Effectiveness of bibliographic searches performed by paediatric residents and interns assisted by librarians. A randomised controlled trial

Background: Considerable barriers still prevent paediatricians from successfully using information retrieval technology. Objectives: To verify whether the assistance of biomedical librarians significantly improves the outcomes of searches performed by paediatricians in biomedical databases using real‐life clinical scenarios. Methods: In a controlled trial at a paediatric teaching hospital, nine residents and interns were randomly allocated to an assisted search group and nine to a non‐assisted (control) group. Each participant searched Pub Med and other online sources, performing pre‐determined tasks including the formulation of a clinical question, retrieval and selection of bibliographic records. In the assisted group, participants were supported by a librarian with ≥5 years of experience. The primary outcome was the success of search sessions, scored against a specific assessment tool. Results: The median score of the assisted group was 73.6 points interquartile range (IQR = 13.4) vs. 50.4 (IQR = 17.1) of the control group. The difference between median values in the results was 23.2 points (95% CI 4.8–33.2), in favour of the assisted group (P‐value, Mann–Whitney U test: 0.013). Conclusions: The study has found quantitative evidence of a significant difference in search performance between paediatric residents or interns assisted by a librarian and those searching the literature alone.     

GendermRelated Differential Item Functioning on a Middle-School Mathematics Peformance Assessment

Will performance assessments in mathematics have gender DIF? Do male and female examinees provide similar solution strategies?     

Building a Better Knowledgebase: A Community Perspective

This article is a report of a concurrent session presented by Katherine Hill and Maria Collins of North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries at the 2013 North American Serials Interest Group conference. NCSU Libraries is a participant in the Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb) project, which will provide an openly available knowledgebase for Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE). Results from a survey conducted by NCSU librarians are discussed, which focus on the e-resource management community and their expectations of the data provided in knowledgebases. The survey investigates problems and improvements in respect to data quality. Respondents also commented on their expectations of a community-managed project as well as the viability of a project like GOKb. Future directions and initiatives in the knowledgebase space were also summarized in the presentation.     

Scientific Investigations of Elementary School Children

The study provides evidence concerning elementary school children’s ability to conduct a scientific investigation. Two hundred and fifty sixth-grade students and 248 fourth-grade students were administered a test, and based on their performance, they were classified into high-ability and low-ability students. The sample of this study was randomly selected and included 80 students, 40 fourth-grade and 40 sixth-grade students of low and high abilities. Students were specifically instructed to investigate the functioning of a device, to think aloud prior and after any experiment with the device, and to keep a record of their experimental results. The results showed that students were inclined to mainly collect evidence from the experimental space and failed to control variables during their investigation. The majority of the students had difficulties with effectively organizing collected data and failed to coordinate hypotheses with evidence. The significant interaction effect that was found between grade level and ability in terms of students’ investigation ability indicates that the existing gap between high- and low-ability students becomes bigger as students become older. Undoubtedly, ongoing research efforts for identifying patterns of children’s cognitive development will be most valuable as they can have important implications for the design of teaching scenarios and inquiry-based science activities conducive to accelerating students’ cognitive growth and scientific investigation abilities.     

Teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion,perceived adequacy of support and classroom learning environment

Inclusive education has become a cornerstone of many government policies in an increasing number of countries, yet teachers have been found to hold mixed attitudes towards its implementation and usefulness. This article, using English terminology and thinking, aims to extend previous research on the effect of teacher attitudes towards inclusion in classroom learning environments, and to explore perceived adequacy of support, levels of stress, and willingness to include pupils with certain difficulties. Teachers (N = 95) completed questionnaires on attitudes to inclusion, classroom learning environment, support and stress. Pupils (N = 2,514) completed a questionnaire on classroom learning environment only. Teacher attitudes towards including special educational needs pupils in mainstream settings were found to have a significant impact on how they managed their classroom learning environments and how adequately they perceived available support. Teachers with more positive attitudes towards inclusion were reported by their pupils to have classroom environments with greater levels of satisfaction and cohesiveness and lower levels of friction, competitiveness and difficulty than for those with teachers who held less positive attitudes. Teacher attitudes towards inclusion increased with greater perceived adequacy of both internal and external support. Teachers were less willing to include pupils with behavioural difficulties than pupils who were able/gifted or had physical difficulties, irrespective of attitude to inclusion.     

Der Wert der Mathematik im Klassenzimmer – Die Bedeutung relevanzbezogener Unterrichtsmerkmale für die Wertüberzeugungen der Schülerinnen und Schüler

The lack of secondary school students’ motivation in mathematics lessons poses a great challenge. According to the Expectancy-Value Model (Eccles et al., Achievement and achievement motives: psychological and sociological approaches, New York, Freeman, S. 75–146, 1983), teacher and classmates influence students’ value beliefs. Using data of 1868 ninth grade students and their 72 math teachers, this study was designed to assess the association of several indicators of relevance-oriented teaching strategies and of perceived classmates’ math valuing with students’ value beliefs in mathematics. Two-level linear regression analyses provided evidence that the student-rated practical focus of math lessons predicted students’ intrinsic, attainment, utility, and cost value mainly at the individual level; student-rated classmates’ math valuing was associated with students’ value perceptions more strongly at the class level. Over the course of six months, these effects increased at the individual but not at the class level. Teacher-reported effort to establish connections between math and other domains was positively associated with students’ attainment and cost value. Teacher-rated use of daily life examples led to a decrease in students’ cost value over the course of six months.     

Towards designing cognitively-enriched project-oriented courses within a blended problem-based learning context

Traditional education seems to gradually and moderately make way for self-directed and student-centred learning strategies that will efficiently enable students to reach their full potentials and will sufficiently prepare them for their upcoming professional careers. Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is such a strategy, since it enables active participation by shifting the focus from the delivery of knowledge to its creation by the students, in their endeavour to implement problem-based projects. PBL is more commonly used in project-oriented courses, where students have to not only build but also apply new knowledge in real world contexts and therefore familiarize themselves with work conditions. Online technologies, such as cognitive tools, are able to harmonize this shift by visualizing some of the more demanding steps of PBL as well as facilitating collaboration and knowledge building. The aim of this paper is to investigate the incorporation of cognitive technologies in project-oriented courses, using a Blended PBL strategy. To this end, we implement our findings in a Project Management postgraduate course. Based on the gathered results, we propose a framework that can guide the design of project-oriented courses and we argue that its adaptation can exploit the identified strengths and avoid the weaknesses and lead to successful and immersive learning processes.