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This research used Bandura's social cognitive framework of self-regulation to examine functional group leadership. Antecedents and outcomes of leader goals and leadership self-efficacy (LSE) were central to this investigation. Leaders were 96 college students who led three-person teams on either a more simple or complex production task. Results indicated that LSE predicted leader goal levels, and together LSE and leader goals predicted task strategies communicated by leaders to group members. Most effects of LSE and leader goals on group outcomes were mediated by leader strategies. In addition, LSE was instrumental to the leader's maintenance of challenging goals when leaders confronted a complex task. Findings offered general support for extending Bandura's self-regulation model to group leadership task settings.

SummaryThe subsequent contraceptive behaviour following reported side effects in users of oral contraceptives in the southern region of Brazil is examined in relation to discontinuation of pill use, changing to other methods, termination of contraceptive use, the role of the physician in influencing a woman's decision to discontinue pill use, and discontinuation according to the type of problem experienced.In 2904 currently married women, aged 15–44, almost 75% reported that they had used the pill at some time, and of these 45.6% were still doing so. Women who reported problems with the pill were less likely to be current users (25%) than the women who did not (65%). However, overall contraceptive prevalence was about the same in both groups. Women who stop using oral contraceptives are more likely to be using traditional methods than women in the general population, especially if they want more children. Termination of pill use varies little according to the type of problem reported. Women with problems who sought medical attention were more likely to stop using the pill and so were women advised to stop by their physician, but the major factor affecting discontinuation was the reported experience of a problem.

This study was undertaken to investigate the independent effect of the length of birth interval on malnutrition in infants, and children aged 6–39 months. Data for this study were drawn from a post-flood survey conducted during October–December 1988 at Sirajganj of the Sirajgani district and at Gopalpur of the Tangail district in Bangladesh. The survey recorded the individual weights of 1887 children. Cross-tabulations and logistic regression procedures were applied to analyse the data. The proportion of children whose weight-for-age was below 70% (moderate-to-severely malnourished) and 60% (severely malnourished) of the NCHS median was tabulated against various durations of previous and subsequent birth intervals. The odds of being moderately or severely malnourished were computed for various birth intervals, controlling for: the number of older surviving siblings; maternal education and age; housing area (a proxy for wealth); age and sex of the index child; and the prevalence of diarrhoea in the previous 2 weeks for the index child.About one-third of infants and young children were moderately malnourished and 15% were severely malnourished. The proportion of children who were under 60% weight-for-age decreased with the increase in the length of the subsequent birth interval, maternal education and housing area. The proportion of malnourished children increased with the number of older surviving children. Children were at higher risk of malnutrition if they were female, their mothers were less educated, they had several siblings, and either previous or subsequent siblings were born within 24 months. This study indicates the potential importance of longer birth intervals in reducing malnutrition in children.

AbstractCan a school or district improve student achievement simply by switching to a higher‐quality textbook or curriculum? We conducted the first multi‐textbook, multi‐state effort to estimate textbook efficacy following widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and associated changes in the textbook market. Pooling textbook adoption and student test score data across six geographically and demographically diverse U.S. states, we found little evidence of differences in average achievement gains for schools using different math textbooks. We found some evidence of greater variation in achievement gains among schools using pre‐CCSS editions, which may have been more varied in their content than post‐CCSS editions because they were written for a broader set of standards. We also found greater variation among schools that had more exposure to a given text. However, these differences were small. Despite considerable interest and attention to textbooks as a low‐cost, "silver bullet" intervention for improving student outcomes, we conclude that the adoption of a new textbook or set of curriculum materials, on its own, is unlikely to achieve this goal.