Metacognition Explains the Gender Differences in Digital Reading Performance: A Multilevel Mediation Analysis

Gender differences in reading have become a heated topic, and a reoccurring pattern of results is that girls outperform boys significantly. As digital reading prevails, the discrepancies in digital reading between girls and boys are also prominent. For the purpose of exploring the reason why boys lag behind in terms of digital reading performance and therefore unveil the underlying mechanism in improving students' digital reading literacy, this study used multilevel mediation analysis to investigate whether students' metacognition, i.e., metacognition of understanding, remembering, summarizing and assessing credibility, explain the gender differences in digital reading performance. This study adopted Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), launched by Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as the data source. Results of 12,058 samples from 361 schools in China showed that their better achievement in metacognition significantly mediated girls' excelling performance in digital reading. Pedagogical implementations focusing on metacognition were given to render help for both genders in digital reading performance.

The mental health impact of daily news exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic: An ecological momentary assessment study

Consumption of distressing news media, which increased substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, has demonstrable negative effects on mental health. The current study examines the proximal impact of daily exposure to distressing news on mental health. A sample of 128 college students completed daily ecological momentary assessments for 8 weeks measuring exposure to news about COVID-19, worry and optimism specifically related to COVID-19, hopelessness, and general worry. Participants completed >22,700 surveys. Multilevel mediation models indicated that greater daily exposure to news about COVID-19 was associated with higher same-day and next-day worry about the pandemic. Elevations in worry specifically about COVID-19 were in turn associated with greater next-day hopelessness and general worry. Optimism about COVID-19 was not associated with daily exposure to COVID-19 news or to same-day or next-day hopelessness or general worry. This study demonstrates the mental health impact of daily exposure to COVID-19 news and highlights how specific worry contributes over time to hopelessness and general worry.

Subjective and Perseverative Cognition Mediate the Relationship Between Sleep and Work Impairment

The study examined the mediating role of subjective and perseverative cognition on sleep and work impairment. Sixty nurses completed a background survey and 14-days of ecological momentary assessments (EMA) and sleep actigraphy. Each day, participants evaluated their subjective cognition (mental sharpness, memory, processing speed), perseverative cognition (rumination) and work impairment (how much did you cut back on normal paid work, how much did the quality of your work suffer). Multiple sleep characteristics were measured by EMA and actigraphy. Multilevel mediation models adjusted for sociodemographics and work shift. At the between-person and within-person levels, there were mediated associations of sleep quality and sufficiency (but not actigraphy-measured sleep) with work impairment through subjective and perseverative cognition. Better sleep quality or higher sleep sufficiency were associated with better subjective and perseverative cognition, which, in turn, were associated with less work impairment.

Caregiving Self-efficacy as a Mediator of Negative Emotional States and Potentially Harmful Behaviors

Potentially harmful behaviors (PHB), such as wanting to scream at or hit a care recipient, are more likely when caregivers experience higher levels of stress. The current study expands on this research and identifies caregiving self-efficacy (SE) for dealing with disruptive behaviors as a mediator of the relationship between caregiver distress and PHB. Multilevel mediation models were tested using a sample of 244 caregivers of persons with dementia assessed three times over a one year period. In two separate models, SE mediated the relationship between caregiving burden/depression and the frequency of wanting to yell or scream at the care recipient in the past six months. Individuals with higher levels of depression and burden had lower levels of SE for dealing with disruptive behaviors. As SE decreased, the risk of potentially harmful behaviors increased. This mediation effect occurred at the within and between subject levels of the model. A significant indirect effect at the within-person level suggests that at timepoints where caregivers experienced more distress, they had lower self-efficacy and increased PHBs. Similar effects were observed at the between person level. These data suggest that both caregiver distress and self-efficacy are important intervention targets for minimizing PHBs.

Multilevel mediation analysis on time-to-event outcomes: Exploring racial/ethnic disparities in breast cancer survival in California

Background Third-variable effect refers to the effect from a third-variable that explains an observed relationship between an exposure and an outcome. Depending on whether there is a causal relationship from the exposure to the third variable, the third-variable is called a mediator or a confounder. The multilevel mediation analysis is used to differentiate third-variable effects from data of hierarchical structures. Data Collection and Analysis We developed a multilevel mediation analysis method to deal with time-to-event outcomes and implemented the method in the mlma R package. With the method, third-variable effects from different levels of data can be estimated. The method uses multilevel additive models that allow for transformations of variables to take into account potential nonlinear relationships among variables in the mediation analysis. We apply the proposed method to explore the racial/ethnic disparities in survival among patients diagnosed with breast cancer in California between 2006 and 2017, using both individual risk factors and census tract level environmental factors. The individual risk factors are collected by cancer registries and the census tract level factors are collected by the Public Health Alliance of Southern California in partnership with the Virginia Commonwealth University's Center on Society and Health. The National Cancer Institute work group linked variables at the census tract level with each patient and performed the analysis for this study. Results We found that the racial disparity in survival were mostly explained at the census tract level and partially explained at the individual level. The associations among variables were depicted. Conclusion: The multilevel mediation analysis method can be used to differentiate mediation/confounding effects for factors originated from different levels. The method is implemented in the R package mlma.

The role of ideation on the effect of an SBC intervention on consistent bed net use among caregivers of children under 5 years in Nigeria: a multilevel mediation analysis

Background Malaria remains a significant public health challenge in Nigeria. Consistent bed net use (sleeping under a treated net every night) has been identified as a key malaria prevention behavior. This paper explores the relationship between mass media social and behavior change interventions, psychosocial factors, and consistent bed net use. Methods Data is from the endline survey of a USAID-funded social and behavior change communication campaign conducted from 2012 to 2017 across five states in Nigeria. The outcome measure was consistent bed net use, and the mediator variable was a composite measure called ideation from a set of psychosocial factors believed to influence bed net use. The independent variable was recall of malaria specific media messages. Multilevel mediation analysis explored if recall of malaria specific media messages had any effect on bed net related ideation and if this ideation had any effect on consistent net use. Results Respondents included in this study were on average aged 31 years, mostly married or cohabiting (97.5%) and female 75%. Four in 10 (39.7%) respondents were able to recall malaria specific messages. Respondents with low, moderate and high recall were 23, 32 and 80% more likely to have a higher ideational score in the emotional domain compared to those not able to recall. Respondents were more likely to have higher ideational scores in the cognitive domain if they had low (AOR = 1.26, 95% CI 1.15–1.38), moderate (AOR = 1.16, 95% CI 1.00–1.34) or high recall (AOR = 1.55, 95% CI 1.16–2.06), respectively compared to those with no recall. Similarly, respondents with low (AOR = 1.03, 95% CI .99–1.08), moderate (AOR = 1.15, 95% CI 1.08–1.23) and high (AOR = 1.15, 95% CI 1.01–1.30) recall were more likely to have a higher ideational score in the social domain compared to those with no recall. After adjusting for recall of media messages and other potential covariates, all three ideational domains also had a significant positive effect on consistent bed net use. For every unit increase in ideational score, the likelihood of reporting consistent bed net use increased by 5 to 10%. There was a significant indirect effect of recalling malaria specific messages on consistent bed net use through each of the ideational domains. Conclusion Access to a bed net is a critical first step in the process of bed net utilization. However, psychosocial factors e.g., emotional, cognitive, and social domains of ideation also play a major role in bed net use. Mass media SBC interventions could potentially influence bed net related ideation and consequently improve net use behavior. Future Social and behavior change interventions should employ approaches that improve these domains of ideation within their audiences in order to increase bed net utilization.

Self-Efficacy in Habit Building: How General and Habit-Specific Self-Efficacy Influence Behavioral Automatization and Motivational Interference

In this article, we investigate the role of self-efficacy (SE) in intentional habit building. We analyzed event sampling data from a habit building app we created that helps define and track habit data. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling and multilevel mediation to test our hypotheses. In a first study, N = 91 university students built new study habits over a period of 6 weeks in a controlled study. We found that the trait-like (Level 2) general self-efficacy predicted automaticity (i.e., habit strength) but not the experience of motivational interference (MI). In a second study with real user data, N = 265 idiographic habits have been analyzed. The specific SE associated with these habits – habit-specific self-efficacy (Level 1, HSE) – was measured during habit formation. We found that lagged HSE predicted automaticity and that lagged automaticity predicted HSE, indicating a positive feedback mechanism in habit building. Furthermore, we found that lagged HSE predicted less MI during habit performance. A multilevel mediation analysis showed significant effects of lagged HSE (Level 1) and aggregated HSE (Level 2) on MI, which were both partially mediated by automaticity. These results show the importance of defining the specificity of SE beliefs and how they interact with automaticity in the habit building process.