Design of Paper-Based Visual Analogue Scale Items

Paper-based visual analogue scale (VAS) items were developed 100 years ago. Although they gained great popularity in clinical and medical research for assessing pain, they have been scarcely applied in other areas of psychological research for several decades. However, since the beginning of digitization, VAS have attracted growing interest among researchers for carrying out computerized and paper-based data assessments. In the present study, we investigated the research question “Which different design characteristics of paper-based VAS items are preferred by women and men?” Based on a sample of 115 participants (68 female), our results revealed that the respondents preferred a paper-based VAS item with a horizontal, 8-cm long, 3 DTP (“desktop publishing point”) wide, black line, with flat line endpoints, and the ascending numerical anchors “0” and “10”, both for women and men. Although we did not identify any gender difference in these characteristics, our findings uncovered clear preferences on how to design paper-based VAS items.     

Assessment of Student Learning Associated with Tree Thinking in an Undergraduate Introductory Organismal Biology Course

Phylogenetic trees provide visual representations of ancestor–descendant relationships, a core concept of evolutionary theory. We introduced “tree thinking” into our introductory organismal biology course (freshman/sophomore majors) to help teach organismal diversity within an evolutionary framework. Our instructional strategy consisted of designing and implementing a set of experiences to help students learn to read, interpret, and manipulate phylogenetic trees, with a particular emphasis on using data to evaluate alternative phylogenetic hypotheses (trees). To assess the outcomes of these learning experiences, we designed and implemented a Phylogeny Assessment Tool (PhAT), an open-ended response instrument that asked students to: 1) map characters on phylogenetic trees; 2) apply an objective criterion to decide which of two trees (alternative hypotheses) is “better”; and 3) demonstrate understanding of phylogenetic trees as depictions of ancestor–descendant relationships. A pre–post test design was used with the PhAT to collect data from students in two consecutive Fall semesters. Students in both semesters made significant gains in their abilities to map characters onto phylogenetic trees and to choose between two alternative hypotheses of relationship (trees) by applying the principle of parsimony (Occam''s razor). However, learning gains were much lower in the area of student interpretation of phylogenetic trees as representations of ancestor–descendant relationships.     

永远的追寻——就女性"躯/身体写作"谈女性解放

女性写作是1990年代中国当代文学创作中的一道颇为靓丽的景观。在这道景观中,女性的躯体呈现为一个醒目的主题。这一主题的凸现在当下的文化语境和社会环境中有着历史的必然性和合理性:“躯／身体写作”是当代女性意识复苏的产物。是“浮出历史地表”的女性自觉地思考自己价值的性别写作,它将为在社会中建立起一种自由的女性话语空间而起到积极的作用。从“躯／身体写作”的理论与实践思索“女性解放的命题”,发现当代女性在女性解放的道路上明显前进了一步,但距离女性解放的终极目标却仍然路途遥遥。或许,这本来就是一个永远在追寻的命题,永远也难以得到圆满解决的命题。     

The Picture of Madness–Visual Narratives of Female Mental Illness in Contemporary Children’s Literature

This article analyses a selection of contemporary children’s visual texts (for economy and specificity ‘contemporary’ is taken to mean the current century), covering a cross-section of age demographics to better understand how the texts depict female characters suffering with mental illness. It examines these primary texts not only to see how such characters are represented but also to see whether they either bolster or challenge the idea of the female being viewed as the male's ‘Other’. A brief historical and cultural contextualisation of the relationship between mentally ill females and the male-centric profession of modern psychiatry is followed by a close analysis of four primary texts, analysing visual narratives of mentally ill female characters in two picture books, an illustrated book and a graphic novel, noting how contemporary visual depictions contrast with early ideas and images supporting the nineteenth-century feminisation of madness. The conclusion is that, from the limited selection of texts analysed, contemporary children’s visual texts represent a clear contrast to the historical image of the frail and winsome madwoman. The findings are that they do not uphold the image of the female madwoman as Other.     

Factors perceived to have enabled 25 women to develop expertise to teach primary science

This paper outlines the findings of a study which involved expert/committed female primary science teachers and examined their perceptions of the main factors that led to the development of their expertise. The study focuses on the women's formal education, early influences outside formal education and their recent training and development. The last of these is the main one identified in research literature as having influenced people to develop an interest in teaching primary science. Specializations: training and development, primary science and technology curriculum development.     

More Than Clinical Waste? Placenta Rituals Among Australian Home-Birthing Women

The discursive construction of the human placenta varies greatly between hospital and home-birthing contexts. The former, driven by medicolegal discourse, defines the placenta as clinical waste. Within this framework, the placenta is as much of an afterthought as it is considered the “afterbirth.” In home-birth practices, the placenta is constructed as a “special” and meaningful element of the childbirth experience. I demonstrate this using 51 in-depth interviews with women who were pregnant and planning home births in Australia or had recently had home births in Australia. Analysis of these interviews indicates that the discursive shift taking place in home-birth practices from the medicalized model translates into a richer understanding and appreciation of the placenta as a spiritual component of the childbirth experience. The practices discussed in this article include the burial of the placenta beneath a specifically chosen plant, consuming the placenta, and having a lotus birth, which refers to not cutting the umbilical cord after the birth of the child but allowing it to dry naturally and break of its own accord. By shifting focus away from the medicalized frames of reference in relation to the third stage of labor, the home-birthing women in this study have used the placenta in various rituals and ceremonies to spiritualize an aspect of birth that is usually overlooked.     

“What if students revolt?”—Considering Student Resistance: Origins,Options, and Opportunities for Investigation

Instructors attempting new teaching methods may have concerns that students will resist nontraditional teaching methods. The authors provide an overview of research characterizing the nature of student resistance and exploring its origins. Additionally, they provide potential strategies for avoiding or addressing resistance and pose questions about resistance that may be ripe for research study.

“What if the students revolt?” “What if I ask them to talk to a neighbor, and they simply refuse?” “What if they do not see active learning as teaching?” “What if they just want me to lecture?” “What if my teaching evaluation scores plummet?” “Even if I am excited about innovative teaching and learning, what if I encounter student resistance?”

These are genuine concerns of committed and thoughtful instructors who aspire to respond to the repeated national calls to fundamentally change the way biology is taught in colleges and universities across the United States. No doubt most individuals involved in promoting innovative teaching in undergraduate biology education have heard these or variations on these fears and concerns. While some biology instructors may be at a point where they are still skeptical of innovative teaching from more theoretical perspectives (“Is it really any better than lecturing?”), the concerns expressed by the individuals above come from a deeply committed and practical place. These are instructors who have already passed the point where they have become dissatisfied with traditional teaching methods. They have already internally decided to try new approaches and have perhaps been learning new teaching techniques themselves. They are on the precipice of actually implementing formerly theoretical ideas in the real, messy space that is a classroom, with dozens, if not hundreds, of students watching them. Potential rejection by students as they are practicing these new pedagogical skills represents a real and significant roadblock. A change may be even more difficult for those earning high marks from their students for their lectures. If we were to think about a learning progression for faculty moving toward requiring more active class participation on the part of students, the voices above are from those individuals who are progressing along this continuum and who could easily become stuck or turn back in the face of student resistance.Unfortunately, it appears that little systematic attention or research effort has been focused on understanding the origins of student resistance in biology classrooms or the options for preventing and addressing such resistance. As always, this Feature aims to gather research evidence from a variety of fields to support innovations in undergraduate biology education. Below, we attempt to provide an overview of the types of student resistance one might encounter in a classroom, as well as share hypotheses from other disciplines about the potential origins of student resistance. In addition, we offer examples of classroom strategies that have been proposed as potentially useful for either preventing student resistance from happening altogether or addressing student resistance after it occurs, some of which align well with findings from research on the origins of student resistance. Finally, we explore how ready the field of student resistance may be for research study, particularly in undergraduate biology education.     

古典时期希腊妇女身体研究

古典时期希腊人的女性身体观念,反映当时社会和文化中的性别观念。文章以《希波克拉底文集》和亚里士多德有关生物学的著作为主要依据,从松软的肉体、游荡的子宫和有缺陷的经血三个方面,分析了这一时期医学家和哲学家对妇女身体的阐释。在他们看来妇女的身体是天生有缺陷的、不完美的。从表面看,这些认识都是建立在科学基础之上的,但是不管是哲学家还是医学家,都受到当时社会文化观念的影响,并为这种观念服务。     

Formal body bequest program in Nigerian medical schools: When do we start?

Human body dissection is a prerequisite for the training of health professionals and the conduct of medical research. However, most Nigerian medical schools experience difficulty obtaining an adequate and regular supply of human tissue. Presently, the major source of anatomical material comes from unclaimed bodies collected from hospital mortuaries. However, one sure way to ensure a regular supply of bodies for anatomical dissection is to establish a whole body bequest program among the departments of anatomy in Nigerian medical schools. If such a program were to be supported by an appropriate legislative act of parliament, the supply of acceptable cadavers for anatomical teaching and research would be substantially increased. The author advocates for establishing a whole body bequest program among Nigerian medical schools.     

The All-Heterosexual World of Children’s Nonfiction: A Critical Content Analysis of LGBTQ Identities in Orbis Pictus Award Books, 1990–2017

Despite increased attention toward children’s nonfiction and informational texts in recent decades, there is still little research that investigates the ways in which various cultural identities are depicted in nonfiction children’s books. Focusing specifically on the 143 winners and honor recipients of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Literature for Children (1990–2017), this article reports the findings of a critical content analysis of depictions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) identified people in award-winning nonfiction youth literature. The authors look across this set of texts as a literary construction of the world, making explicit where and how LGBTQ people are visible in these award-winning books for young readers. By analyzing specific depictions of queer-identified people, the authors argue the creators of these books rely upon heteronormative constructions, queer erasure, and compulsory heterosexuality to minimize (and even eliminate) queerness.     

论女性的身体尊严——对女性身体裸露行为的法理学思考

人的尊严既包含着人的人格尊严,也包含着人的身体尊严。但长久以来,人们总是强调理性精神上的人格尊严,而忽视了人的身体尊严。女性身体所拥有的固有尊严和价值总是被人们刻意地压制、贬低甚至诋毁。人的主体性决定了女性身体的非客体性及其尊严的独立存在,女性只有获得身体尊严才能真正实现其人格尊严。切实维护女性的身体尊严不仅是一种道德理念,更应是具体的法律实践。在法律上,衡量女性身体尊严受到侵害的实质标准是其身体沦为客体物。     

Educational Challenges of Molecular Life Science: Characteristics and Implications for Education and Research

Molecular life science is one of the fastest-growing fields of scientific and technical innovation, and biotechnology has profound effects on many aspects of daily life—often with deep, ethical dimensions. At the same time, the content is inherently complex, highly abstract, and deeply rooted in diverse disciplines ranging from “pure sciences,” such as math, chemistry, and physics, through “applied sciences,” such as medicine and agriculture, to subjects that are traditionally within the remit of humanities, notably philosophy and ethics. Together, these features pose diverse, important, and exciting challenges for tomorrow''s teachers and educational establishments. With backgrounds in molecular life science research and secondary life science teaching, we (Tibell and Rundgren, respectively) bring different experiences, perspectives, concerns, and awareness of these issues. Taking the nature of the discipline as a starting point, we highlight important facets of molecular life science that are both characteristic of the domain and challenging for learning and education. Of these challenges, we focus most detail on content, reasoning difficulties, and communication issues. We also discuss implications for education research and teaching in the molecular life sciences.     

Critical Depictions of Agency in Pura Belpré Awarded Texts

Given the need for multiple representations of historically underrepresented voices in children’s literature, this research study explored critical depictions of agency of Latinx youth within the Pura Belpré awarded texts from 1996 to 2021. The findings report a critical multicultural analysis of depictions of age, sex, socio-economic status, ethnicities, and geographic regions of these awarded texts. Using a secondary analysis of opportunities for agency, we examine how focal subjects (Vaughn et al., 2021; Crisp, 2015) exert their agency in their respective contexts. Our aim in doing so is to highlight the notion of agency in these texts of Latinx children and youth, specifically understanding who exerts agency, how, and for what purposes. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

     

重构黑人女性的自我--解读《紫色》文本的"互文性"

本文通过对《紫色》中文本的“互文性”现象研究,探索黑人女性在各个时期所受到的来自父权制社会的性压抑和身体摧残,从而唤醒女性沉寂的性灵,使她们从失语的“物体”变成宣叙的“主体”,进而解放她们的身体,让她们获得应有的名分,最终实现真正的自我。     

Effectiveness of a Cloning and Sequencing Exercise on Student Learning with Subsequent Publication in the National Center for Biotechnology Information GenBank

With rapid advances in biotechnology and molecular biology, instructors are challenged to not only provide undergraduate students with hands-on experiences in these disciplines but also to engage them in the “real-world” scientific process. Two common topics covered in biotechnology or molecular biology courses are gene-cloning and bioinformatics, but to provide students with a continuous laboratory-based research experience in these techniques is difficult. To meet these challenges, we have partnered with Bio-Rad Laboratories in the development of the “Cloning and Sequencing Explorer Series,” which combines wet-lab experiences (e.g., DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction, ligation, transformation, and restriction digestion) with bioinformatics analysis (e.g., evaluation of DNA sequence quality, sequence editing, Basic Local Alignment Search Tool searches, contig construction, intron identification, and six-frame translation) to produce a sequence publishable in the National Center for Biotechnology Information GenBank. This 6- to 8-wk project-based exercise focuses on a pivotal gene of glycolysis (glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase), in which students isolate, sequence, and characterize the gene from a plant species or cultivar not yet published in GenBank. Student achievement was evaluated using pre-, mid-, and final-test assessments, as well as with a survey to assess student perceptions. Student confidence with basic laboratory techniques and knowledge of bioinformatics tools were significantly increased upon completion of this hands-on exercise.     

The Perspectives of Women and Their Health-Care Providers Regarding Using an ECA to Support Mode of Birth Decisions

This study used focus groups to assess the feasibility and acceptability of adapting an Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) to support decision-making about mode of birth after previous cesarean. Twelve women with previous cesareans, and eight prenatal providers at an academic, tertiary-care medical center, viewed a prototype ECA and were asked to share feedback on the potential role in helping women prepare for decision-making. Both groups felt that although it was somewhat “robot-like,” the ECA could provide easy access to information for patients and could augment the visit with providers. Future work is needed to improve ECA visual appeal and clarify the role and timing for utilization of decision aids using ECA technology to enhance the shared decision-making process.     

Accompanying the Path of Maternity: The Life History of a Colombian Doula

Doulas have fundamentally improved the health-care experience of pregnant women internationally. Women who recognize the importance of not being alone during pregnancy have embraced this role for centuries. However, less is known about doulas practicing in countries experiencing health inequities like Colombia. Miller''s methodology and Atkinson''s interview domain was used to answer the question “What life experiences led a Colombian woman to become a doula?” A central theme emerged, “A calling from within: Growing up to accompany the transition from woman to mother.” The path to becoming a doula evolved from life experiences involving health inequities, and a sense of femininity, maternity, and the women''s role in rural Colombia.     

论高校校园文化与思想政治教育实效性──基于女子高职院校校园文化建设的探索

基于女子高职院校大学生思想政治教育现状,就如何发挥高校校园文化的育人功能,寻求校园文化与思想政治教育的契合,实现高校人才培养目标展开研究,提出了女子高职院校特色校园文化的发展思路和模式。