Impact of end-user search training on pharmacy students: a four-year follow-up study.

The Alfred Taubman Medical Library at the University of Michigan has offered instruction in online literature searching to third-year pharmacy students as a component of the course "Drug Information and Scientific Literature Evaluation" since 1983. In the spring of 1989, a follow-up study was conducted to assess the impact of instruction on four classes of graduates. Of a pool of 151 graduates, 90 (60%) responded to a mailed questionnaire on their use of information and computerized literature searching. The respondents were divided into four subgroups: end-user searchers, users of intermediaries, end users who used intermediaries, and those who did not use computerized literature search systems. Seventy-two percent of the respondents used some type of computerized literature searching, and 42% performed their own searches. The four subgroups differed in general computer use, familiarity with MEDLINE search terminology, information use, reasons for using or not using literature searching, and characteristics of searches (i.e., type, time frame, amount, and frequency). Training in end-user search systems appears to have had an impact on the continued use of computerized literature searching several years after the formal educational program.     

Gendered perspectives: A focus-group study of how undergraduate women negotiate their career aspirations

This paper presents results from a study of the career decision making of undergraduate women. Drawing on focus-group interviews with women (N 85) in their first year of full-time study at a large Canadian university, the discussion focuses on how ideas about balancing family and career commitments and interpretations of the university environment influence career choices. Two important observations are supported by the data. The first is that the educational and career options of female undergraduates are still constrained by traditional conceptions of women's responsibilities for household management and child rearing- elements of domestic ideology that they often find difficult to acknowledge. Second, women continue to encounter the university as a gendered site of learning; they are confronted by an informal culture that both marginalizes them and reinforces their perceptions that seeking vocational equality entails high risks.     

Improving the compositions of students with learning disabilities using a strategy involving product and process goal setting.

This study was conducted to determine if a planning and writing strategy would improve the essay writing of students with learning disabilities. Four participants were taught a strategy designed to facilitate the setting of product and process goals, generation and organization of notes, continued planning during writing, and evaluation of goal attainment. Training effects were investigated using a multiple probe design across subjects. Strategy instruction had a positive effect on students' essay writing performance and knowledge of the writing process, and effects were maintained over time.     

Virology Experts in the Boundary Zone Between Science,Policy and the Public: A Biographical Analysis

This article aims to open up the biographical black box of three experts working in the boundary zone between science, policy and public debate. A biographical-narrative approach is used to analyse the roles played by the virologists Albert Osterhaus, Roel Coutinho and Jaap Goudsmit in policy and public debate. These figures were among the few leading virologists visibly active in the Netherlands during the revival of infectious diseases in the 1980s. Osterhaus and Coutinho in particular are still the key figures today, as demonstrated during the outbreak of novel influenza A (H1N1). This article studies the various political and communicative challenges and dilemmas encountered by these three virologists, and discusses the way in which, strategically or not, they handled those challenges and dilemmas during the various stages of the field’s recent history. Important in this respect is their pursuit of a public role that is both effective and credible. We will conclude with a reflection on the H1N1 pandemic, and the historical and biographical ties between emerging governance arrangements and the experts involved in the development of such arrangements.     

Effects of an Early Family Intervention on Children's Memory: The Mediating Effects of Cortisol Levels

Developmental psychologists have long been concerned with the ways that early adversity influences children's long-term outcomes. In the current study, activity of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis of medically at-risk (e.g., preterm) infants was measured as a result of maternal participation in a novel cognitively based home visitation program (versus a Healthy Start home visitation program). Maternal participation in the cognitive intervention predicted lower basal cortisol levels among infants—with reduced levels of maternal avoidance/withdrawal serving as a mediator of this relation. Lower cortisol levels in infancy, in turn, predicted higher verbal short-term memory (STM) at age 3. STM represents a cognitive ability that has importance for children's later educational outcomes. Findings provide experimental evidence concerning the pathway by which an early intervention may produce hormonal changes that can, in turn, influence children's learning outcomes.