Perceived Benefits of Anatomy Coursework Prior to Medical and Dental School

Student struggles in gross anatomy coursework at the professional level can result in hours of remediation along with a need to allot time and other resources by both the student and the faculty. Since this course typically occurs in the first semester of the first year, programs can turn to admissions data to try to determine which of these students may struggle. This study looked at two years of medical (n = 280) and dental (n = 78) students to determine if there is a relationship between pre-admissions anatomy coursework and performance in gross anatomy at the professional school level. Students provided data regarding their past anatomy coursework and final grades in professional school gross anatomy courses were obtained. In addition, students responded to questions regarding their feelings of preparation and how they valued the prior anatomy coursework as it related to the professional course. Statistical analysis showed no difference in final course grade between students with and without prior anatomy in either program. Counter to the numerical data, 96.6% of the students in the study recommended an anatomy course prior to pursuing a health science degree. The primary reasons given for this recommendation were the benefits of repeated content exposure, knowledge of the anatomy terminology, and decreased stress regarding the course. The results from this study suggest that the benefits of prior anatomy may be seen more in the students’ stress and quality of life rather in the numerical performance of course grades.     

Broadening out and opening up technology assessment: Approaches to enhance international development,co-ordination and democratisation

Technology assessment (TA) has a strong history of helping to identify priorities and improve environmental sustainability, cost-effectiveness and wider benefits in the technology policies and innovation strategies of nation-states. At international levels, TA has the potential to enhance the roles of science, technology and innovation towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, effectively implementing the UN Framework on Climate Change and fostering general global transitions to ‘green economies’. However, when effectively recommending single ostensibly ‘best’ technologies or strategies, TA practices can serve unjustifiably to ‘close down’ debate, failing adequately to address technical uncertainties and social ambiguities, reducing scope for democratic accountability and co-ordination across scales and contexts. This paper investigates ways in which contrasting processes ‘broadening out’ and ‘opening up’ TA can enhance both rigour and democratic accountability in technology policy, as well as facilitating social relevance and international cooperation. These methods allow TA to illuminate options, uncertainties and ambiguities and so inform wider political debates about how the contending questions, values and knowledges of different social interests often favour contrasting innovation pathways. In this way TA can foster both technical robustness and social legitimacy in subsequent policy-making. Drawing on three empirical case studies (at local, national and international levels), the paper discusses detailed cases and methods, where recent TA exercises have contributed to this ‘broadening out’ and ‘opening up’. It ends by exploring wider implications and challenges for national and international technology assessment processes that focus on global sustainable development challenges.     

Discourses on bad children and bad schools

First, discourse is discussed as concerning the subtler lineaments of knowledge production in notions about difference and difficulty. The unhelpful influences that these notions have had on the development of special education research and practice are discussed. The importance of the scholar-practitioner in undoing some of these understandings is further developed. Second, the point is stressed that politics and political questions are intertwined with empirical questions and that a discourse of objectivity propagates and fosters a belief that the supposed paraphernalia of science (measurement, experiment, prediction) can be employed without cost. Third, the point is made that the individual discourse is rooted in the theoretical context of special education--with unhelpful consequences for the way that difficulty continues to be construed as rooted in individuals, whether those individuals be children or schools.     

A test-retest analysis of the Vanderbilt Assessment for Leadership in Education in the USA

The Vanderbilt Assessment for Leadership in Education (VAL-ED) is a 360-degree learning-centered behaviors principal evaluation tool that includes ratings from the principal, supervisors, and teachers. The current study assesses the test-retest reliability of the VAL-ED for a sample of seven school districts as part of multiple validity and reliability assessments based on various samples of real users of the VAL-ED. We administered the VAL-ED twice and examined the correlations and mean differences between time 1 and time 2. We find that the principal and teacher ratings from time 1 and time 2 have large, positive, and significant correlations. Additionally, for both time points, principals are rated as being at least satisfactorily effective. Principals rate themselves slightly higher at time 2, while teachers rate principals slightly higher at time 1.     

Comparative education and the ‘new’ sociologies

The authors examine the impact of the new sociologies on comparative education by reviewing five comparative readers published during the past twenty years. While the new sociologies have had considerable impact within sociology and the sociology of education, minimal impact is found within comparative education. The authors further show that while critical new sociologies such as Marxism, neo-Marxism, and Critical theory have had some penetration into comparative education, use of the interpretative sociologies such as symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, and semiotics has generally been absent. The authors conclude by suggesting that a synthesis of the critical and interpretative modes would prove fruitful for further work in comparative education.The five texts are: Halsey, Floud and Anderson (eds.),Education, Economy and Society (1961); Eckstein and Noah (eds.),Scientific Investigations in Comparative Education (1969); Beck,Perspectives on World Education (1970); Karabel and Halsey (eds.),Power and Ideology in Education (1977); and Altbach and Kelly (eds.),Education and Colonialism (1978).

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Zusammenfassung Anhand fünf im Laufe der letzten zwanzig Jahre erschienener Schriften untersuchen die Verfasser die Auswirkung der neuen Soziologieen auf die vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft. Während diese neuen Soziologieen die Soziologie als solche und die Bildungs-Soziologie stark beeinflußten, war ihre Wirkung auf die vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft äusserst gering. Ferner wird festgestellt, daß die kritischen neuen Soziologieen, wie Marxismus, Neo-Marxismus und Kritische Theorie, zwar etwas in die vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft eingedrungen sind, die interpretativen, wie symbolischer Interaktionismus, Ethnomethodologie und Semiotik, dagegen im allgemeinen kaum Eingang gefunden haben. Nach Ansicht der Autoren würde sich eine Synthese der kritischen und interpretativen Modelle als fruchtbar für weitere Forschung auf dem Gebiet der vergleichenden Erziehungswissenschaft erweisen.Die fünf untersuchten Texte sind: Halsey, Floud and Anderson (eds.),Education, Economy and Society (1961); Eckstein and Noah (eds.),Scientific Investigations in Comparative Education (1969); Beck,Perspectives on World Education (1970); Karabel and Halsey (eds.),Power and Ideology in Education (1977); und Altbach and Kelly (eds.),Education and Colonialism (1978).

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Résumé Les auteurs examinent l'impact des nouvelles sociologies sur l'éducation comparée en procédant à l'analyse de cinq livres de lecture comparée publiés au cours de ces vingt dernières années. Tandis que les nouvelles sociologies ont eu une portée considérable sur la sociologie et sur la sociologie de l'éducation, la répercussion de l'éducation comparée a été moindre. Les auteurs montrent ensuite que si les nouvelles sociologies critiques telles que le Marxisme, le neo-Marxisme et la théorie Critique ont pénétré, jusqu'à un certain point, dans l'éducation comparée, il n'en a pas été de même pour les sociologies interprétatives, telles que l'interaction symbolique, l'ethnométhodologie et la sémiotique qui n'ont généralement pas été utilisées. Les auteurs concluent en suggérant qu'une synthèse des méthodes critiques et interprétatives serait utile pour un travail ultérieur sur l'éducation comparée.Les cinq textes étudiés sont: Halsey, Floud and Anderson (eds.),Education, Economy and Society (1961); Eckstein and Noah (eds.),Scientific Investigations in Comparative Education (1969); Beck,Perspectives on World Education (1970); Karabel and Halsey (eds.),Power and Ideology in Education (1977); et Altbach and Kelly (eds.),Education and Colonialism (1978).

     

IPOP: A Theory of Experience Preference

The theory and practice of IPOP emerged from structured observations and interviews with visitors to the Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, D.C. from the 1990s to the present—a dataset useful in constructing a long view. This research has had one overarching intention: to serve museum visitors better, that is, to provide visitors with experiences that are above average, special, significant, and memorable. In numerous studies and interviews during the last 16 years, visitors have repeatedly spoken about their reactions to Smithsonian museum exhibitions in four typologies distilling their primary interests: I = ideas, P = people, O = objects, and—as we were obliged to add at a later stage—a second P for “physical.” The evidence suggests that exhibitions that strongly appeal to all four visitor typologies will be highly successful with visitors.     

Classifying performer strategies in drop landing activities

Our purpose was to use group and single-case methods to examine inter-individual variability in the context of factors related to landing injuries. We tested the load accommodation strategies model (An exploration of load accommodation strategies during walking with extremity-carried weights. Human Movement Science, 35, 17–29) using landing impulse, revealing pre-landing strategies following height and external load manipulations. Ten healthy volunteers (8 male, 2 female, 24.0 ± 1.4 years, 1.72 ± 0.06 m, 73.5 ± 8.7 kg) were analysed across 12 trials in each of three load conditions (100% body weight [BW], 110% BW, 120% BW) from two landing heights (30 cm, 60 cm). Landing impulse (BW ? s) was computed for each participant-condition-trial, using impulse ratios (unit-less; BW ? s/BW ? s) to evaluate load accommodation strategies between adjacent load conditions (110%/100%, 120%/110%) at each landing height. Load accommodation strategy classifications were based on 95% confidence intervals (CIs) containing mechanically predicted impulse ratios (1.10 and 1.09 for 110/100% BW and 120/110% BW, respectively; α = 0.05). Mean group impulse ratios matched and exceeded predicted impulse ratios. Single-case analyses revealed a range of individual landing strategies that might be overlooked during group analyses, possibly uncovering individuals at greater risk of injury during landing activities.     

Like a Stone: A happy death and the search for knowledge

Abstract

This article explores the story of ‘the other Mersault’ whose narrative is published in the posthumous and arguably incomplete work A happy death. That this work is incomplete and that it appears (particularly through a reading of Camus’ notebooks) to be a precursor to The outsider, has arguably limited scholarly analysis of its character and plot. However, the themes that are explored in A happy death are significant in their distinction to those themes that are experienced by the other, younger, Meursault. In A happy death the world must be conquered by the will of a young man to find his happiness. He is not an outsider, and he is not content with his lot. Given an opportunity to address this latter concern, he acts upon his life in a search for happiness and in so doing engages in an ultimately frustrating, yet in some way enlightening, quest. In this article Mersault’s search for happiness is plotted in relation to his thinking about time, childhood, happiness and death. His journey is considered in relation to other stories of the search for some greater human condition. It is argued that his will to be happy reveals the absurdity of searching or not searching. This absurdity is considered in relation to the nature and purpose of school in the sense that such a relation to the search for knowledge might free school from its disciplinary tasks … and frees the learner, the child, the teacher, from the violence of having to want to know.     

Footwear and footstrike change loading patterns in running

ABSTRACT

Loading rates have been linked to running injuries, revealing persistent impact features that change direction among three-dimensional axes in different footwear and footstrike patterns. Extracting peak loads from ground reaction forces, however, can neglect the time-varying loading patterns experienced by the runner in each footfall. Following footwear and footstrike manipulations during laboratory-based overground running, we examined three-dimensional loading rate-time features in each direction (X, Y, Z) using principal component analysis. Twenty participants (9 M, 11 F, age: 25.3 ± 3.6 y) were analysed during 14 running trials in each of two footwear (cushioned and minimalist) and three footstrike conditions (forefoot, midfoot, rearfoot). Two principal components (PC) captured the primary loading rate-time features (PC1: 42.5% and PC2: 22.8% explained variance) and revealed interaction among axes, footwear, and footstrike conditions (PC1: F _{(2.1, 40.1)} = 5.6, p = 0.007, η ² = 0.23; PC2: F _{(2.0, 38.4)} = 62.3, p < 0.001, η ² = 0.77). Rearfoot running in cushioned footwear attenuated impact loads in the vertical direction, and forefoot running in minimalist footwear attenuated impact loads in the anterior-posterior and medial-lateral directions relative to forefoot running in cushioned shoes. Loading patterns depend on footwear and footstrike interactions, which require shoes that match the runner’s footstrike pattern.