Parental engagement strategies in Greek and Nigerian preschool settings: cross-country comparison

Acknowledging the fact that parental engagement is more beneficial during early childhood compared to other developmental stages many countries have institutionalised parental engagement. In Nigeria, the government has taken initiatives in order to involve parents in their child's development by encouraging the establishment of School Management Boards in the public schools and Parents Teachers Association in the private schools. On the contrary, in Greece home and preschool settings have separate roles and parent/teacher relationships have a long way to go towards becoming partnerships. In order to examine how Greek and Nigerian parents engage in their preschool children's education, 30 Greek and 30 Nigerian early childhood educators filled in the School, Family, and Community Partnerships Survey. Results suggest that parental engagement activities in both countries are not yet part of the schools' programme and they need improvement. Results have implications for the status of ECEC in both countries and the state's intensions to open pathways for collaboration in order to foster an inspiring vision for childhood.     

Assessing the Health Information Needs of Unaffiliated Health Professionals and Using Training on Openly Available Search Tools and Resources to Provide Solutions to Their Information Access Challenges and Barriers

This article will describe a year-long (2010–11) joint project between Columbia University Medical Center's Health Sciences Library and the Institute for Family Health (IFH), a network of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) serving disadvantaged populations in New York State. This National Institutes of Health-funded pilot project aimed to (a) determine the medical literature and training needs of IFH personnel, (b) develop generic licensing agreements with publishers that would enable a health sciences library to provide access to electronic resources for FQHC personnel, and (c) develop reference/education services for IFH personnel. How the reference and education aims were met will be described and discussed here as the lessons learned from this project may be useful to librarians considering doing instructional outreach to unaffiliated health professionals working at FQHCs nationwide.     

Customized USB Flash Drives Used to Promote Library Resources and Services to First-Year Medical and Dental Students

No abstract available for this article.     

Using the ACEI Global Guidelines Assessment to Evaluate the Quality of Early Child Care in Greek Settings

In recent years, there has been a significant growth of interest in ensuring that child care provision for children is of a high quality. This interest has been stimulated by research evidence according to which good quality child care has a positive influence on children’s overall development. The global quality in Greek preschool and infant/toddler classrooms was assessed with ACEI Global Guidelines Assessment (GGA), Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R) and Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS). Our research data, confirm previous research results from Greece, and suggest that Greek child care centers provide low quality care and education. Comparisons between the tools employed revealed great similarity between the ACEI GGA and ECERS-R ratings on issues relating to environment and physical space, program evaluation, communication with families, opportunities for family and community participation, recognition of diversity, curriculum and activities, etc. On the other hand the ACEI GGA and ITERS seem to measure different aspects of process quality, as far as infant care and education are concerned. Research results indicate the need for immediate improvement and revision of the policies employed by Greek state, as far as young children’s education and care are concerned.     

Flexibility training in preadolescent female athletes: Acute and long-term effects of intermittent and continuous static stretching

This study compared the acute and long-term effects of intermittent and continuous static stretching training on straight leg raise range of motion (ROM). Seventy-seven preadolescent female gymnasts were divided into a stretching (n = 57), and a control group (n = 20). The stretching group performed static stretching of the hip extensors of both legs, three times per week for 15 weeks. One leg performed intermittent (3 × 30 s with 30 s rest) while the other leg performed continuous stretching (90 s). ROM pre- and post-stretching was measured at baseline, on weeks 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and after 2 weeks of detraining. ROM was increased during both intermittent and continuous stretching training, but remained unchanged in the control group. Intermittent stretching conferred a larger improvement in ROM compared to both continuous stretching and control from week 3, until the end of training, and following detraining (p = 0.045 to 0.001 and d = 0.80 to 1.41). During detraining, ROM after the intermittent protocol decreased (p = 0.001), while it was maintained after the continuous protocol (p = 0.36). Acute increases in ROM following the intermittent stretching were also larger than in the continuous (p = 0.038). Intermittent stretching was more effective than continuous, for both long-term and acute ROM enhancement in preadolescent female athletes.     

The influence and development of psychological capital in the job search context

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - Past research shows Psychological Capital (PsyCap) to be associated with behaviors and performance at work, but few studies link...     

Using MeSH to search for alternatives to the use of animals in research

Searching for alternatives to using animals in research is not a standard service currently offered by most medical research libraries. The goal of this article is to demystify this type of expert search for medical librarians and to do so using a language they know well, that of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) thesaurus. An attempt is made in this paper to discuss possible search strategies and to include examples of recommended approaches to searching-all in the context of the 3Rs of alternatives: Replacement, Refinement, and Reduction.     

Library support for problem-based learning: an algorithmic approach

Academic health sciences libraries can take various approaches to support the problem-based learning component of the curriculum. This article presents one such approach taken to integrate information navigation skills into the small group discussion part of the Pathophysiology course in the second year of the Dental school curriculum. Along with presenting general resources for the course, the Library Toolkit introduced an algorithmic approach to finding answers to sample clinical case questions. While elements of Evidence-Based Practice were introduced, the emphasis was on teaching students to navigate relevant resources and apply various database search techniques to find answers to the clinical problems presented.