Identification of Core Competencies for an Undergraduate Food Safety Curriculum Using a Modified Delphi Approach

Identification of core competencies for undergraduates in food safety is critical to assure courses and curricula are appropriate in maintaining a well‐qualified food safety workforce. The purpose of this study was to identify and refine core competencies relevant to postsecondary food safety education using a modified Delphi method. Twenty‐nine experts representing food safety professionals in academia, government, and industry were given 2 rounds of questionnaires that specified initial food safety competencies, core domains, and subdomains. Competencies were defined as a set of skills, knowledge, and abilities that correlate to success of a trainee. The framework for which competencies were classified consisted of (1) core domains, defined as broad food safety subjects; and (2) subdomains, or more specific food safety subjects. The expert panel used a 5‐point Likert scale with an acceptance criterion, or consensus, of 75%, with a rating of “4” or greater. After 2 rounds of questionnaires and revisions from the expert panel, 5 core domains were established: (1) Food Production, Manufacturing, Retail, and Consumer; (2) Foodborne Hazards; (3) Public Health; (4) Legislation and Policy; and (5) Communication and Education. Specific responses from the experts highlighted areas in which further curriculum revision would be beneficial. This study provides a framework for the development of a vetted, standardized undergraduate food safety curriculum. The Delphi method, with its inclusion of professionals representing various sectors of food safety, provided relevant perspectives for curriculum design, and also allowed participants the opportunity to contribute to the education of future food safety professionals.     

Some of the Reasons Why Preparing for Exams Is So Hard: What Can Be Done to Make It Easier?

Why it is so difficult to prepare for academic exams is reviewed with respect to recent research. Textbooks, teaching, and information processing characteristics of students all contribute to undermining effective learning and review. Recommendations are made about how instructors can make it easier for students to review and appraise their test readiness, as well as about how students can make a difference in the quality of their own preparations for tests.     

Reexamining the Verbal Environments of Children From Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds

Amid growing controversy about the oft-cited “30-million-word gap,” this investigation uses language data from five American communities across the socioeconomic spectrum to test, for the first time, Hart and Risley's (1995) claim that poor children hear 30 million fewer words than their middle-class counterparts during the early years of life. The five studies combined ethnographic fieldwork with longitudinal home observations of 42 children (18–48 months) interacting with family members in everyday life contexts. Results do not support Hart and Risley's claim, reveal substantial variation in vocabulary environments within each socioeconomic stratum, and suggest that definitions of verbal environments that exclude multiple caregivers and bystander talk disproportionately underestimate the number of words to which low-income children are exposed.     

Service Provision for Disturbed Children

Service provision for children classified as emotionally disturbed, behaviourally disordered or maladjusted involves a variety of service agencies including health, education and welfare. Recently a collaborative approach to service delivery, which recognises the multi‐disciplinary nature of the problem area and the necessity to avoid wastage of resources through duplication has been adopted. To determine priorities for service delivery the present study involved a multi‐disciplinary sample of experienced professionals working in the area of emotional disturbance. Using the Delphi technique, goals for service delivery in terms of system, instructional, adjustment and social objectives were assembled, clarified, rated in terms of their importance, and rank‐ordered to more clearly determine priorities. Results indicate that a collaborative multi‐disciplinary approach to service provision for disturbed children is feasible and that, despite diverse theoretical and professional backgrounds, competent workers in the field are able to arrive at substantial consensus in setting objectives.     

Sociocognitive self-regulatory mechanisms governing judgments of the acceptability and likelihood of sport cheating

This study extends previous psychosocial literature (Bandura et al., 2001, 2003) by examining a structural model of the self-regulatory mechanisms governing the acceptability and likelihood of cheating in a sport context. Male and female adolescents (N = 804), aged 15-20 years, took part in this study. Negative affective self-regulatory efficacy influenced the acceptability and likelihood of cheating through the mediating role of moral disengagement, in females and males. Affective efficacy positively influenced prosocial behavior through moral disengagement or through resistive self-regulatory efficacy and social efficacy, in both groups. The direct effects of affective efficacy on beliefs about cheating were only evident in females. These results extend the findings of Bandura et al. (2001, 2003) to the sport context and suggest that affective and resistive self-regulatory efficacy operate in concert in governing adolescents' moral disengagement and transgressive behaviors in sport.     

Developing creativity and promoting social harmony: the relationship between government,school and parents' perceptions of children's creativity in Macao‐SAR in China

The promotion of creativity in young children has been included in the agenda of the educational authorities in mainland China since 2001. Since then, attempts to implement this policy have appeared in different forms. The educational bureaux take measures by publishing documents and guidelines on the subject. While some kindergartens endeavour to restructure their programmes in order to accommodate the development of creativity, most practitioners are not yet ready to embrace this idea. Based on an ethnographic study, this article argues that there are gaps amongst the government's, practitioners' and parents' views of creativity and means to foster such ability in young children. It also highlights the fact that the observed phenomenon might be explained in terms of the social hierarchy that has been thriving in Chinese culture for centuries. Finally, it suggests that a reciprocal relationship amongst the three parties is yet to be built in order to form a strong support for the development of children's creativity in this southern Chinese city.     

More? Great? Childcare? A discourse analysis of two recent social policy documents relating to the care and education of young children in England

This paper considers the overt and covert discourses in two contemporary policy documents in England and Wales, The Nutbrown Review: Foundations for Quality ([DfE] Department for Education Department for Education. 2012. ‘The Nutbrown Review: Foundations for Quality: The Independent Review of Early Education and Childcare Qualifications.' DFE-00068 2012. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/175463/Nutbrown-Review.pdf.) and More Great Childcare (MGC) ([DfE] Department for Education. 2013. ‘More Great Childcare: Raising Quality and Giving Parents More Choice.' DFE-00002-2013. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/219660/More_20Great_20Childcare_20v2.pdf.), which advocated a number of significant changes to Early Years provision. It employs Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to ask questions about relationships between language and society, specifically how these are managed in policy documents. Drawing on Foucauldian analysis on the power behind the words and utilising [Fairclough, N. 2010. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.] CDA, indications of underlying values and assumptions, overt and covert agendas were explored. Findings suggest a significant shift in concepts of quality, professionalism and childcare that positions the child as an investment in the future as a strong feature of the discourse within MGC as well as an increase in top-down frameworks. Both documents assert that quality and professionalism will only occur with top-down regulation and inspection. They propose a consumer market based model of practice that has implications for professionalism of the workforce and quality of children's experiences.     

Organosilane deposition for microfluidic applications

Treatment of surfaces to change the interaction of fluids with them is a critical step in constructing useful microfluidics devices, especially those used in biological applications. Silanization, the generic term applied to the formation of organosilane monolayers on substrates, is both widely reported in the literature and troublesome in actual application for the uninitiated. These monolayers can be subsequently modified to produce a surface of a specific functionality. Here various organosilane deposition protocols and some application notes are provided as a basis for the novice reader to construct their own silanization procedures, and as a practical resource to a broader range of techniques even for the experienced user.