Evaluation of best practices in the design of online evidence-based practice instructional modules

Objectives:

The research determined to what extent best practices are being followed by freely available online modules aimed at teaching critical thinking and evidence-based practices (EBPs) in health sciences fields.

Methods:

In phase I, an evaluation rubric was created after reviewing the literature. Individual rubric questions were assigned point values and grouped into sections, and the sections weighted. Phase II involved searching Internet platforms to locate online EBP modules, which were screened to determine if they met predetermined criteria for inclusion. Phase III comprised a first evaluation, in which two authors assessed each module, followed by a second evaluation of the top-scoring modules by five representatives from different health sciences units.

Results:

The rubric''s 28 questions were categorized into 4 sections: content, design, interactivity, and usability. After retrieving 170 online modules and closely screening 91, 42 were in the first evaluation and 8 modules were in the second evaluation. Modules in the first evaluation earned, on average, 59% of available points; modules in the second earned an average of 68%. Both evaluations had a moderate level of inter-rater reliability.

Conclusions:

The rubric was effective and reliable in evaluating the modules. Most modules followed best practices for content and usability but not for design and interactivity.

Implications:

By systematically collecting and evaluating instructional modules, the authors found many potentially useful elements for module creation. Also, by reviewing the limitations of the evaluated modules, the authors were able to anticipate and plan ways to overcome potential issues in module design.     

In Plato's Shadow: Curriculum Differentiation and the Comprehensive American High School

This article examines the emergence and persistence of curriculum differentiation in the comprehensive high school. We argue that curriculum differentiation has roots in Plato's Republic, where it is proposed that education (and later work, especially the work of ruling) should be distributed on the basis of ability. The concept of ideology is used here to help explain why the practice of curriculum differentiation has remained a defining—and largely unchallenged—characteristic of the comprehensive high school. The persistence of curriculum differentiation matters because it is a means by which different groups of students are given access to different kinds of knowledge. Not all knowledge is equally valued, and access to certain kinds of this educational good has implications for young persons’ well-being that extend well beyond their formal schooling.     

Westward bound? Dutch education and cultural transfer in the mid-twentieth century

This article discusses the transition from philosophy to psychology as the main source of inspiration for education during the mid-twentieth century in the Netherlands, situated between Germany in the east and the English-speaking world in the west. Claims have been made that educational theory in the Netherlands was dominated by German philosophy before 1945 and subsequently turned westward for inspiration. The transnational transfer of ideas and concepts to the Netherlands is studied using textbooks on childhood and education for teachers-to-be, published between 1925 and 1970, as sources. Did the Dutch indeed turn from the east to the west for inspiration, and if so when and along the lines of which theories? This article shows that the authors of the textbooks did not simply copy theories from abroad, but gave them a reading of their own and selected what they liked. A shift from the east to the west as a source of inspiration did not occur before the 1970s. Developmentalism, personalism, phenomenology, characterology and individual psychology were all imported from German-speaking countries. It is true that some of these theories were brought to the west as their founders fled Nazism, but that does not undo their continental European origins.     

First-graders’ knowledge of multiplicative reasoning before formal instruction in this domain

Our study investigated children’s knowledge of multiplicative reasoning (multiplication and division) at the end of Grade 1, just before the start of formal instruction on multiplicative reasoning in Grade 2. A large sample of children (N = 1176) was assessed in a relatively formal test setting, using an online test with 28 multiplicative problems of different types. On average, the children correctly answered more than half (58%) of the problems, including several bare number problems. This indicates that before formal instruction on multiplicative reasoning, children already have a considerable amount of knowledge in this domain, which teachers can build on when teaching them formal multiplication and division. Using analysis of variance and cross-classified multilevel regression analysis, we identified several predictors of children’s pre-instructional multiplicative knowledge. With respect to the characteristics of the multiplicative problems, we found that the problems were easiest to solve when they included a picture involving countable objects, and when the multiplicative situation was of the equal groups semantic structure (e.g., 3 boxes of 4 cookies). Regarding student characteristics, pre-instructional multiplicative knowledge was higher for children with higher-educated parents. Finally, the mathematics textbook used in school appeared to have influenced children’s pre-instructional multiplicative knowledge.     

Narrowmobilization and Tea Party Activism: A Study of Right-Leaning Alternative Media

Past research concerning the theoretical framework of Resistance Performance (RP) has been based on observations of liberal organizations and activists. In the following essay, we engage in a qualitative content analysis of alternative media utilized by conservative “Tea Party” activists to build on the concept of RP. Overall, we discovered that the dominant theme found in much of the content focuses on “purity,” which is considerably different from past RP research that found broad themes of “human rights,” “democracy,” “be the media,” and “principles of unity” embedded within liberal alternative media content. We conclude that the theme of “purity” gives rise to narrowmobilization, which constructs very focused protest communities within right-leaning politics.     

Partnering with Undergraduate Students to Conduct Library Focus Groups

Experiential learning is becoming an increasingly important part of the university experience. Academic libraries have long provided practicum opportunities for library and information science students. To date, however, few libraries have documented experiential learning partnerships with social science students. Librarians at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) partnered with the university's anthropology department in an experiential learning opportunity. Undergraduate students conducted focus groups to discover how MTSU students complete research assignments and what role the library plays in the process. This article describes the collaboration, and it discusses the benefits and drawbacks of partnering with undergraduate student researchers.     

Making the Critical Appraisal for Summaries of Evidence (CASE) for evidence-based medicine (EBM): critical appraisal of summaries of evidence

Objectives:

Standards for evaluating evidence-based medicine (EBM) point-of-care (POC) summaries of research are lacking. The authors developed a “Critical Appraisal for Summaries of Evidence” (CASE) worksheet to help assess the evidence in these tools. The authors then evaluated the reliability of the worksheet.

Methods:

The CASE worksheet was developed with 10 questions covering specificity, authorship, reviewers, methods, grading, clarity, citations, currency, bias, and relevancy. Two reviewers independently assessed a random selection of 384 EBM POC summaries using the worksheet. The responses of the raters were then compared using a kappa score.

Results:

The kappa statistic demonstrated an overall moderate agreement (κ = 0.44) between the reviewers using the CASE worksheet for the 384 summaries. The 3 categories of evaluation questions in which the reviewers disagreed most often were citations (κ =  0), bias (κ = 0.11), and currency (κ = −0.18).

Conclusions:

The CASE worksheet provided an effective checklist for critically analyzing a treatment summary. While the reviewers agreed on worksheet responses for most questions, variation occurred in how the raters navigated the tool and interpreted some of the questions. Further validation of the form by other groups of users should be investigated.

Highlights

• Few critical appraisal tools have been evaluated with inter-rater reliability testing.
• The ways that users of evidence-based medicine (EBM) point-of-care (POC) tools interpret how to appraise an evidence summary—particularly when defining the grading of evidence, currency, and bias—may vary even when a standard evaluation sheet is used.
• The Critical Appraisal for Summaries of Evidence (CASE) worksheet had a moderate level of inter-rater reliability, similar to previous evaluative studies of critical appraisals tools.

Implications

• Medical librarians can develop tools useful for librarians, students, and clinicians to guide them in appraising clinical evidence summaries.
• The CASE worksheet can be a valuable tool to consider the quality of individual evidence summaries and to see patterns of overall quality in EBM POC tools.