Continuing education as a catalyst for inter-professional collaboration

Do nurses have access to the tools and resources they need for evidence-based practice? Are librarians prepared to work with nurses to provide access to appropriate resources and services, and teach the needed information literacy skills? The authors work with professional library and nursing organizations to present interdisciplinary continuing education to improve the information literacy of nurses and the ability of librarians to provide resources and services that meet nurses' information needs. This article reviews behavioral and practice changes reported by nurses and librarian participants in symposia on evidence-based nursing in March 2001 and May 2003.     

Do No Harm—A Comparison of the Effects of On-Line vs. Traditional Delivery Media on a Science Course

This paper presents the results of a study designed to examine the effects of distance delivery on student performance and classroom interactions in an upper level science (Histology) course. Outcomes were assessed by comparing performance on content pre- and posttests for students enrolled in on-campus and on-line sections of the same course. Interactions were classified according to initiator, topic, and Bloom's taxonomy level for content interactions. The resulting patterns were analyzed to compare behaviors in different settings. It was found that although the groups were indistinguishable in content knowledge at the outset of the study, by the end of the semester, students in the on-line group significantly out-performed their peers in the on-campus section. The on-line settings had a greater proportion of high-level interactions (according to Bloom's taxonomy) than the on-campus setting.     

Learning from Audiovisual Media: assessing students’ thoughts by stimulated recall

Stimulated recall is a method of evoking an individual's thoughts about a previous episode in his/her life. Used in research into audiovisual media it can provide a way of tapping students’ thoughts and reactions to educational material with the minimum of researcher bias. The paper describes a case study in the use of stimulated recall to evaluate a science education videotape. The general value of the method to researcher and producer is discussed and the potential of stimulated recall in educational media research is assessed. The use of the technique in media research promises to provide new sources of data and new perspectives on student learning from the media.     

Computerized Adaptive Testing in Early Education: Exploring the Impact of Item Position Effects on Ability Estimation

Studies have shown that item difficulty can vary significantly based on the context of an item within a test form. In particular, item position may be associated with practice and fatigue effects that influence item parameter estimation. The purpose of this research was to examine the relevance of item position specifically for assessments used in early education, an area of testing that has received relatively limited psychometric attention. In an initial study, multilevel item response models fit to data from an early literacy measure revealed statistically significant increases in difficulty for items appearing later in a 20‐item form. The estimated linear change in logits for an increase of 1 in position was .024, resulting in a predicted change of .46 logits for a shift from the beginning to the end of the form. A subsequent simulation study examined impacts of item position effects on person ability estimation within computerized adaptive testing. Implications and recommendations for practice are discussed.     

The adoption of student-centered teaching materials as a professional development experience for college faculty

Efforts to promote the use of student-centered learning environments in STEM education have been tempered by a lack of professional development strategies that help faculty overcome common barriers to reform. This study investigated the impact that adopting a suite of student-centered teaching materials had on the teaching practices and beliefs of eight geoscience faculty at a variety of US institutions. Each instructor adopted 18 class lessons that were developed as part of the InTeGrate (Interdisciplinary Teaching about the Earth for a Sustainable Future) project into a semester-long course. The Teaching Practices Inventory (TPI) and Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) were used to collect data on teaching practices whereas instructor beliefs were captured with the Teacher Beliefs Interview (TBI). Data were collected over three semesters, a control semester using traditional materials, a pilot semester using the new materials, and a final treatment semester. While the TPI survey showed no self-reported changes in the practices, RTOP observations recorded the incorporation of more student-centered teaching practices. TBI results confirm that most of the instructors also made at least moderate shifts toward more student-centered beliefs about teaching and learning. These findings demonstrate that the adoption of well-crafted, student-centered instructional materials can have a positive impact on both the teaching practices and beliefs of college faculty.     

Entire functions sharing a value with its weight

Introduction Let f and g be two meromorphic functions defined in the open complex plane C, and k be a nonnegative integer or infinity. For {}aC违U, denote by (;)kEaf the set of all a-points of f where an a-point of multiplicity m is counted m times if mk and otherwise k+1 times. If (;)(;)kkEafEag=, then, f and g are considered to share the value a with weight k, which is expressed by f and g share (a ,k). Clearly if f and g share (a ,k), then they share (a ,p) for all integer p in 0pk#. It…     

Body Composition and Anthropometric Correlates of Isokinetic Leg Extension Strength of Young Adult Males

Abstract

The present study examined the relative importance of body size and composition as determinants of individual differences in isokinetic leg extensor strength in young adult males performing at slow, moderate, and fast speeds. The subjects were 31 males between the ages of 19 and 29 years, who were not participating in weight training programs. Low to moderate correlations were found between isokinetic strength and body size or body composition measurements. At each speed, similar proportions of the variance in peak torque values were accounted for by lean body weight (23-30%) and thigh volume (20-37%). However, body weight, often suggested as the best reference standard for equalizing strength scores, also accounted for only 13-24% of the variance in peak torque values at each of the speeds tested. The moderate correlations reported in this study do not support the use of body size and composition measurements as a means of adjusting strength values.