Data Handling in Primary Mathematics Schemes

The authors of this article are members of a subcommittee of the Mathematical Association's Teaching Committee. The subcommittee's brief is to prepare a pack of materials for primary school teachers to help them to teach Data Handling in the National Curriculum at Key Stages 1 and 2. This report is based on a review of existing mathematics schemes undertaken as part of the subcommittee's work.     

Designing a search strategy to identify and retrieve articles onevidence-based health care using MEDLINE

Thepractice of evidence-based health care requires that information on methodology be identifiedfrom databases such as MEDLINE. Up until this year there have been no designated medicalsubject headings (MeSH) for evidence-based health care. ‘EVIDENCE-BASEDMEDICINE’ appears as a MeSH term from 1997. The absence of designated MeSH forthis concept prior to 1997 provides a challenge to the searcher. This paper describes the creationof a MEDLINE search strategy to retrieve articles on the methods of evidence-based health carepublished prior to the introduction of the new term, where an optimal combination of free-textand MeSH terms is required to identify relevant material. The study examines both free-text andsubject heading searching and attempts an optimal balance of sensitivity and specificity. It beginsby examining separate free-text and subject heading searches. Sensitivity of the subject headingsearch was 33% and specificity 80%, while the free-text search produced asensitivity of 50% and a specificity of 67%. The final strategy, combining bothapproaches, was more successful with sensitivity reaching between 82 and 90% andspecificity 83%. It is therefore possible to devise a search strategy to retrieve articles on themethods of evidence-based health care with relatively successful rates of sensitivity andspecificity. The limitations of MEDLINE, however, necessitate the use of additional approachesin identifying articles on the methods of evidence-based health care.     

Direct and indirect measures of writing for nonlearning disabled and learning disabled college students

Direct and indirect measures were used to compare the written language abilities of three groups of college students: two with learning disabilities and one without learning disabilities. Main effects were found for group, but not gender. Differences between nonlearning disabled students (NLD) and those with learning disabilities (LD) in writing were evident on both types of measures. Performance by LD students with disabilities in an area other than writing differed depending on the type of measure and often was no different from either of the other two groups. The combined use of direct and indirect measures appeared most effective for examining the complexities of writing produced by all groups.