Wearable devices and healthcare: Data sharing and privacy

Wearable devices introduce many new capabilities to the delivery of healthcare. But wearables also pose grave privacy risks. Furthermore, information overload gets in the way of informed consent by the patient. To better protect American patients in an increasingly digital world, the U.S. Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). This article examines the adequacy of HIPAA vis-à-vis issues raised by wearable technologies in the Internet of Things environment and identifies policy gaps and factors that drive health data exposure. It presents a 2 × 2 Partnership-Identity Exposure Matrix, illustrates implications in four different contexts, and provides recommendations for improving privacy protection.     

Reviewing the Teaching and Learning of Children with Special Educational Needs: Enabling Whole School Responsibility

Neil Morris, Learning Support Co-ordinator, and Phil Parker, Learning Support Manger, at Colmers Farm School, use 'The four Ps of policy' (Palmer, Redfern & Smith, 1994) to review their own practice in the development of the monitoring and evaluation measures of their school's SEN (Special Educational Needs) provision. They outline their commitment to inclusive education, and analyse the ways in which the strategy of 'Subject Department SEN Reviews' focuses upon teaching and learning styles.     

Impact of intervening learning on resurgence in humans with Autism Spectrum Disorders

In the present study, we investigated the degree to which responding would resurge in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) following an intervening training period comprising different schedules of reinforcement. Twenty-four children of the ages 7–15, with a diagnosis of an ASD, were taught a play a sequence on a variable ratio- (VR) 3 schedule of reinforcement, during a 30-min session. The play sequence was then extinguished before the participants were taught a second play sequence, using a VR-4 schedule for 30 min, a VR-4 schedule for 60 min, or a VR-2 schedule for 30 min. A 5-min extinction session was then conducted to determine the impact that the intervening schedules had on the resurgence of the original behavior. The original sequence resurged to a greater extent for Group VR-4 30 min than it did for the other two groups. The results provide evidence that the length of time between initial training and testing is not a prime determinant of the level of resurgence, but that the amount of conditioning may play a stronger role: The greater the number of reinforcers received, the smaller the resurgence effect.     

Specific reading difficulties in Chinese, English, or both: longitudinal markers of phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and RAN in Hong Kong Chinese children

What are the longitudinal cognitive profiles of Hong Kong Chinese children with specific reading difficulties in Chinese only, in English only, or both? A total of 16 poor readers each of Chinese (PC) and English (PE) and 8 poor readers of both orthographies (PB) were compared to a control sample (C) of 16 children; all were drawn from a statistically representative sample of 154 Hong Kong Chinese children tested at ages 5 to 9 years. PE and PB children's mothers had lower education levels than did the other groups. With children's ages and mothers' education levels statistically controlled, the PE, PC, and PB groups were significantly lower than the C group on phonological awareness. The PB and PE groups also scored significantly lower than the others on English vocabulary across years, whereas the PC and PB groups were significantly poorer than the C and PE groups on morphological awareness across years. Finally, the PB group was significantly slower than the other groups on speed naming at every age tested, underscoring the potential importance of automaticity in reading across orthographies. Findings highlight the need to consider the issue of how to identify reading difficulties in a second language.     

The influence of student gender on the assessment of undergraduate student work

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of perceived student gender on the feedback given to undergraduate student work. Participants (n = 12) were lecturers in higher education and were required to mark two undergraduate student essays. The first student essay that all participants marked was the control essay. Participants were informed that the control essay was written by Samuel Jones (a male student). Participants then marked the target essay. Although participants marked the same essay, half of the participants (n = 6) were informed that the student essay was written by Natasha Brown (a female student), while the remaining participants were informed that it was written by James Smith (a male student). In-text and end-of-text feedback were qualitatively analysed on six dimensions: academic style of writing; criticality; structure, fluency and cohesion; sources used; understanding/knowledge of the subject; and other. Analysis of feedback for both the control and target essay revealed no discernible differences in the number of comments (strengths of the essay, areas for improvement) made and the content and presentation of these comments between the two groups. Pedagogical implications pertaining to the potential impact of anonymous marking on feedback processes are discussed.     

Die Öffnung des Schulsystems: Fakt oder Fiktion?

Opening up educational paths and especially decoupling educational courses and final school qualifications are seen as important aspects of the modernization of Swiss education. The study presented here investigates to what extent this de-linking actually took place in the case of the Swiss canton Freiburg. 525 pupils from German-speaking schools were observed in their progress from the end of primary school (year 6) to the transfer into the upper secondary level Gymnasium (year 10) or into alternative educational routes. Indeed, almost half of the young people, who went to the Gymnasium, previously studied at a middle-level general secondary school and not the preparatory Progymnasium; a strong indication of decoupling. Furthermore, the study shows that entry into the upper secondary level Gymnasium is still possible for pupils despite weak performance at primary level. Irrespective of the evidence for an opening of the education system, the findings also show that attending a Progymnasium has a significant effect on school biographies. The chance of transferring into the upper secondary level Gymnasium is twice as high for graduates, who attended a Progymnasium, as for comparative pupils, who did not. Additionally, a privileged social background correlates with a high chance of entry into the upper secondary level Gymnasium.     

Judgments of successful inclusion by education service personnel

Three different methods were used to investigate the basis of judgments about the success of inclusion made by key staff in an education service in the UK. First, a structured questionnaire was used by staff to rate the pupil social and learning skills needed for success in mainstream classes. Second, an open-ended elicitation technique was used to identify criteria for successful inclusion that are spontaneously generated by staff. Third, a scenario rating scale was constructed to assess experimentally the relative priority accorded by staff to each success criterion. A substantial degree of consensus across methods was identified in the specific skills and key success criteria considered important by different groups of staff. Parallels with previous questionnaire-based research conducted in the US are discussed. Some differences across methods and respondent groups are also identified, and the potential advantages of multi-perspective, multi-method approaches to assessing inclusion success criteria are considered.