What did you do in school today? Using the school environment to foster communication between children and parents

Early Childhood Education Journal -     

University staff mental health literacy,stigma and their experience of students with mental health problems

Despite high rates of mental disorders in university students, very few seek professional help. University teaching staff are well placed to connect students with mental health care. However, little is known about university staff attitudes to and knowledge about mental health problems, or whether these factors influence their experience with and assistance of students with these problems. A total of 224 teaching staff members at the Australian National University, Canberra completed an anonymous online survey via an email link (16.4% response rate from N ~ 1370). Measures included demographic and professional information, experiences with student mental health, knowledge of depression (literacy) and attitudes to depression (stigma). Strength of stigmatising attitude did not predict whether a teaching staff member would approach a student to assist with mental health problems. Teaching staff with higher levels of depression literacy (OR = 1.14, p = 0.007) were more likely to feel sufficiently informed to help students with mental health problems. Ensuring staff complete mental health literacy training and have adequate skills to respond appropriately to students with mental health problems may help in connecting young people to appropriate care in a university context.     

Developing scientists in Hispanic substance use and health disparities research through the creation of a national mentoring network

Hispanics are disproportionately affected by substance use and related health harms yet remain underrepresented across scientific disciplines focused on researching and addressing these issues. An interdisciplinary network of scientists committed to fostering the development of social and biomedical researchers focused on Hispanic substance use and health disparities developed innovative mentoring and career development activities. We conducted a formative evaluation study using anonymous membership and conference feedback data to describe specific mentoring and career development activities developed within the national network. Successful mentoring initiatives and career development activities were infused with cultural and community values supportive of professional integration and persistence. Mentoring initially occurred within an annual national conference and was then sustained throughout the year through formal training programs and informal mentoring networks. Although rigorous evaluation is needed to determine the success of these strategies in fostering long-term career development among scientists conducting Hispanic health and substance use research, this innovative model may hold promise for other groups committed to promoting career development and professional integration and persistence for minority (and non-minority) scientists committed to addressing health disparities.     

Reception learning and self-discovery learning in histology: Students' perceptions and their implications for assessing the effectiveness of different learning modalities

Two questionnaires were used to investigate students' perceptions of their motivation to opt for reception learning (RL) or self‐discovery learning (SDL) in histology and their choices of complementary learning strategies (CLS). The results demonstrated that the motivation to attend RL sessions was higher than the motivation to attend SDL to gain new knowledge (P < 0.01) and to apply this acquired knowledge to diagnosis (P < 0.01), therapy (P < 0.01), and research (P < 0.05). Students also showed a stronger preference for RL based on motivations related to leadership (P < 0.01) and competition (P < 0.01), although the rates were very low in both cases (≤ 1.9 ± 1.1). Statistically significant differences were found between male and female students for leadership (higher in males), responsibility (higher in females), and acquiring new knowledge (higher in females only in RL). This study's findings for students' preferred CLS strategies suggested a greater need for additional complementary resources after RL than after SDL (P < 0.01). In conclusion, RL was associated with a greater need for complementary training resources such as textbooks, atlases, the internet, audiovisual media, and tutorials, whereas SDL was associated with a greater need to orient teaching and training toward medical practice. These results suggest the need to reorient both types of learning processes to enhance their effectiveness in teaching histology, especially in the case of SDL, which should place more emphasis on clinically oriented knowledge. Anat Sci Educ. © 2012 American Association of Anatomists.     

An evaluation study of youth participation in youth work: a case study in Southern Italy

In this paper an evaluation study of a public programme financing a regional network of 157 youth centres in the South of Italy is presented. A theory-based evaluation model was adopted to explore the causal links between different types of participation experience. Evaluation questions focused on three main issues are: the perception of empowerment of the team during the management of the centres, the empowering effect of participation in the organization of the youth centres and the decision-making abilities of the young people involved. Following an exploratory study, an on-line structured questionnaire was administered to all centres. New youth centres appear as striving to become sustainable enterprises. However, there is widespread difficulty in terms of integrating day-to-day management with sustainability strategies. Such difficulty appears less pronounced when project leaders participated in the design of the centres together with young people. Results thus confirm participation in the design phase as an empowering experience. This study warns, however, against a number of unwanted effects arising from participation. Indeed, participation processes represented a form of decorative consultation in half of the cases. Empirical evidence therefore suggests further research to focus on the creation of stable participation frameworks inside centres, avoiding the risk of participation processes void of any real effect on decision-making.     

Syllabic Strategy as Opposed to Coda Optimization in the Segmentation of Spanish Letter-Strings Using Word Spotting

A word-spotting task is used in Spanish to test the way in which polysyllabic letter-strings are parsed in this language. Monosyllabic words (e.g., bar) embedded at the beginning of a pseudoword were immediately followed by either a coda-forming consonant (e.g., barto) or a vowel (e.g., baros). In the former case, the embedded word corresponds to the first spoken syllable, whereas it cuts across the syllable boundary in the latter case. Unlike a previous study in English using the same methodology (Taft & Álvarez, 2014), the embedded word was found to be easier to detect when followed by a consonant than a vowel, at least for low-frequency words. It was concluded that phonological recoding is more important in the parsing of Spanish words than English words, where maximization of the coda dominates instead.     

Curricular change and educational quality / Cambio de plan y calidad educativa

There is no doubt that the teaching change generated by the adaptation of the former study programme to the EHEA has led to significant shifts regarding teaching loads and the organization of subjects. This paper assesses the students’ perception of the subject, the teacher and the teaching organization according to the study programme followed. For this purpose, 226 students have been assessed who have all received teaching in the same subject, with the same teacher and with the same contents, with the only variant being their study plan. An instrument developed ad hoc was applied, which comprises 18 items and assesses the students’ perceptions of the content and the perceived organization of the teaching. On the one hand, the results show the instrument to be an adequate scale that assesses teaching and organizational aspects linked to study plans in a valid and reliable way. On the other hand, it reveals that students following the new plan show more negative perceptions of organizational quality and aspects related to learning content. Moreover, these students’ marks tend to be lower compared to those achieved by students following the former plan.     

The role of the university tutor in school-based work in primary schools in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

There has been much international debate on the role of the university tutor in the supervision of student teachers during school-based work. This study focuses upon the Irish context, where there has been little research. It involves a comparative study of the views and attitudes of university staff, student teachers and class teachers from the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. Data collection methods comprised questionnaires to university tutors, class teachers and students (n = 150), focus groups and one-to-one interviews. This project reveals a reservoir of goodwill between tutors, teachers and students, along with a willingness to engage in dialogue and collaboration. Importantly, this study concludes that it is the university tutor who should have the lead role in collaborative models of school-based work partnership, with significant consultation and input from the class teacher and consultation with the student in the evaluation process.