The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness of different educational modules in training graduate students from Columbia University Irving Medical Center campus and from the Columbia School of Social Work to assess the emotional connection of mother/child dyads with accuracy. The investigators hypothesize that after completing the educational module involving recorded dyad interactions, subjects will achieve coding reliability with the PI.
The purpose of this study is to develop and test educational modules designed to instruct students how to assess the quality and strength of mother-child relationships. The approach will use constructs of Emotional Connection that were used in development of an investigational observation-based screening instrument, the Welch Emotional Connection Screen (WECS). The WECS allows healthcare providers to rate the emotional connection of a mother-child relationship in just a few minutes of observed face-to face interaction, and shows preliminary predictive properties when performed in the first year of life. Administration of the WECS involves watching recorded interactions of a child sitting face-to-face on the mother's lap, and scoring the interaction on sliding scales per 4 domains. During the WECS development, the Nurture Science Program of Columbia University Irving Medical Center created and coded hours of parent-child interaction videos. These videos will be used to assess and train the students (subjects) on rating mother/child dyads around emotional connection. Subjects will rate the quality of mother-child relationships in video training sets after completing one of two educational modules: A) a lecture-style webinar describing evidence base and instructions on how to score the WECS B) a guide written in Clear Explicit Translatable Language (CETL). Training set results of students in these groups will be compared to results of students who received no prior training. Training set results will be analyzed for the reliability statistic between student scores and key scores established by writer of the scale and PI. Subjects will then spend 3 months without further training in emotional connection or practice coding WECS. Subjects will then rate the quality of mother-child relationships for videos of dyads they hadn't previously seen. The main outcome of this study is the comparison of reliability statistics and maintenance between students who completed different educational modules.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
54
Didactic education (video-supported educational module) on emotional connectivity will be offered to the subjects. Subjects will conference with PI to review ratings on modules.
Columbia University Medical Center
New York, New York, United States
Intra-Class Correlations of Students' Welch Emotional Connection Screen (WECS) Scores
The Welch Emotional Connection Scale (WECS) is an investigational developmental screening tool, developed to rate the quality of the emotional connection that formed between mother and child. The scale is administered in 2-3 minutes by observing a mother and child interact, and requires the rater to critically assess 4 sub-domains of emotional connection. The WECS is scored on intervals of 0.25, with a minimum of 1 (little or no connection) and maximum of 3 (high connection). High connection is considered optimal for child development, and low connection is considered a risk in child development. Separately from these scores, the final portion of the screen determines, "Is the dyad emotionally connected?" and is scored with "No" or "Yes." Observing these scores could help determine if the educational module is successful in training students to assess the emotional connection.
Time frame: 2018 - 2019
This platform is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional.