Further developing the library curriculum: skills for life delivery

This feature discusses how the library curriculum was developed at Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust Library Service to aid the delivery of Skills for Life. In particular, the feature describes how, through collaboration with learndirect, literacy and numeracy skills were embedded into the broader library and information skills training programme. The article reports on how the programme resulted in the provision of qualifications and skills development opportunities to NHS staff, and an increase in the NHS library profile.     

Assessing the Benefits of Content Notes Enhancements for Digital Audio Resources

Our library has previously investigated the potential impact the addition of contents notes on circulation. In a subsequent study, we found contents notes were the second metadata element most heavily linked to circulation (title was first). Since there has been a marked decline in the use of print resources at our library and a corresponding increase in digital resources, we wanted to know if the addition of contents notes to records for online streaming audio files would result in a similar increase in usage. After enhancing the records, we tracked usage for a period of three months.     

Impact of question-answering tasks on search processes and reading comprehension

This study examined the effect of (a) high- and low-level questions and (b) reading the text before the questions asked on performance, delayed text recall, and deep text comprehension, as well as on specific text-inspection patterns. Participants were 37 undergraduate students who answered either high- or low-level questions using the software Read&Answer to read and answer questions on the computer screen. Additionally, half of the sample read first a text and then answered the questions (reading-first condition), whereas the other half answered the questions without having read the text in advance (no-reading-first condition). All participants had the text available to search for the answer. Results indicated that high-level questions facilitated deep comprehension but not immediate performance or delayed recall of text, independently of the reading condition, and that high- and low-level questions differentially affected text-inspection patterns.     

体力活动与癌症生存研究的10大问题

摘要：今天的美国有1 400万的癌症存活者,其中的很多存活者中都接受了多种治疗,包括手术、放疗、化疗、靶向治疗等。这些治疗能够延长生存时间,但同时也会带来很多急慢性的副作用,危害健康,影响生活质量。体力活动（PA）与癌症生存这一领域发展迅速,主要研究PA对癌症患者的影响。基于该领域的研究进展,提出了以下10大研究问题：1）PA能够降低癌症复发风险、和/或提高存活吗？2）PA能够影响癌症治疗决策、完成率、和/或患者对治疗的反应吗？3）癌症存活者的最佳运动处方是什么？4）静坐少动行为对癌症存活者有何影响？5）癌症存活者最有效的体力活动干预方案是什么？6）哪些癌症会影响病人对PA的反应？7）癌症存活者进行体力活动时需要注意的安全问题有哪些？8）哪些具体的癌症症状可以由PA解决？9）对于癌症晚期患者,体力活动还有何作用？10）如何将体力活动研究结果转化到临床和社区肿瘤实践中来？上述问题的回答至关重要,这不仅关系到体力活动和癌症存活这一研究领域的发展,更重要的是,能够为每年数百万新诊断为癌症的病人、正在接受癌症治疗的病人、治疗结束处于恢复中的病人或是那些正在与晚期癌症抗争的病人带来福音。     

Iraqi,Syrian, and Palestinian Refugee Adolescents' Beliefs About Parental Authority Legitimacy and Its Correlates

This study examined intra‐ and interindividual variations in parental legitimacy beliefs in a sample of 883 Arab refugee adolescents (M_age = 15.01 years, SD = 1.60), 277 Iraqis, 275 Syrians, and 331 Palestinians in Amman, Jordan. Confirmatory factor analyses showed distinct latent factors for moral–conventional, prudential, and personal legitimacy items. Older adolescents rated legitimacy lower for personal issues, but higher for prudential issues. Beliefs were associated with socioeconomic status (fathers' education, family size), particularly for personal issues, but were more pervasively associated with displacement‐related experiences. Greater war trauma was associated with less prudential legitimacy for all youth and more authority legitimacy over moral–conventional issues for Syrian youth. Greater hopefulness was associated with more authority legitimacy over all but personal issues.     

The relative impact of school‐wide positive behavior support on teachers’ perceptions of student behavior across schools,teachers, and students

School‐wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is a systemic approach for implementing a proactive schoolwide discipline and for improving students’ academic and behavioral outcomes by targeting the school’s organizational and social culture. With a multilevel approach, the present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of SWPBS on teachers’ perceptions of the student behavior (N = 3,295) across schools, teachers, and children using a multilevel approach. We assessed teacher perception of student problem behavior five times during a 3‐year implementation of SWPBS in 23 Dutch schools. Multilevel analyses not only revealed a small increase in perceived prosocial behavior and a small decrease in problems with peers, but also different effects across children, teachers, and schools. Effects were stronger for girls and for students with higher severity of perceived problems at baseline. At teachers’ level, higher mean baseline severity of perceived problems was associated with the reduced impact of SWPBS on perceived emotional problems and problems with peers. At the school level, effects were stronger for regular schools as compared with special needs schools.     

Seeking support: researching first‐year students’ experiences of coping with academic life

Students’ transition to academia comes with a number of challenges which, if inadequately addressed, may negatively affect their academic performance and psychological well‐being. Hence, the question of support becomes critical and has been reflected in the variety of practical measures to provide support with learning and facilitate newcomers’ integration into higher education. However, while forms of institutional aid have increased and diversified in recent years, the kind of support the students actually need and prefer to use – from the pool of available resources – remains insufficiently understood in current research. To address this gap, this paper advocates a social network approach to first‐year students’ experiences of coping with academic life and suggests an agenda for further investigation, which would contrast support ‘from above’ and support ‘from below.’     

Impact of childhood maltreatment on physical health-related quality of life in U.S. active duty military personnel and combat veterans

Previous studies have found an association between childhood maltreatment (CM) and health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and to a lesser extent have considered whether psychiatric symptoms may explain the relationship. This study aimed to further our understanding of the link between CM and HRQoL by testing whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depressive symptoms mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and physical HRQoL. Mediation models were examined in a sample of male Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) active duty and combat veterans (n = 249). PTSD and depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between CM and overall physical HRQoL, as well as participation in daily activities due to physical health, bodily pain, and social functioning. Mediation of the relationship between childhood maltreatment and physical and social functioning by depression and PTSD symptoms may lend support to neurobiological hypotheses that childhood maltreatment sensitizes the nervous system and after repeated trauma may lead to the development of psychiatric symptoms, which have a major impact on morbidity and mortality.     

Dialogue in the support of learning to teach: a case study of a mentor/mentee pair in a teacher education programme

In this paper, we examine the role of reflection in teacher preparation, specifically within a mentoring relationship between cooperating and preservice teacher. We report findings from a case analysis of this pair who engaged in problem-posing dialogue within pre- and post-conferences around practice over one year of their work together in an elementary-level classroom. The context is an innovative programme in which cooperating teachers pursue their Master’s degree while undergraduates (preservice teachers) complete their elementary education degrees. Our analysis of talk about teaching during six coaching cycles as well as supporting documents illustrates how Jane’s mentoring supported reflective practices and disrupted a notion of a field experience as simply a place to ‘practice’ pedagogical knowledge with corrective feedback. Additionally, we explore the tensions in this approach to mentoring. This case study has implications for teacher educators who seek to bolster teacher preparation through the support of mentoring relationships.