of their purposes the promotion of self-regulatory skills for learning among students who aspire to be teachers so that they can take a leading role in their learning and foster these skills in their future students. Considering the importance of knowing what students in teacher education programs do to study and learn, as well as how efficacious they feel to deal with academic demands, this study is part of a larger research and aims to investigate the learning and study strategies and self-efficacy for learning beliefs of 220 students enrolled in teacher education programs in Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics of a Higher Education Institution in the state of Piauí, and examine them in relation to age, gender, licentiate area, and course semester. Brazilian translations of the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI - Third Edition) and the Self-efficacy for Learning Form were used for data collection.

Symptom management of affective and cognitive disturbance with a group of cancer survivors.

Unlabelled: Cancer survivors 65 years of age and older experience treatment-induced memory impairments. However, clinicians do not intervene for these cognitive problems. This article describes the findings from a pilot study of a memory versus health training intervention and its adaptability for cancer survivors for symptom management.

The SeniorWISE study: improving everyday memory in older adults.

We tested whether at-risk older adults receiving memory training showed better memory self-efficacy, metamemory, memory performance, and function in instrumental activities of daily living than participants receiving a health promotion training comparison condition. We followed participants for 26 months. The sample was mostly female (79%) and Caucasian (71%), with 17% Hispanics and 12% African Americans; average age was 75 years, and average education was 13 years.

Health-training intervention for community-dwelling elderly in the SeniorWISE Study.

This article describes the outcomes of a psychosocial intervention that tested whether health training could improve health and functional ability in a group of community-residing elderly persons. The health-training intervention consisted of eight 90-minute lecture and discussion classes conducted twice a week for 1 month. In 3 months following the posttest, an additional four booster sessions were delivered once per week for 1 month.

Differential benefits of memory training for minority older adults in the SeniorWISE study.

Purpose: Cognitive training improves mental abilities in older adults, but the benefit to minority elders is unclear. We conducted a subgroup analysis of subjects in the SeniorWISE (Wisdom Is Simply Exploration) trial to examine this issue.

Design And Methods: SeniorWISE was a Phase 3 randomized trial that enrolled 265 nondemented community-dwelling older adults aged 65 years and older between 2001 and 2006.

The revised direct assessment of functional status for independent older adults.

Purpose: The original version of the Direct Assessment of Functional Status (DAFS), a measure of instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), was found to have a ceiling effect in older adults living independently in the community. This suggested that the tasks measured, although relevant, do not require full use of this population's abilities, and thus, the instrument may not be sensitive to the early decrements in IADLs that can signal initial cognitive impairment and may not detect improvements in IADLs over time, which is especially important in intervention research.

Design And Methods: By removing items with little to no variation and adding more difficult subscales that emphasized medication management skills, we designed the DAFS-Extended (Direct Assessment of Functional Status-Revised [DAFS-R]) to be more challenging for elders living independently.

Alcohol use and older adults: A little goes a long way.

We examined the relationships between alcohol use, cognitive and affective variables, and the potential differential benefits of training for older adults drinkers and non-drinkers who participated in a randomized trial implemented between 2001-2006. Participants, who were living independently in the community, were randomly assigned to either twelve hours of memory training or health promotion classes. Outcomes included depression, health, cognition, verbal, visual, memory, and performance-based IADLs.

Memory performance and mild cognitive impairment in Black and White community elders.

Background: Deficits in memory performance are often nonspecific predictors of cognitive decline and may portend a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Objective: We examined age, depression, education, gender, memory complaints, and race as related to memory performance because memory is a fundamental criterion from which MCI is evaluated.

Methods: The study recruited Black and White adults, > or = 70 years of age, who lived in the community, spoke English, and were screened for no cognitive impairment.