Financing education for children affected by conflict: Lessons from Save the Children’s Rewrite the Future campaign

In recent years, Save the Children, a non-governmental organization, prioritized education for children affected by conflict through its Rewrite the Future Campaign. By significantly scaling up the resources allocated to programmes in conflict-affected countries, the organization has grown its education programmes in these contexts. Thus it has enabled 1.3 million more children to have access to education and improved the quality of education for more than 10 million. The campaign also had an international impact by analysing and advocating for increases in aid flows to conflict-affected countries. This has made the international community more aware of the need for access to education for children affected by conflict and more willing to ensure it. The article highlights the achievements of Save the Children UK, and the challenges it faces, by looking at funding volumes and sources of funding for country programme activities, along with its international influence on the global funding for countries affected by conflict.     

Principal component analysis using LISREL 8

The object of this article is to demonstrate that the widely disseminated program LISREL 8 can be used to carry out principal component analyses. LISREL 8 offers a number of useful possibilities including multigroup principal component analysis and principal component regression. Several illustrative analyses are reported.     

Measurement Bias in Multilevel Data

Measurement bias can be detected using structural equation modeling (SEM), by testing measurement invariance with multigroup factor analysis (Jöreskog, 1971;Meredith, 1993;Sörbom, 1974) MIMIC modeling (Muthén, 1989) or restricted factor analysis (Oort, 1992,1998). In educational research, data often have a nested, multilevel structure, for example when data are collected from children in classrooms. Multilevel structures might complicate measurement bias research. In 2-level data, the potentially “biasing trait” or “violator” can be a Level 1 variable (e.g., pupil sex), or a Level 2 variable (e.g., teacher sex). One can also test measurement invariance with respect to the clustering variable (e.g., classroom). This article provides a stepwise approach for the detection of measurement bias with respect to these 3 types of violators. This approach works from Level 1 upward, so the final model accounts for all bias and substantive findings at both levels. The 5 proposed steps are illustrated with data of teacher–child relationships.     

A Test for Cluster Bias: Detecting Violations of Measurement Invariance Across Clusters in Multilevel Data

We present a test for cluster bias, which can be used to detect violations of measurement invariance across clusters in 2-level data. We show how measurement invariance assumptions across clusters imply measurement invariance across levels in a 2-level factor model. Cluster bias is investigated by testing whether the within-level factor loadings are equal to the between-level factor loadings, and whether the between-level residual variances are zero. The test is illustrated with an example from school research. In a simulation study, we show that the cluster bias test has sufficient power, and the proportions of false positives are close to the chosen levels of significance.     

Developing Relationships Between Sexual Health Clinics and Schools: More than clinic nurses doing sex education sessions?

Linking schools with sexual health clinics facilitates clinic access by young people. This paper documents the process of developing one such link and its impact on clinic use. Multiple data collection strategies were used to document a developing school/clinic relationship and constant comparative analysis was used to develop hypotheses from the data as follows: ” A few teachers have a good knowledge of local sexual health services and extensive experience of referring to them. ” Most tutors (despite their pastoral role) have little knowledge of local sexual health services and no experience of referring to them. ” Organising work in the school is difficult because teachers have little non-teaching time and a variable commitment to sex and relationship education. ” The link between the clinic and the school has facilitated access to the clinic by school pupils. ” Outreach work is more effective when young people meet the outreach worker repeatedly in different settings. Each hypothesis is presented with its supporting data. This information is consistent with what is known about the benefits of school/clinic links and adds to what is known about the process of developing and maintaining such links.     

Assessment of Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences: A Meeting Report

The Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences Network (CUREnet) was initiated in 2012 with funding from the National Science Foundation program for Research Coordination Networks in Undergraduate Biology Education. CUREnet aims to address topics, problems, and opportunities inherent to integrating research experiences into undergraduate courses. During CUREnet meetings and discussions, it became apparent that there is need for a clear definition of what constitutes a CURE and systematic exploration of what makes CUREs meaningful in terms of student learning. Thus, we assembled a small working group of people with expertise in CURE instruction and assessment to: 1) draft an operational definition of a CURE, with the aim of defining what makes a laboratory course or project a “research experience”; 2) summarize research on CUREs, as well as findings from studies of undergraduate research internships that would be useful for thinking about how students are influenced by participating in CUREs; and 3) identify areas of greatest need with respect to CURE assessment, and directions for future research on and evaluation of CUREs. This report summarizes the outcomes and recommendations of this meeting.

Students can work with the same data at the same time and with the same tools as research scientists.iPlant Education, Outreach & Training Group (2008, personal communication)

     

Nutritional, lifestyle, and weight control practices of professional jockeys

In this study, we describe diet and lifestyle practices of professional jockeys. Participants completed a 59-item nutrition, lifestyle, and health questionnaire (n = 21) and a 7-day estimated food diary (n = 18). Acute weight loss strategies included the use of saunas (86%), exercising to induce sweating (81%), and restricted energy intake (71%). Of the smokers (38%), 56% used smoking to control weight. Most (86%) jockeys reported attaining a 2-kg weight loss for racing (if required) 24-48 h before or on the designated race-day. Mean daily energy intake (1803 ± 564 kcal) was low and appeared to provide an insufficient availability of energy for sustainment of usual daily and metabolic processes. Carbohydrate intake (3.7 ± 1.3 g · kg?1) was below recommendations for athletes. A substantial proportion of jockeys failed to meet the estimated average requirement and lower threshold intake for a number of micronutrients. Jockeys consumed well below (0-2) the recommended five daily servings of fruit and vegetables set by the World Health Organization. Pressures of the jockey lifestyle and rigid weight limits appear to encourage unhealthy weight management practices in this group and may risk long term-health.     

Searching MEDLINE for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health literature: questionable sensitivity

Objective

The extent to which existing and future research can impact on reducing health disparities relates not only to the evidence available, but the ability to find that evidence. Our objective is to quantify experts' literature searching effectiveness with respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's health.

Methods

Nine journals were dual reviewed, and a ‘gold standard’ set of relevant articles was identified. Health librarians (n = 25) completed a standardised searching task using OVID MEDLINE, and results were compared with the gold standard. Sensitivity, specificity and precision rates were calculated.

Results

The gold standard comprised 136 of 1469 (9.3%) records from nine journals. Searches achieved a mean sensitivity of 53.2% (median = 64.7%, range 0.0–93.4%), specificity of 97.4% (median = 99.4%, range 52.6–100%) and precision of 83.3% (median = 91.0%, range 16.7–100%). Self‐estimates of search sensitivity (post hoc) were significantly higher than observed (M = 78.9%, t = 4.812, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

Even expert searchers struggle to find the relevant peer‐reviewed literature in MEDLINE.

Implications

A search filter may improve searching effectiveness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health literature. Assessment of health librarians' searching competencies warrants further professional debate and consideration.     

The psychological contract of science students: social exchange with universities and university staff from the students' perspective

Considerable research has been undertaken involving the student experience and depicting undergraduate students as consumers of education. This construction of the relationship between students and universities is based primarily on notions of economic exchange. In this paper, using the construct of the psychological contract, we show that social exchanges can also occur. In a study sponsored by the leaders of a university's science faculty, 10 student-researchers recorded their experience of being a science undergraduate student using an innovative video data collection method called VideoVoices. We present a case study using the data recorded by one student-researcher that shows that students can have more complex conceptions of their relationships than that of passive consumer with respect to their reciprocal obligations to their university and lecturers. Psychological contract theory has been widely used in management and organisation studies literature, but the use of this theory in the context of higher education is much sparser. We argue that psychological contract theory, besides encouraging a more useful and complex view of students at university, has the potential to suggest future research directions and strategies to improve relationships between students and universities.