A model for using a concept inventory as a tool for students' assessment and faculty professional development

This essay describes how the use of a concept inventory has enhanced professional development and curriculum reform efforts of a faculty teaching community. The Host Pathogen Interactions (HPI) teaching team is composed of research and teaching faculty with expertise in HPI who share the goal of improving the learning experience of students in nine linked undergraduate microbiology courses. To support evidence-based curriculum reform, we administered our HPI Concept Inventory as a pre- and postsurvey to approximately 400 students each year since 2006. The resulting data include student scores as well as their open-ended explanations for distractor choices. The data have enabled us to address curriculum reform goals of 1) reconciling student learning with our expectations, 2) correlating student learning with background variables, 3) understanding student learning across institutions, 4) measuring the effect of teaching techniques on student learning, and 5) demonstrating how our courses collectively form a learning progression. The analysis of the concept inventory data has anchored and deepened the team's discussions of student learning. Reading and discussing students' responses revealed the gap between our understanding and the students' understanding. We provide evidence to support the concept inventory as a tool for assessing student understanding of HPI concepts and faculty development.     

School engagement and rights‐respecting schools

Disengagement in school is associated with behavioral problems and decreased academic achievement. In contrast, pupils who are engaged in school develop the academic and social efficacies that underlie successful adulthood. Moreover, engagement promotes educational resilience. This study examines pupils’ self‐reported level of engagement in schools that are explicitly respecting of children’s rights compared with pupils in traditional schools. The Young Students’ Engagement in School Scale was developed and used with 1289 9‐ to 11‐year‐olds from 18 schools, six of which had fully implemented the Hampshire Education Authority’s Rights Respect and Responsibility (RRR) Initiative. Factor analysis indicated four dimensions of engagement: rights‐respecting climate; interpersonal harmony; academic orientation; and participation. Pupils in RRR schools had higher scores on all but the academic dimension. The findings suggest the potential of rights‐respecting schools in promoting engagement and the potential utility of the measure in identifying areas in which pupils’ engagement may need intervention.     

Basic list of veterinary medical serials,third edition: using a decision matrix to update the core list of veterinary journals

Objective:

This paper presents the methods and results of a study designed to produce the third edition of the “Basic List of Veterinary Medical Serials,” which was established by the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section in 1976 and last updated in 1986.

Methods:

A set of 238 titles were evaluated using a decision matrix in order to systematically assign points for both objective and subjective criteria and determine an overall score for each journal. Criteria included: coverage in four major indexes, scholarly impact rank as tracked in two sources, identification as a recommended journal in preparing for specialty board examinations, and a veterinary librarian survey rating.

Results:

Of the 238 titles considered, a minimum scoring threshold determined the 123 (52%) journals that constituted the final list. The 36 subject categories represented on the list include general and specialty disciplines in veterinary medicine. A ranked list of journals and a list by subject category were produced.

Conclusion:

Serials appearing on the third edition of the “Basic List of Veterinary Medical Serials” met expanded objective measures of quality and impact as well as subjective perceptions of value by both librarians and veterinary practitioners.

Highlights

• The 123 journals on the “Basic List of Veterinary Medical Serials” include 117 journals with a decision matrix score of 15 points or higher, with an additional 6 journals included for more complete subject representation.
• Subject categories with the greatest number of journals are internal medicine, food animal medicine, and research.
• Updates for the third edition of the “Basic List” include 59 new titles and 13 new subject categories.

Implications

• The third edition of the “Basic List” provides a useful collection development and assessment tool for veterinary libraries, as well as general libraries with a need to develop a core collection of veterinary resources.
• The decision matrix approach, using standard quantitative and focused qualitative measures, provides a useful methodology for creating core lists in other disciplines.

     

Minimum reading fluency necessary for comprehension among second‐grade students

The current study examined the relationship between oral reading fluency (ORF) and reading comprehension for students in second grade. A total of 84 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions that involved reading a grade‐appropriate passage with either 0%, 10%, 20%, or 30% scrambled words and answering subsequent comprehension questions. The correlation coefficient between ORF and the number of comprehension questions correctly answered was r = .54. Receiver operating characteristics were then used to empirically derive a minimum ORF score necessary for comprehension, indicating that when these students read 63 words correct per minute they successfully comprehended what they read. Finally, the diagnostic accuracy of the derived criterion of 63 words read correctly per minute was tested and resulted in overall correct classification of .80. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Meeting the information needs of clinicians for the practice of evidence-based healthcare

This article reports on clinicians’ use of library resources and the competencies they require to access information necessary for the practice of evidence-based healthcare. It is based on the results of a study commissioned by North Thames Region to identify the training needs of clinicians for the adoption and practice of evidence-based healthcare. Participants in this qualitative research study included librarians, clinicians (doctors, nurses and PAMs) and managers from four Acute and Community Trusts in and around London. The research indicates that the majority of clinicians recognize the need to keep up-to-date with changes in their specialty and many visit their libraries on a frequent basis, however, few appear to be searching for information with which to inform their immediate clinical decisions. Our sample acknowledged their low usage of journals such as Bandolier, the Health Effectiveness Bulletin and Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine. Similarly, low use of electronic databases, such as Cochrane and Cinahl, were reported. Examination of skill and self-efficacy levels in accessing and using information databases revealed wide variations across professions, specialities and Trusts. Qualitative research methods were employed to elicit the key competencies required to access clinically relevant research evidence, and a framework for integrating these competencies is presented.     

Acculturation,self-efficacy and social support among Chinese immigrants in Northern Ireland

An opportunity sample of 108 Chinese participants (n_male = 51 and n_female = 57; M_age = 29.34) was compared to a second opportunity sample of 98 Northern Irish participants (n_male = 45 and n_female = 53; M_age = 23.67) on levels of acculturation, self-efficacy and social support. The administered questionnaire contained three scales to measure the aforementioned constructs. The first was the AMAS-NIC, a version of the Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale [Zea, M. C., Asner-Self, K. K., Birman, D., & Buki, L. P. (2003). The Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale: Empirical validation with two Latino/Latina samples. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 9, 107–126] modified to apply to a population of Chinese immigrants in Northern Ireland. The second measure was Mary Wegner's 1992 English version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale [Wright, S., Johnston, M., & Weinman, J. (1995). Measures in health psychology portfolio. UK: Windsor]. The third was the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ) whose items emerged through a semi-structured interview and was designed to measure levels of received and sought social support. The purpose of the study was to ascertain the extent to which previous findings concerning acculturation can be generalised to a Chinese immigrant population in Northern Ireland, a country characterised by segregation. T-tests, correlation analyses and a hierarchical regression initially provided support for the generalisability of previous studies on the health benefits of integration as a preferred acculturation strategy [Berry, J. W. (2008). Globalisation and acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32, 328–336], but further interpretation of the results brought to light the shortcomings of this model in the context of a segregated society and the inapplicability of the GSES measure within a collectivistic immigrant population. The limitations of the study are discussed and recommendations for future research are made.     

Levels of social complexity and dimensions of peer experiences in youth sport

We assessed young adolescent female soccer players' perceptions of their peer group experiences. Data were collected via interviews with 34 girls from two youth soccer teams (M age = 13.0 years). Following inductive discovery analysis, data were subjected to an interpretive theoretical analysis guided by a model of peer experiences (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 2006). Five categories of peer experiences were identified across three levels of social complexity. At the interaction level players integrated new members into the team and learned to interact with different types of people. At the relationship level players learned about managing peer conflict. At the group level a structure of leadership emerged and players learned to work together. Findings demonstrated interfaces between peer interactions, relationships, and group processes while also simplifying some apparently complex systems that characterized peer experiences on the teams studied.