Real-time,evidence-based medicine instruction: a randomized controlled trial in a neonatal intensive care unit

Purpose: The study assesses potential for improving residents'' evidence-based medicine searching skills in MEDLINE through real-time librarian instruction.Subjects: Ten residents on a rotation in a neonatal intensive care unit participated.Methodology: Residents were randomized into an instruction and a non-instruction group. Residents generated questions from rounds and searched MEDLINE for answers. Data were collected through observation, search strategy analysis, and surveys. Librarians observed searches and collected data on questions, searching skills, search problems, and the test group''s instruction topics. Participants performed standardized searches before, after, and six-months after intervention and were scored using a search strategy analysis tool (1 representing highest score and 5 representing lowest score). Residents completed pre- and post-intervention surveys to measure opinions about MEDLINE and search satisfaction.Results: Post-intervention, the test group formulated better questions, used limits more effectively, and reported greater confidence in using MEDLINE. The control group expressed less satisfaction with retrieval and demonstrated more errors when limiting. The test and control groups had the following average search scores respectively: 3.0 and 3.5 (pre-intervention), 3.3 and 3.4 (post-intervention), and 2.0 and 3.8 (six-month post-intervention).Conclusion: Data suggest that measurable learning outcomes were achieved. Residents receiving instruction improved and retained searching skills six-months after intervention.     

Scholarly reviewing and the role of choice in the postpublication review process

Publishers of books for the library and scholarly markets use prepublication reviews to reduce the risk of publishing a book that does not meet scholarly standards or is not economically justifiable. Book purchasers use postpublication reviews to reduce the risk of spending their budgets unwisely. Despite problems associated with both sorts of review, they are integral to the processes of scholarly communication and academic career advancement. The role and policies ofChoice, a book review journal directed toward scholars and librarians of undergraduate-level collections, are discussed in detail.     

Personal Constructs and Attribution for Academic Success and Failure in Dyslexia

Neil Humphrey published a previous article, on self–esteem and dyslexia, in BJSE . This paper, jointly authored by Dr Humphrey, recently appointed as a lecturer in the psychology of education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manchester, and Dr Patricia M. Mullins, senior lecturer in special educational needs at Liverpool John Moores University and the supervisor of Neil Humphrey's PhD thesis, explores the relationships between dyslexia and the ways in which pupils perceive themselves as learners. Making extensive links with other relevant research, the authors conclude by suggesting that 'the problems that children with dyslexia encounter have negative consequences for their self–development'. Humphrey and Mullins also propose that, while further research is needed, we already know enough about how to make schools more 'dyslexia friendly' to begin to tackle these difficulties at an early stage in children's education.     

Economic aspects of post-secondary schooling decisions

This study analyzes post-secondary schooling decisions of high-school graduates using a human-capital framework. Unlike most studies, which consider only college or no school, the current analysis considers the alternative of post-secondary occupational schools as well as four-year and two-year colleges. The model is tested using a multinomial logistic approach on state aggregated data for 1976. Cross-price elasticities reveal that post-secondary occupational schooling is a relevant substitute investment for college. Own-price elasticities have the expected negative sign and income is not found to be a significant determinant of post-secondary-school attendance.