Edward Mwansa - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Edward Mwansa

In addressing issues related to problems of democratisation in Africa, this paper attempts to rel... more In addressing issues related to problems of democratisation in Africa, this paper attempts to relate the issue to the need for citizenship education and the role that can play in social development. Citizenship should be central to the formation of viable civil societies that claim a tangible stake in national public spaces in post-Cold War Africa. These and related topics are discussed relative to new possibilities that could lead to the full realisation of the concept as well as the practice of enfranchised citizenship and inclusive social development in aspiring democracies in the Sub Saharan African context. The complexity of the development 'problematique' that Sub-Saharan Africa is facing is unique in that it is multi-dimensional, but above all else, politically located. It is, therefore, central to our discussions here that to correct the continent's current schemes of underdevelopment, pragmatic schemes of governance must be achieved. To do that, we are suggesting, new possibilities of citizenship education should be formulated for the general African scene in general, and for democratising but still both institutionally and economically weakened Zambia.

Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 1987

This study investigated the effects of a smoking prevention program that emphasized refusal skill... more This study investigated the effects of a smoking prevention program that emphasized refusal skills training on 1730 adolescents in three high schools and six middle schools. Classes within these schools were randomly assigned to treatment or no-treatment conditions to avoid confounding schools with treatment condition. The effects of attrition on the internal and external validity of the study were examined. Although the results indicated an apparent effect of the program at the 1-year follow-up in deterring continued smoking among those who were smoking at pretest, this result may have been due to a higher rate of attrition among high-rate smokers in the treatment condition than in the control condition. Attrition also affected external validity. Across both conditions, subjects who were smoking at pretest and who were at risk to smoke were more likely to be missing at follow-up. The program did have an effect on the refusal skills of participants and the validity of this effect was not jeopardized by differential attrition.

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 1976

Modeling, self-verbalization, and self-reinforcement techniques were used to train hyperactive ch... more Modeling, self-verbalization, and self-reinforcement techniques were used to train hyperactive children in more effective and less impulsive strategies for approaching cognitive tasks, academic problems, and social situations. Eighteen hyperactive children took part in the training program. The control group, which received no training, consisted of 11 children, matched with the experimental group on age, IQ, and measures of hyperactivity and impulsivity. Several tests and measures, some of which have been shown to differentiate between hyperactive and normal children, were administered prior to training, at the end of the 3- month training period, and after a further 3- month period in which no training took place. The trained group showed significantly greater improvement on several of the measures, both at the time of posttesting and on the follow-up evaluation.

Osteoporosis International, 1999

With the aging of the population, the medical and social costs of skeletal fragility leading to f... more With the aging of the population, the medical and social costs of skeletal fragility leading to fractures will cause an immense burden on society unless effective prophylactic and therapeutic regimens can be developed. Exercise is suggested as a possible regimen against involutional bone loss. The purpose of the present meta-analysis is to address a quantitative review of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and nonrandomized controlled trials (CTs) on the effects of exercise training programs on bone mass, measured as bone mineral density (BMD) or bone mineral content (BMC), of the lumbar spine (LS) and the femoral neck (FN) in pre- and postmenopausal women. The literature from 1966 through December 1996 was searched for published RCTs and CTs. Study treatment effect is defined as the difference between percentage change in bone mass per year in the training group and the control group. Overall treatment effects (OTs) with the 95% confidence intervals of these study treatment effects were calculated using inverse-variance weighting. Of the 62 articles identified, 25 met the inclusion criteria and were maintained for further analyses. The weighted OTs for the RCTs showed very consistently that the exercise training programs prevented or reversed almost 1% of bone loss per year in both LS and FN for both pre- and postmenopausal women. The two OTs that could be calculated for strength training programs did not reach significance. The OTs for the CTs were almost twice as high as those for the RCTs, which gives an indication of the confounding introduced by the nonrandom allocation of the subjects to groups.

Behavior Modification, 1977

[324] BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION / JULY 1977 Pruett, & Burns, 1968; Patterson, Cobb, & Ray, 19... more [324] BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION / JULY 1977 Pruett, & Burns, 1968; Patterson, Cobb, & Ray, 1973) have developed treatment programs to train parents to alter a wide range of deviant behaviors exhibited by children. However, with the exception of the treatment procedures ...

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1989

We evaluated the long-term effectiveness of three cost-effective parent training programs for con... more We evaluated the long-term effectiveness of three cost-effective parent training programs for conduct-problem children. One year posttreatment, 93.1% of families (94 mothers and 60 fathers) were assessed on the basis of teacher and parent reports and home observations. Results indicated that all the significant improvement reported immediately posttreatment were maintained one year later. Moreover, approximately two thirds of the entire sample showed "clinically significant" improvements. There were very few differences between the three treatment conditions except for the "consumer satisfaction" measure indicating that the treatment combining group discussion and video-tape modeling was superior to treatments without both components.

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1984

Clinic mothers of 35 conduct-disordered children were randomly assigned to a waiting list control... more Clinic mothers of 35 conduct-disordered children were randomly assigned to a waiting list control group, 9 weeks of individual therapy, or 9 weeks of therapistled group therapy based on a standardized videotape modeling program. Mothers and their children were assessed at baseline, immediately after treatment, and 1 year later by home visits, twice-per-week telephone reports, and questionnaires. One month after treatment, both groups of treated mothers showed significant attitudinal and behavioral improvements compared with untreated controls. Additionally, the children in the two treatment groups showed reductions in child noncompliance compared with control children. At the 1-year follow-up, not only were most of the changes in mothers' behaviors maintained, but both treatment groups of children continued to show significant reductions in noncompliant and deviant behaviors. There were no significant differences on any of the attitudinal or behavioral measures between individual and videotape modeling group discussion therapies at the immediate or 1-year follow-up. Total therapist time was approximately 251 hr for the entire individual group and 48 hr for the entire videotape discussion group. Although both treatments seem to offer equivalent and sustained improvements for parents and conduct-disordered children, the therapeutic efficiency of the videotape modeling group format is more cost-effective.

... As concern about workers' skills has risen, so has interest in the role that public ... more ... As concern about workers' skills has risen, so has interest in the role that public sector-sponsored employment and training programs might play in addressing "America's workforce crisis." The hope is that public expenditures on these programs will enhance participants ...

Behavior Therapy, 1982

This report is one of a series of outcome evaluation studies for parent-training procedures tailo... more This report is one of a series of outcome evaluation studies for parent-training procedures tailored specifically to families of preadolescent antisocial children. Referred families were screened to identify 19 problem children who were observed in their homes to be high-rate social aggressors. Cases were randomly assigned to the parent-training procedures or to a waiting-list comparison group. All but one of the latter accepted a referral for treatment elsewhere in the community. After an average of 17 hours of therapy time, the cases in the experimental group were terminated. Posttreatment observation data were collected in the homes of both the experimental and the comparison groups. The results indicated that, relative to the changes in the comparison sample, the parenttraining sample showed a significantly greater reduction in the observed rates of deviant child behavior.

Industrial Relations, 1994

This study uses data on the personnel policies and economic characteristics of businesses in the ... more This study uses data on the personnel policies and economic characteristics of businesses in the manufacturing sector to measure the impact of formal training programs on labor productivity. The major finding is that businesses that were operating below their expected labor productivity levels in 1983 implemented new employee training programs after 1983 that resulted in significantly larger increases in labor productivity growth between 1983 and 1986. This higher rate of productivity growth was sufficient to bring these businesses up to the labor productivity levels of comparable businesses by 1986.

Arthritis and Rheumatism, 1988

Forty-two patients with primary fibromyalgia were randomized into a 20-week program consisting of... more Forty-two patients with primary fibromyalgia were randomized into a 20-week program consisting of either cardiovascular fitness (CVR) training or simple flexibility exercises (FLEX) that did not lead to enhanced cardiovascular fitness. Patients were supervised by the same medical fitness instructors. Patients in neither group had contact with members of the other group, and were blinded as to the exercise taught to the alternative group. Groups met for 60 minutes 3 times each week. The compliance rate was 90%. Thirty-eight patients completed the study (18 with CVR training and 20 with FLEX). Blind assessments (standardized in preliminary trials to achieve acceptable inter-rater agreement) were performed by the same 2 examiners. After 20 weeks, patients receiving CVR training showed significantly improved cardiovascular fitness scores compared with those receiving FLEX training (t[35] = −4.22, P < 0.003). Logistic regression analysis showed clinically and statistically significant improvements in pain threshold scores, which were measured directly over fibrositic tender points, in patients undergoing CVR (t[35] = 2.21, P < 0.04). There was also a trend toward improvement in pain scores (visual analog scale) in the CVR group, but this did not reach statistical significance. There was no improvement in the percentage of body area affected by fibrositic symptoms or the number of nights per week or hours per night of disturbed sleep (self-report inventories). However, compared with the FLEX group, the CVR-trained patients improved significantly in both patient and physician global assessment scores. Because multidimensional symptom self-report inventory scores were similar in CVR-trained and FLEX-trained groups before and after exercise, improvements in the CVR-trained group were not the result of a reduction in psychological distress. Thus, a supervised cardiovascular fitness training program may provide some therapeutic benefit to selected patients with primary fibromyalgia syndrome.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

Journal of The American Statistical Association, 1998

The need to use randomized experiments in the context of manpower training programs, and in analy... more The need to use randomized experiments in the context of manpower training programs, and in analyzing causal effects more generally, has been a subject of much debate. considers experimental data from the National Supported Work (NSW) Demonstration and nonexperimental comparison groups drawn from the CPS and PSID, and argues that econometric methods fail to replicate the benchmark experimental treatment effect. This paper applies propensity score methods, which have been developed in the statistics literature, to Lalonde's dataset. In contrast with Lalonde's findings, using propensity score methods, we are able closely to replicate the experimental training effect. The methods succeed because they are able flexibly to control for the wide range of observable differences between the (experimental) treatment group and the (non-experimental) comparison group.