Impact of a consumer health information specialization (CHIS) sponsorship program on the ability of public library staff to provide consumer health information

Objective:In 2018, the Network of the National Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) launched a sponsorship program to support public library staff in completing the Medical Library Association''s Consumer Health Information Specialization (CHIS). The objectives of our study were to: (1) determine whether completion of the sponsored specialization improved ability to provide consumer health information; (2) identify new health information services, programming, and outreach activities at public libraries; (3) investigate benefits of the specialization; and (4) determine the impact of sponsorship on obtaining and continuing the specialization.Methods:We used REDCap to administer a 16-question survey in August 2019 to 224 public library staff who were sponsored during the first year of the program. We measured competence in providing consumer health information aligned with the eight Core Competencies for Providing Consumer Health Information Services [1] as well as new activities at public libraries, benefits of the specialization to public library staff, career gains, and the likelihood of continuing the specialization based on funding.Results:More than 80% of 136 participants reported an increase in core consumer health competencies, with a statistically significant improvement in mean competency scores after completing the specialization. Ninety percent of participants have continued their engagement with NNLM, and more than half offered new health information programs and services. While more than half planned to renew the specialization or obtain the Level II specialization, 72% indicated they would not continue without NNLM sponsorship.Conclusions:Findings indicate that NNLM sponsorship of the CHIS specialization was successful in increasing the capacity of public library staff to provide health information to their communities.     

The fate of a progressive science: the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory, athletes, the science of work and the politics of reform

In the early twentieth century, fatigue research marked a site of conflicting scientific, industrial, and cultural understandings of working bodies. Many fatigue researchers understood fatigue to be a physiological fact and allied themselves with Progressive-era reformers in urging industrial regulation. Reformers clashed with advocates of Taylorism, who held that productivity could be perpetually increased through managerial efficiency. Histories of this conflict typically cease with the end of the First World War. I examine the work of the Harvard Fatigue Laboratory in the 1920s and 1930s to explore the impact that the introduction of biochemical methods had on the relationship between science and reform. The Laboratory developed sophisticated techniques to study the blood of exercising individuals. In particular, it found that exercising individuals could attain a biochemically "steady state," or equilibrium, and extrapolated from this to assert that fatigue was psychological, not physiological, in nature. In contrast to Progressive-era research, the Laboratory reached this conclusion through laboratory examination, not of workers, but of Laboratory staff members and champion marathon runners. I present the Laboratory's institutional history, scientific work, and finally how common cultural understandings of athletes and work lent plausibility to its efforts to make authoritative statements about industrial conditions.     

Application of Latent Trait Models to Identifying Substantively Interesting Raters

Historically, research focusing on rater characteristics and rating contexts that enable the assignment of accurate ratings and research focusing on statistical indicators of accurate ratings has been conducted by separate communities of researchers. This study demonstrates how existing latent trait modeling procedures can identify groups of raters who may be of substantive interest to those studying the experiential, cognitive, and contextual aspects of ratings. We employ two data sources in our demonstration—simulated data and data from a large‐scale state‐wide writing assessment. We apply latent trait models to these data to identify examples of rater leniency, centrality, inaccuracy, and differential dimensionality; and we investigate the association between rater training procedures and the manifestation of rater effects in the real data.     

The relationship of teacher-rated social skills deficits and ADHD characteristics among kindergarten-age children

Research findings regarding the relationship of social skills deficits and behavioral characteristics associated with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among kindergarten-age children are presented. The Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales (PKBS) were utilized to identify the social skills attributes of young children with significant ADHD characteristics. An ADHD target group (N = 95) was constructed by selecting participants from a large nationwide sample who were rated by their teachers as being in the highest 5% on the PKBS Attention Problems/Overactive subscale. A matched non-ADHD comparison group (by gender and age) of 95 children was developed through a randomized block procedure using the same nationwide sample. The ADHD group was rated as having significantly poorer social skills than the comparison group, and could be classified with a very high degree of accuracy based on discriminant function analysis of their social skills scores. Although exhibiting comparative deficits in all social skill areas, the ADHD participants were especially lacking in social cooperation skills: the ability to follow rules, structure, and important social expectations of both children and adults. Children who were rated high in ADHD characteristics were between five and six times more likely than the comparison children to be rated as having significant deficits in social skills. Implications of these findings for assessment and treatment of young children are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Collaborative Professional Development for Science Educators: Locating Reflection in Practice Through a Science Methods Course

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

New technologies,new multimodal literacy practices and young children's metacognitive development

This paper discusses concepts of learning through ‘collaborative multimodal dialogue’. It draws on an ESRC‐funded study (RES‐000‐22‐2451) investigating 3‐ and 4‐year‐old children's encounters with literacy as they engage with a range of printed and digital technologies at home and in a nursery. The study goes beyond analysis of spoken language, giving a more complete understanding of literacy learning processes through detailed analysis of how children use multiple communicative modes as they experience literacy in different media. These experiences underpin metacognitive development and are crucial to children's abilities to act strategically in future situations. Drawing on notions of literacy as social practice, this paper discusses how the advent of new technologies has introduced new dimensions into young children's literacy learning, the implications of which have not yet been fully recognised in early years policy guidance, training or practice.     

Monitoring Rater Performance Over Time: A Framework for Detecting Differential Accuracy and Differential Scale Category Use

In this study, we describe a framework for monitoring rater performance over time. We present several statistical indices to identify raters whose standards drift and explain how to use those indices operationally. To illustrate the use of the framework, we analyzed rating data from the 2002 Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition examination, employing a multifaceted Rasch approach to determine whether raters exhibited evidence of two types of differential rater functioning over time (i.e., changes in levels of accuracy or scale category use). Some raters showed statistically significant changes in their levels of accuracy as the scoring progressed, while other raters displayed evidence of differential scale category use over time.