Kelly L. Rulison

**Education: (The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA) 2010 Ph.D. Human Development and Family Studies--2009 M.A.S. Applied Statistics--2005 M.S. Human Development and Family Studies (University of Rochester, Rochester, NY) 2001 B.A. Psychology, Summa cum laude; Minor: Biology

There are 25 included publications by Kelly L. Rulison :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Adolescent Peer Networks and the Potential for the Diffusion of Intervention Effects 2015 1564 Many evaluation studies assess the direct effect of an intervention on individuals, but there is an increasing interest in clarifying how interventions can impact larger social settings. One process that can lead to these setting-level effects is dif...
Association Between the Characteristics of Organizations and Their Profile of Performance Against Quality Benchmarks for Workplace Health Promotion 2020 1150 Objective: This study explored subgroups of performance profiles measured by organizations’ Well Workplace Checklist (WWC) benchmark scores and examined company characteristics associated with performance subgroups. Methods: The sample included 3728 ...
The Association between Coach and Teammate Injunctive Norm Reference Groups and College Student-Athlete Substance Use 2014 1144 This study assessed perceptions about teammate and coach approval of alcohol and other drug use (i.e., injunctive norms) among a sample of 3,155 college student-athletes in their first year of athletic eligibility. Student-athletes perceived that the...
Brothers leading healthy lives: outcomes from the pilot testing of a culturally and contextually congruent HIV prevention intervention for black male college students 2013 2444 We used a treatment group-only design to pilot test a newly developed intervention to increase condom use among higher risk heterosexually active African American/black male college students. A community-based participatory research partnership devel...
Competence and African American Children in Informal Kinship Care: The Role of Family 2013 3545 African American children are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to live in kinship care, yet there is little empirical knowledge available to help understand the attributes of these families that contribute to children's development o...
Delinquency and peer acceptance in adolescence: A within-person test of Moffitt’s hypotheses 2014 2177 We tested 2 hypotheses derived from Moffitt’s (1993) taxonomic theory of antisocial behavior, both of which are central to her explanation for the rise in delinquency during adolescence. We tested whether persistently delinquent individuals become mo...
Delinquency and the Structure of Adolescent Peer Groups 2011 2191 Gangs and group-level processes were once central phenomena for criminological theory and research. By the mid-1970s, however, gang research primarily was displaced by studies of individual behavior using randomized self-report surveys, a shift that ...
Density or Distinction? The Roles of Data Structure and Group Detection Methods in Describing Adolescent Peer Groups 2007 1465 Despite cross-disciplinary interest in social influence among adolescent peer groups, significant variations in collecting and analyzing peer network data have not been explored, so it is difficult to disentangle substantive and methodological differ...
Diffusion of intervention effects: The impact of a family-based substance use prevention program on friends of participants 2015 1551 PurposeWe tested whether effects of the Strengthening Families Program for Youth 10–14 (SFP10-14) diffused from intervention participants to their friends. We also tested which program effects on participants accounted for diffusion.MethodsData are f...
Does Neighborhood Risk Explain Racial Disparities in Low Birth Weight among Infants Born to Adolescent Mothers? 2016 890 Study ObjectiveTo test associations and interactions between racial identification, neighborhood risk, and low birth weight disparities between infants born to African-American and white adolescent mothers.DesignRetrospective cross-sectional study. B...
Dynamic Social Networks and Physical Aggression: The Moderating Role of Gender and Social Status Among Peers 2013 1849 We examined three interrelated questions: (1) Who selects physically aggressive friends? (2) Are physically aggressive adolescents influential? and (3) Who is susceptible to influence from these friends? Using stochastic actor-based modeling, we test...
Estimation of a four-parameter item response theory model 2010 8484 We explore the justification and formulation of a four-parameter item response theory model (4PM) and employ a Bayesian approach to recover successfully parameter estimates for items and respondents. For data generated using a 4PM item response model...
I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up: Can High-Ability Students Recover From Early Mistakes in CAT? 2009 2867 A difficult result to interpret in Computerized Adaptive Tests (CATs) occurs when an ability estimate initially drops and then ascends continuously until the test ends, suggesting that the true ability may be higher than implied by the final estimate...
Innovative Research Exploring the Effects of Physical Activity and Genetics on Cognitive Performance in Community-Based Older Adults 2015 2166 Physical activity is predictive of better cognitive performance and lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The apolipoprotein E gene (APOE) is a susceptibility gene for AD with the e4 allele being associated with a greater risk of AD. Cross-sectiona...
Investigating Risk Factors Predictive of Problem Outcomes Experienced by First Year Drinking and Non-Drinking Collegiate Student-Athletes 2016 1055 This study examined risk factors for problem outcomes experienced by drinking and non-drinking first year collegiate student-athletes. Freshman and transfer student-athletes (N=2956) reported their alcohol use, problems experienced and demographic/sp...
Laying the Groundwork for Evidence-Based Public Health: Why Some Local Health Departments Use More Evidence-Based Decision-Making Practices Than Others 2015 1655 We examined variation in the use of evidence-based decision-making (EBDM) practices across local health departments (LHDs) in the United States and the extent to which this variation was predicted by resources, personnel, and governance. We analyzed ...
Moving beyond the treatment package approach to developing behavioral interventions: addressing questions that arose during an application of the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) 2014 1766 Given current pressures to increase the public health contributions of behavioral interventions, intervention scientists may wish to consider moving beyond the classical treatment package approach that focuses primarily on achieving statistical signi...
Parental Influence on Drinking Behaviors at the Transition to College: The Mediating Role of Perceived Friends’ Approval of High-Risk Drinking 2016 1431 Objective: This study tested whether perceived parental approval of high-risk drinking is directly linked to alcohol-related outcomes or whether the link between perceived parental approval and these outcomes is mediated by perceived friends’ approva...
Peer Influences on Academic Motivation: Exploring Multiple Methods of Assessing Youths’ Most “Influential” Peer Relationships 2011 11601 The present study examines the relative role of three distinct types of peer relationships (reciprocated friendships, frequent interactions, and shared group membership) in within-year changes in academic self-concept and engagement before and after ...
Perceived norms and alcohol use among first-year college student-athletes' different types of friends 2017 1325 Objective: To describe first-year college student-athletes' friendship contexts and test whether their perceptions of alcohol use and approval by different types of friends are associated with their own alcohol use. Participants: First-year student-a...
Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Age: Exploring Intersections in Preterm Birth Disparities among Teen Mothers 2015 2325 Few studies have examined disparities in adverse birth outcomes and compared contributingsocioeconomic factors specifically between African-American and White teen mothers. Thisstudy examined intersections between neighborhood socioeconomic status (a...
Rejection, feeling bad, and being hurt: Using multilevel modeling to clarify the link between peer group aggression and adjustment 2010 1742 The association between affiliating with aggressive peers and behavioral, social and psychological adjustment was examined. Students initially in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade (N = 427) were followed biannually through 7th grade. Students’ peer-nominated g...
A Reputation for Success (or Failure) : The Association of Peer Academic Reputations With Academic Self-Concept, Effort, and Performance Across the Upper Elementary Grades 2008 2434 Studies of the socialization of achievement-related beliefs and academic skills typically focus on the influence of teachers and parents (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Guay, Boivin, & Hodges, 1999; Guay, Marsh, & Boivin, 2003; Harter, 1998), b...
Tracking changes in U.S. organizations’ workplace health promotion initiatives: A longitudinal analysis of performance against quality benchmarks 2019 1255 Purpose: To examine changes in organizations’ workplace health promotion (WHP) initiatives over time associated with repeated self-assessment using the Well Workplace Checklist (WWC). Design: Well Workplace Checklist data include a convenience sample...
Using the Integrated Behavioral Model to Determine Sport-Related Concussion Reporting Intentions Among Collegiate Athletes 2020 1086 Purpose: A significant proportion of sport-related concussions goes unreported among adolescents, which can result in irreversible brain damage. It is critical to identify and intervene on factors that significantly impact concussion reporting. Metho...