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Study shows two career assessment screenings effective for veterans, civilians
LAWRENCE — When veterans leave the military, they not only have the possibility of significant challenges like lasting physical injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder or mental health concerns, they also face the reality of transitioning to a new life. While many services are in place to help address the physical and mental obstacles, little research has been performed on measures designed to help with educational and career paths. A new study from the University of Kansas has found two measures designed to help civilian students are also effective for veterans.
AAI announces the Center for Positive Youth Development
LAWRENCE — The Achievement & Assessment Institute has announced its latest center, the Center for Positive Youth Development. Led by director David Hansen, associate professor of educational psychology in the School of Education & Human Sciences at the University of Kansas, the Center for Positive Youth Development will focus on adolescent development and after-school/out-of-school time.
KU students take part in math competitions
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas students have tested their mathematical prowess at recent local, state and national events, including the KU Math Prize Competition, Kansas Collegiate Math Competition and the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Participants included Kansans from Baldwin City, Kechi, Lawrence and Topeka.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
Study shows two career assessment screenings effective for veterans, civilians
LAWRENCE — When veterans leave the military, they not only have the possibility of significant challenges like lasting physical injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder or mental health concerns, they also face the reality of transitioning to a new life, often in higher education or a new career field. While many services are in place to help address the physical and mental obstacles, little research has been performed on measures designed to help in the educational and career paths. A new study from the University of Kansas has found two measures designed to help civilian students are also effective for veterans.
Career counselors, college advisers and practitioners routinely use measures called the Occupational Engagement Scale-Student (OES-S) and the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale-USA (CAAS) in measuring how engaged people are in their educational journey and how adaptable they are in learning new skills or devoting themselves to vocations.
“We looked at these measures strictly from a career-development standpoint. There has been a movement in recent years to determine how engaged people are in vocational settings and how adaptable they are in career planning,” said Arpita Ghosh, assistant professor of educational psychology at KU and the study’s lead author. “There’s been a good amount of research in these areas of engagement and adaptability in civilian college students, but nobody has really been doing that work with veterans.”
To determine if the two common tools to measure those qualities are valid for both civilians and researchers, study authors conducted the interventions with a sample of 418 U.S. military veterans and 411 civilians. The findings showed both tools measured the same constructs for both populations with little variance, meaning they are likely effective for both research and practice with veterans transitioning from the military.
The article, written with co-authors Christopher Niileksela, assistant professor of educational psychology, and Elizabeth Grzesik, doctoral candidate, all at KU, was published in the Journal of Career Assessment.
Veterans have unique experiences due to their service and often struggle to reintegrate into society, while experiences such as combat and trauma can be associated with negative work and life outcomes. Research has also shown veterans can struggle to find and maintain civilian work due to physical or psychological injuries or challenges translating their military skills to civilian work.
“I think the findings of this study are important because we now have evidence that both of these scales work for both populations,” Ghosh said. “Now we know researchers and practitioners have effective tools they can use to help veterans make the transition and set and pursue career goals.”
The two scales measure occupational engagement, or how an individual gathers information to make decisions and increase knowledge of one’s self, the world of work and relationship between the two, the authors wrote. They also gauge career adaptability in four resources: concern, or looking ahead and preparing for the future; taking control of vocational future; curiosity about exploring different selves and future outcomes; and confidence, such as being more confident to pursue goals and aspirations. The OES-S, developed at KU, adult version is designed for employed adults looking to change jobs. The CAAS measures psychosocial resources needed to manage work transitions and work-related trauma in subscales of concern, control, curiosity and confidence.
The sample of the veterans and civilians each who took both interventions showed they measured subscales consistently across both populations and varying demographics such as age, gender and race. The only variation found was in the concern subscale, in which civilians reported slightly higher levels of concern about looking forward in a career and preparing for the future. Ghosh said that is likely the result of veterans experiencing goal setting and training in moving through career advancement as a matter of course in the military experience.
“The Department of Defense does a good job of helping people build career goals so they can make advancements. Also, once veterans leave the military, many veterans also seek services that can help them build skills and confidence that most civilians do not have access to,” Ghosh said.
Ghosh, who has also published research on effectiveness of mental health screenings for veterans transitioning to higher education, said the current study is helpful in building a larger body of knowledge about how various subsets of society such as higher education faculty, career counselors, mental health practitioners, employers and communities can all help veterans successfully transition from the military to civilian life.
“I think it’s neat to see that, even though these specific tools weren’t originally designed for veterans, they can help them,” Ghosh said. “There has been a lot of research looking at how measures work for things like post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but I think this is one of the first studies to look at career goals and transitions as well.”
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Contact: Chance Dibben, Achievement & Assessment Institute, [email protected]
AAI announces the Center for Positive Youth Development
LAWRENCE — The Achievement & Assessment Institute (AAI) has announced its latest center, the Center for Positive Youth Development.
Led by director David Hansen, associate professor of educational psychology in the School of Education & Human Sciences at the University of Kansas, the Center for Positive Youth Development (PYD) will focus on adolescent development and after-school/out-of-school time.
PYD as a concept and practice emerged from a wealth of youth practitioner knowledge and now is a preferred research model in many educational fields. Often taking place after school or during out-of-school time, the Positive Youth Development framework recognizes youth have competencies to achieve desired goals, are agents of their own development and learning, and exercise agency to contribute to their own growth and to community change.
According to Hansen, programs outside of the classroom often offer adolescents space to “explore their identity, learn initiative skills, develop emotion regulation and practice teamwork.”
Adolescence is a crucial time for an individual, one in which significant brain growth occurs. One of the aims of Center for Positive Youth Development, according to Hansen, is to develop research and practice around matching students with skills they are ready to learn.
“With the out-of-school time learning, we often see students exhibiting agency and shaping skills they will carry forward with them in adulthood,” Hansen said. “It’s important youth have spaces where they can try new things and foster understanding, purpose and meaning in life. That’s what these spaces tend to be about.”
Joining Hansen at the new center is Michael Lemon, director of the Kansas Enrichment Network. Lemon will carry over a portfolio of projects to the new center that are already utilizing a PYD approach with youth and partners.
“The dedicated focus on positive youth development will enhance our work and strengthen our impact,” Lemon said. “Our work in the field and alongside partners will continue to benefit the field of youth development and the children, youth and families they serve.”
Having both a research and practice component is an aspect that center that especially excites Hansen.
“I describe myself as an applied developmental researcher. I’m trying to study the processes of development, growth, learning within this space. With his experience, Michael brings a practitioner perspective, what is actually happening in the field,” Hansen said.
“Connecting research with those who are on the ground, doing this work, doing the practice and helping others in that practice — to me is a perfect match.”
Lemon echoes this relationship between fieldwork and research. “I see us taking theory to practice and practice to theory. I see our team gaining a lot and also giving a lot. It’s a really great partnership.”
Hansen also envisions the center to be a lab on PYD, with a number of graduate students already targeted to join the research arm of the center.
For Neal Kingston, AAI director and University Distinguished Professor, the Center for Positive Youth Development is a natural evolution of the Achievement & Assessment Institute’s work in the educational research space.
“AAI has numerous projects and centers, covering a range of areas within education. And just as it is important for us to research and optimize impact in the classroom, it is important for us to understand and research other spaces where learning, development, and ¬¬growth occur.”
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Contact: Gloria Prothe, Department of Mathematics, [email protected]
KU students take part in math competitions
LAWRENCE — University of Kansas students have tested their mathematical prowess at recent local, state and national events.
KU Math Prize Competition
The 39th annual event, sponsored by the Department of Mathematics, took place in April. Open to all KU undergraduates, the written exam for each level covered six questions to be completed in three hours. Cash awards were presented to the top three winners at both levels.
The junior level was open to all undergraduates of non-senior standing and assumes a knowledge of first-year calculus. The winners of the junior level:
First place: Colin Marett, a junior in mathematics and computer engineering from Lawrence.
Second place: Nikita Kuzin, a sophomore in mathematics and economics from Odesa, Ukraine.
Third place: Siddharth Dodia, a first-year student in computer science from Kodinar, India. Dodia also was the top first-year student.
The senior level is open to all undergraduates and covers a range of standard topics of undergraduate math. The winner of the senior level:
First place: Tae Sung Cho, a junior in mathematics from Seoul, Korea.
Second place: Cael Harris, a senior in mathematics from Baldwin City.
Third place: Ella Barnes, a senior in mathematics from Elkhorn, Nebraska.
Hailong Dao, professor of mathematics, and Dionyssis Mantzavinos, assistant professor of mathematics, were in charge of the competition.
Kansas Collegiate Math Competition
KU undergraduate students took first place in the team competition at the 2022 Kansas Collegiate Math Competition, which was April 9 at Benedictine College. The competition is part of the yearly meeting of the Kansas section of the Mathematical Association of America.
The competition is team-based, with students working together in groups of two or three to complete 10 problems in three hours. Teams from undergraduate institutions in Kansas took part. Cash awards were given to the top teams. KU had the first-place team.
First-place team members were Tae Sung Cho; Matthew Hunt, a sophomore in mathematics and physics from Kechi; and Annie Simon, a junior in mathematics from Topeka.
Paul Cazeaux, assistant professor of mathematics, and Zhipeng Liu, associate professor of mathematics, coached the team. Mantzavinos co-organized with Scott Thuong, assistant professor of mathematics at Pittsburg State University, the intercollegiate competition portion of the program.
William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition
The KU team participated along with 427 teams in the Mathematical Association of America’s William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Called one of the toughest math competitions in the world, the Putnam exam is a mathematics competition open to all regularly enrolled undergraduates in colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. The competition took place in December. KU’s team consisted of Cho, Hunt and Simon.
Jeremy Martin, professor of mathematics; Liu and Cazeaux conducted training sessions for the Putnam exam.
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