School psychologists' perceptions of priorities for dealing with the dropout problem

A sample of 444 (245 males and 199 females) Nationally Certified School Psychologists were surveyed to determine which causes of dropping out should be national priorities. A Principal Axis Factoring with oblimin rotation was conducted using the 42-item School Psychologist's Dropout Survey. The five factors which emerged were Criminal/Victimization, Different from Peer Group, School Conflict, Dysfunctional Family/Lack of Support, and Family Responsibilities. The factors comprised of items with loadings of .40 or higher were added together for each factor to obtain subscale total scores for each participant. Then, for each subscale all total scores were added together and divided by 444 to obtain an average subscale total score for the entire sample. This process was followed for all five subscales. Finally, the average subscale scores were ranked to identify which causes of dropping out were viewed by school psychologists as the most important national priority. School psychologists perceived school conflicts and dysfunctional families as the primary causes of dropping out that should be national priorities. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Promoting historical contextualisation in classrooms: an observational study

The aim of this observational study is to explore how history teachers promote historical contextualisation in their lessons. Historical contextualisation is the ability to situate phenomena and individuals’ actions in the context of time, historical location, long-term developments, or specific events to give meaning to these phenomena and actions. Using the Framework for Analysing the Teaching of Historical Contextualisation (FAT-HC), five trained raters observed eight history teachers twice. To further analyse the observation scores, the FAT-HC items were divided into eight categories while distinguishing between items that demonstrate historical contextualisation and items focusing on engaging students in historical contextualisation processes. The results indicate that the teachers in the sample did not explicitly promote historical contextualisation in their lessons. No teacher obtained a mean FAT-HC score >2.00 on a four-point scale. The teachers mainly demonstrated historical contextualisation, while engaging students in historical contextualisation processes was observed far less often. The findings can be used to help teachers formulate domain-specific instruction to promote students’ ability to perform historical contextualisation.     

Anatomical societies find new ways to come together in a post-Covid world

The world has been turned upside down by a global health emergency caused by the Covid-19. Given the high contagiousness of the virus and the need to contain its spread, social distancing rules, self-isolation policies, and geographical lockdowns have been enforced globally. Over the pandemic emergency the majority of the planned in-person meetings and congresses of national and international anatomical societies have been postponed or canceled. It is unclear what the future holds, but times of crisis often present possibilities for re-thinking old ways to achieve a more critical approach. It has become increasingly clear that traditional in-person congress formats of scientific societies need to be reevaluated. Over the past year and a half, two types of congressional modalities have been trialed to address the challenge of the pandemic as far as scientific meetings are concerned: the fully virtual congress, in which case the conference program is live streamed to all of the attendees, and the hybrid congress, in which case some of the attendees physically participate at the congress's venue while others interact via a virtual platform. The current study set out to investigate the technical difficulties, social challenges, costs and sustainability, logistics and management issues linked to holding various types of congresses in the post-Covid world. Anatomical societies throughout the world are actively striving to reshape their response to the current global emergency and to uncover new types of conference modalities in the effort to keep scientific exchange alive and flourishing in the post-Covid era.     

The Health Information Literacy Research Project

Objectives:

This research studied hospital administrators'' and hospital-based health care providers'' (collectively, the target group) perceived value of consumer health information resources and of librarians'' roles in promoting health information literacy in their institutions.

Methods:

A web-based needs survey was developed and administered to hospital administrators and health care providers. Multiple health information literacy curricula were developed. One was pilot-tested by nine hospital libraries in the United States and Canada. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to evaluate the curriculum and its impact on the target group.

Results:

A majority of survey respondents believed that providing consumer health information resources was critically important to fulfilling their institutions'' missions and that their hospitals could improve health information literacy by increasing awareness of its impact on patient care and by training staff to become more knowledgeable about health literacy barriers. The study showed that a librarian-taught health information literacy curriculum did raise awareness about the issue among the target group and increased both the use of National Library of Medicine consumer health resources and referrals to librarians for health information literacy support.

Conclusions:

It is hoped that many hospital administrators and health care providers will take the health information literacy curricula and recognize that librarians can educate about the topic and that providers will use related consumer health services and resources.

Highlights

• Health care providers responded positively to a health information literacy curriculum offered by librarians and to related resources and services, namely MedlinePlus and the information referral system known as Information Rx.
• Participation in a curriculum increased health care providers'' knowledge of health information literacy, awareness of available consumer health information, and referral of patients to the library for additional assistance.
• Librarian involvement in health information literacy increased the profession''s visibility and perceived value.

Implications

• Consumer health information services and resources offered by librarians can improve the health information literacy skills of health care providers and their patients.
• Training by librarians can increase knowledge of the importance of health information literacy and usage of MedlinePlus and Information Rxs.
• Hospital-based administrators and health care providers can be champions in support of health information literacy and consumer health information services offered by libraries.

     

Effects of an unsupervised pedometer-based physical activity program on daily steps of adults with moderate to severe asthma: a randomized controlled trial

Supervised exercise has shown benefits for subjects with asthma, but little is known about the effectiveness of unsupervised physical activity on this population. We investigated the effects of a 12-week unsupervised pedometer-based physical activity program on daily steps and on clinical and psychological parameters of adults with asthma. Clinically stable adults with moderate to severe asthma were encouraged to take daily 30-minute walks and were randomized to pedometer and control groups. The pedometer group received pedometers and individualized daily step targets. Changes in daily steps (average of steps taken during six consecutive days), six-minute walk test (6MWT), health-related quality of life, asthma control and anxiety and depression levels were assessed 12 weeks after intervention and 24–28 weeks after randomization. Thirty-seven participants were recruited and 30 completed the intervention. At 12 weeks, the groups differed significantly in daily steps (adjusted average difference, 2488 steps; 95% confidence interval [CI], 803 to 4172; p = 0.005) and in the 6MWT (adjusted average difference, 21.9 m; 95% CI, 6.6 to 37.3; p = 0.006). These differences were not significant 24–28 weeks after randomization. The program was effective in increasing daily steps of adults with moderate to severe asthma 12 weeks after intervention.     

Parents’ perceptions of parent–teacher relationship practices in Dutch primary schools – an exploratory pilot study

This paper shows how parents’ perceptions of parent–teacher relationship practices differ between different types of schools with respect to children’s special needs and the socio-economic status of these children. Using a questionnaire, we compare parents’ views from two special education schools, two at-risk schools serving low SES-children, and two mainstream primary education schools in the southern part of the Netherlands. The theoretical framework is based on Epstein’s Model of Parental Involvement. The results illustrate that parents and teachers in special education and at-risk schools are very much accustomed to ‘two-way communication’, in contrast to mainstream schools, and that this is valued highly by these parents. Furthermore, teachers in special and at-risk schools are more familiar with interacting with parents, involve them more in decision-making and more often co-ordinate homework practice with parents.     

Waves of (Dis)Satisfaction: Effects of the Numerus Clausus system in Portugal

Access to higher education in Portugal is governed by a quota system (numerus clausus). The purpose of this article is to answer two questions: First, how does the numerus clausus system shape the demand for medical studies? Second, how do non-enrolled medical candidates influence the global allocation system and generate waves of dissatisfaction? The results show that students who do not succeed in entering medicine register in other programmes, such as pharmacy, veterinary medicine and dental studies, generating a first wave of dissatisfaction. Because students who are not placed in medicine occupy a large share of the places available in those other programmes, the wave of dissatisfaction propagates, with students being pushed to other programmes, especially biology and biochemistry. This process has also been analysed from a spatial perspective. Apparently, when students are competing to obtain a study place in a programme with prestige and good professional career perspectives such as medicine moving to a more peripheral region becomes more frequent.     

Understanding and Managing Others: The Impact of Social Intelligence upon Social Influence

The present study provided support for the relevance of social intelligence—to social influence. Consistent with but extending past research, recognizing situational influences (i.e., discriminative facility) was associated with effective social interactions. In particular, individuals high in discriminative facility demonstrated greater flexibility when considering influence tactics than individuals low in discriminative facility.     

The Use of Textbooks as a Tool During Collaborative Physics Learning

The study examined how features of student interaction, and the way an individual student contributes to that interaction (his or her participation), relates to the improvement of conceptual understanding within the domain of physics. The study also investigated how textbooks are used during collaborative work and how that use affects the quality of student interaction and outcomes. The participants were 56 students aged 15 or 16. The students worked in dyads on a concept-mapping task that functioned as an introduction for a new course about electricity. A condition in which the students were provided with 2 textbooks was compared with a condition without the availability of textbooks. The use of textbooks had a negative influence on the amount of elaboration and coconstruction in the student interaction. Individual learning outcomes were positively related to the amount of collaborative elaboration in the student interaction.