Cumulative trauma and symptom complexity in children: A path analysis

Multiple trauma exposures during childhood are associated with a range of psychological symptoms later in life. In this study, we examined whether the total number of different types of trauma experienced by children (cumulative trauma) is associated with the complexity of their subsequent symptomatology, where complexity is defined as the number of different symptom clusters simultaneously elevated into the clinical range. Children's symptoms in six different trauma-related areas (e.g., depression, anger, posttraumatic stress) were reported both by child clients and their caretakers in a clinical sample of 318 children. Path analysis revealed that accumulated exposure to multiple different trauma types predicts symptom complexity as reported by both children and their caretakers.     

Community characteristics associated with child abuse in Iowa

PROBLEM: Various demographic and community characteristics are associated with child abuse rates in national and urban samples, but similar analyses have not been done within rural areas. This study analyzes the relationships between reported and substantiated rates of child abuse and county demographic, health care resource and social services factors in a predominantly rural state in the US. METHODS: County-level data from Iowa between 1984-1993 were analyzed for associations between county characteristics and rates of child abuse using univariate correlations and multivariate stagewise regression analysis. Population-adjusted rates of reported and substantiated child abuse were correlated with rates of children in poverty, single-parent families, marriage and divorce, unemployment, high-school dropouts, median family income, elder abuse, birth and death rates, numbers of physicians and other healthcare providers, hospital, social workers, and number of caseworkers in the Department of Human Services. RESULTS: Rates of single-parent families, divorce and elder abuse were significantly associated with reported and substantiated child abuse in multivariate analysis, while economic and most health care factors were not. Reporting and substantiation rates differed across districts after adjustment for multiple factors including caseworker workload. CONCLUSIONS: In this rural state, family structure is more significantly associated with child abuse report and substantiation rates than are socioeconomic factors. The level of health care resources in a county does not appear to affect these rates.     

Undergraduate Laboratory Exercises Specific to Food Spoilage Microbiology

Food spoilage has an enormous economic impact, and microbial food spoilage plays a significant role in food waste and loss; subsequently, an equally significant portion of undergraduate food microbiology instruction should be dedicated to spoilage microbiology. Here, we describe a set of undergraduate microbiology laboratory exercises that focus specifically on food spoilage which were taught in 2 lab periods as part of the undergraduate food microbiology lab curriculum at Cornell University. The lab was broken down into 3 exercises. Two exercises lead students to determine the likely source of contamination in a canned salsa through (exercise 1a) plating and observation of colony morphology and (exercise 1b) determination of the thermal resistance for those isolates. The final exercise (2) involved detection of the spoilage bacterium Alicyclobacillus in apple juice. Spoiled juice demonstrations were also prepared in this exercise for students to observe sensorial changes resulting from spoilage, emphasizing that spoilage is not always visually detectable. Students were able to successfully determine the source of contamination based on the results of their laboratory findings, which they used to make recommendations for production to reduce microbial food spoilage in the canned salsa product. Based on student answers to discussion questions provided following lab exercises, participants were able to (a) identify the significance of microbial spoilage and how spoilage is principally different from food safety, (b) describe varying sensorial changes associated with microbial spoilage, and (c) employ methods and analysis to evaluate sources and type of contamination. Downloadable handouts and stepwise instructions are available as supporting information.     

Curriculum and Society: Rethinking the Link

This article argues that the link between educational curricula and society as a whole has become critically uncertain. This crisis is linked to a number of factors related to the post-modern world view, including: the disappearance of grand utopian social visions of the kind that used to underpin educational policy; the lack of adequate theoretical tools; and the way in which academics are exposed to a multitude of different cultural norms. The author argues that this situation calls for a fundamental re-thinking of the link between curriculum and society, based on a more flexible and pluralistic approach.     

Creating supportive and subversive spaces as professional dyads enact culturally relevant teaching

Abstract

In 2013, several leaders of the Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) developed a multi-year project called Professional Dyads and Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT). Funded by NCTE, early childhood teacher/teacher-educator dyads from various locations across the United States work together for two years to investigate, generate, implement and document culturally relevant pedagogies in their respective early childhood contexts. This article outlines some of the work of two PDCRT dyads conducted from 2013 to 2015. The project was developed in response to the long-time need for culturally relevant early childhood education and teacher education reform by focusing on overturning inequitable practices that ignore, misrepresent or marginalize children and families of Color, emerging bi/multilinguals and children from low-income communities. We argue that the PDCRT dyad model is an innovative avenue for addressing inequitable educational realities in the Eurocentric educational system that persists in the US and for moving equity work forward.     

Evaluation of the degree of coherence found in students' conceptions concerning the particulate nature of matter

Students' conceptions are characterized by some authors as having a high degree of coherence while, in the minds of others, they show little coherence and great heterogeneity. The objective of this study was to throw light on this problem by reference to the particulate nature of matter, a topic where great discrepancies have been observed in the degree of coherence shown by students. We interviewed 43 students aged 9–22 years to evaluate the coherence of their replies, using a questionnaire in which different methodological strategies are incorporated, as will be explained below. A qualitative analysis of the students' replies to the interviewer's questions permitted a group of empirical categories to be established, which were then arranged hierarchically. The quantitative analysis of these categories gave rise to new categories, which we call structural categories. These permitted us to select the most significant variables, to identify the different types of conceptions held by the subjects and to assign to each a given level of conceptualization. They also revealed the high degree of coherence in the replies given to different tasks. The usefulness of the proposed method for studying students' conceptions and for evaluating their degree of coherence is confirmed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 577–598, 2006     

The influence of upper-body pre-cooling on repeated sprint performance in moderate ambient temperatures

In this study, we examined the effects of upper-body pre-cooling before intermittent sprinting exercise in a moderate environment. Seven male and three female trained cyclists (age 26.8+/-5.5 years, body mass 68.5+/-9.5 kg, height 1.76+/-0.13 m, V O2peak 59.0+/-11.4 mL. kg(-1). min(-1); mean+/-s) performed 30 min of cycling at 50% V O2peak interspersed with a 10-s Wingate cycling sprint test at 5 min intervals. The exercise was performed in a room controlled at 22 degrees C and 40% relative humidity. In the control session, the participants rested for 30 min before exercise. In the pre-cooling session, the participants wore the upper segment of a liquid conditioning garment circulating 5 degrees C coolant until rectal temperature decreased by 0.5 degrees C. Rectal temperature at the start of exercise was significantly lower in the pre-cooling (36.5+/-0.3 degrees C) than in the control condition (37.0+/-0.5 degrees C), but this difference was reduced to a non-significant 0.4 degrees C throughout exercise. Mean skin temperature was significantly lower in the pre-cooling (30.7+/-2.3 degrees C) than in the control condition (32.5+/-1.6 degrees C) throughout exercise. Heart rate during submaximal exercise was similar between the two conditions, although peak heart rate after the Wingate sprints was significantly lower in the pre-cooling condition. With pre-cooling, mean peak power (909+/-161 W) and mean overall power output (797+/-154 W) were similar to those in the control condition (peak 921+/-163 W, mean 806+/-156 W), with no differences in the subjective ratings of perceived exertion. These results suggest that upper-body pre-cooling does not provide any benefit to intermittent sprinting exercise in a moderate environment.     

Effects of Collective Efficacy,Teamwork Attitudes,and Experience on Group Project Performance: Comparisons Between 2 Food Science Courses

The relationship between past teamwork and task‐related experiences, attitude toward teamwork, collective efficacy, and task performance among undergraduates (N = 298) assigned to group projects (N = 48) in 2 different Food Science courses was examined. The results of survey data collected at the beginning and end of the projects showed that past teamwork and task‐related experience predicted individual student efficacy at the end of the project, and that starting efficacy, but not attitudes toward teamwork, mediated that relationship. Convergence over time among team members’ efficacy, and diversity of past task‐related experiences was positively related to project grade, whereas diversity in past teamwork experiences was negatively related to project grade. The relationship between past experiences, attitude toward teamwork, efficacy, and grades did not differ between the 2 courses. Implications for practices of implementing group class projects are discussed.     

Environmental Education as Facilitator of the Use of Ecological Information: A case study in Mexico

Ecological research is expected to provide a scientific basis on which environmental management decisions can be taken. Environmental education is seen as raising environmental awareness among human populations and as a provider of the knowledge, values, attitudes and skills needed to protect the environment. This article proposes that in the context of developing countries such as Mexico, one role for environmental education is to facilitate the utilisation of ecological information in the solution of problems. In order to outline how this can work in practice, a case study is used to outline the role of environmental education as the linkage between science (its institutions, actors and products) and different sectors of society involved in the management of ecosystems, their resources and the services they provide.     

Learning from human cadaveric prosections: Examining anxiety in speech therapy students

Human anatomy education often utilizes the essential practices of cadaver dissection and examination of prosected specimens. However, these exposures to human cadavers and confronting death can be stressful and anxiety‐inducing for students. This study aims to understand the attitudes, reactions, fears, and states of anxiety that speech therapy students experience in the dissection room. To that end, a before‐and‐after cross‐sectional analysis was conducted with speech therapy students undertaking a dissection course for the first time. An anonymous questionnaire was administered before and after the exercise to understand students' feelings and emotions. State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory questionnaires (STAI‐S and STAI‐T) were used to evaluate anxiety levels. The results of the study revealed that baseline anxiety levels measured using the STAI‐T remained stable and unchanged during the dissection room experience (P > 0.05). Levels of emotional anxiety measured using the STAI‐S decreased, from 15.3 to 11.1 points (P < 0.05). In the initial phase of the study, before any contact with the dissection room environment, 17% of students experienced anxiety, and this rate remained unchanged by end of the session (P > 0.05). A total of 63.4% of students described having thoughts about life and death. After the session, 100% of students recommended the dissection exercise, giving it a mean score of 9.1/10 points. Anatomy is an important subject for students in the health sciences, and dissection and prosection exercises frequently involve a series of uncomfortable and stressful experiences. Experiences in the dissection room may challenge some students' emotional equilibria. However, students consider the exercise to be very useful in their education and recommend it. Anat Sci Educ 10: 487–494. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.