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SAGE Journal User Guide

Petts, Family and Religious Characteristics’ Influence on Delinquency Trajectories from Adolescence to Young Adulthood. American Sociological Review June 2009 vol. 74 no. 3 465-483.

This study takes a life-course approach to examine whether family and religious characteristics influence individual-level delinquency trajectories from early adolescence through young adulthood. Based on data from the NLSY79, results suggest that residing with two parents deters youths from becoming delinquent and that supportive parenting practices reduce their likelihood of becoming involved in delinquent behavior early in adolescence. There is also evidence that family and religion interact to predict delinquency trajectories. Religion enhances the effect of parental affection in deterring delinquent behavior and mitigates the increased risk of high levels of delinquent behavior among youths in single-parent families. Moreover, the findings indicate that delinquency trajectories are not immutable; family transitions are associated with increases in delinquency, but religious participation throughout adolescence and marriage are associated with declines in delinquent behavior. Overall, results suggest that family and religious characteristics continually influence the extent to which youths commit delinquent acts.

Cohen and Ledford, The Effectiveness of Self-Managing Teams: A Quasi-Experiment. Human Relations January 1994 vol. 47 no. 1 13-43.

This study used a quasi-experimental design to assess the effectiveness of self-managing teams in a telecommunications company. These teams performed customer service, technical support, administrative support, and managerial functions in a variety of locations. The balance of evidence indicates that self-managing teams were more effective than comparable traditionally-managed groups that p[performed the same type of work. The study illustrates the value of a collaborative research project in which researchers and clients jointly define the research questions, study design, and methods.

Roden and Grube, Does music training enhance working memory performance? Findings from a quasi-experimental longitudinal study. Psychology of Music 2014, Vol. 42(2) 284–298 © The Author(s) 2013.

Instrumental music training has been shown to enhance cognitive processing beyond general intelligence. We examined this assumption with regard to working memory performance in primary school-aged children (N= 50; 7–8 years of age) within a longitudinal study design. Half of the children participated in an extended music education program with 45 minutes of weekly instrumental music training, while the other half received extended natural science training. Each child completed a computerized test battery three times over a period of 18 months. The battery included seven subtests, which address the central executive, the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad components of Baddeley’s working memory model. Socio-economic background and basic cognitive functions were assessed for each participant and used as covariates in subsequent analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Significant group by time interactions were found for phonological loop and central executive subtests, indicating a superior developmental course in children with music training compared to the control group. These results confirm previous findings concerning music training and cognitive performance. It is suggested that children receiving music training benefit specifically in those aspects of cognitive functioning that are strongly related to auditory information processing.