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This quasi-experimental study investigates the effects of using an electronic development portfolio (PERFLECT) with teacher-guided student self-coaching on the development of students' self-directed learning skills and motivation. In a 12-week program in senior vocational education, students in the PERFLECT group used the portfolio to help self-direct their learning, while the REGULAR group followed the regular educational program. Students in the PERFLECT group reported higher levels of self-direction, intrinsic goal orientation, and self-efficacy than students in the REGULAR group. Using an electronic development portfolio with a student self-coaching protocol constitutes a promising approach to support students' self-directed learning skills and motivation.

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) model with an assessment rubric on the students’ critical thinking development in learning financial accounting. This quasi-experimental study conducted at a university in Riau, Sumatra, Indonesia involved 41 second-year students. They were divided into two groups: 22 students in the experimental group, 19 students in the control group. Pre-test and post-test were used to examine the effectiveness level. The data analysis techniques included descriptive statistical test and MannWhitney Test. The results showed that the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test in the experimental group were 47 and 60 respectively. The mean scores of the pretest and post-test in the control group were 54 and 50 respectively. Moreover, the Mann-Whitney Test results showed that the value of Sig. (2-tailed)> alpha, that was 0.114> 0.05, indicating that Ho was accepted, and Ha was rejected. It indicates that albeit not significantly, the use of assessment rubric in the PBL model could increase the students’ learning outcomes in the experimental group as compared with the students in the control group using PBL model only. It could improve the students’ critical thinking skills. The limitations of the study and implications to future inquiries are also presented

Background: Test anxiety (TA) can hinder students’ academic achievement and cause them educational decline and psychological problems. Objective: The effect of inhalation aromatherapy with lavender essential oil on nursing students’ test anxiety was investigated. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study was conducted on 33 nursing students who had taken the Community Health Nursing II course and were going to take its final exam. Before taking the exam of the course, the students were allocated to the aromatherapy (n = 16) and the control groups (n = 17). For the aromatherapy group, ten drops of lavender essential oil was added to one liter of water and the solution was distributed in the room space for fifteen minutes by using a humidifier. However, the humidifier which was used for the control group included of only pure water without any essential oil. The students’ test anxiety was measured both before and after the study intervention by employing the Test Anxiety Inventory. Results: There was no significant difference between the study groups regarding the participating students’ demographic characteristics as well as the pretest and the posttest values of test anxiety. However, within-group comparisons indicated that in the aromatherapy group, the posttest value of test anxiety was significantly lower than the pretest value. Conclusions: The findings indicated that inhalation aromatherapy with lavender essential oil had no positive effects on students’ test anxiety. However, as the level of test anxiety in the aromatherapy group decreased significantly after the intervention and the students in this group reported that aromatherapy was pleasant to them. Aromatherapy is probably insignificant in alleviating acute or state anxieties.

This study attempted to develop a literature-informed discourse-based instructional approach and evaluated its effects on eleventh-grade students’ conceptual and procedural understandings in probability and statistics. To this end, a quasi-experimental study that involved two control groups and one experimental group was used. One-way analysis of variance of the baseline data showed that the three groups were comparable at the start of the experiment. After the intervention, the Kruskal-Wallis test analysis performed on the posttest data showed significant differences in conceptual understanding and procedural understanding. Pairwise comparisons of the three groups using Dunn’s test as post-hoc analysis showed that students who underwent discourse-based instruction demonstrated a better understanding of probability and statistics compared to those students who received traditional instruction. The analysis of survey data about students’ learning mathematics through discourse provided an insight into how the intervention strategy helped students improve their learning. Overall, the main finding of the study is that discourse-based instruction enables students to develop a better understanding of mathematical topics when appropriately orchestrated interactive discourse practices occur. The study contributes a discourse-based instructional design framework and empirical evidence to the field of knowledge of teaching approaches. The findings may motivate educators to examine students’ textbooks for mathematical discourse considerations. A possible recommendation for future research would be conducting longitudinal studies to explore the relations between students’ conceptual understanding and procedural understanding in a specific domain of mathematics and to examine how discourse-based instruction affects the relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge.

This study aims to provide practice-oriented evidence regarding the implementation of healthcare data analytics and its impact on the use of new data analytics tools and relevant analytical skills improvement. A quasi-experimental pre-test/post-test controlled study was conducted in a large medical system in the eastern United States. Healthcare data analytics training program participants (N = 21) and a comparison group comprising trainee-identified peers completing comparable work (N = 27) were compared at the start of training and one year later. Results showed that both trainees and peers demonstrated improved healthcare data analytics skills over time, related to concomitant increases in their healthcare data analytics-related learning and performance goals. This study suggests that healthcare organizations aiming at successfully implementing a new data analytics infrastructure should provide well-designed training that enables trainees to develop specific learning and performance goals as well as improve relevant skills and ability to use new tools.

The aim of the study was to determine the level of knowledge of registered nurses about palliative care and to determine the effect of educational intervention on this level of knowledge in Turkey. The study was a quasi-experimental study and consists of 136 nurses. The study was conducted between April and June 2019 in a university hospital in Malatya, Turkey. Nurse are educated on the definition, history, and philosophy of palliative care, the responsibilities of palliative care nurses, symptom management, and end of life care. The education was applied in five sessions. Each session took approximately 40 min and sessions were conducted once a week. Data were collected before and after the education via nurse identification form developed by the research team and the Palliative Care Knowledge Test. It was determined that the nurses received 8.9 +/- 1.1 out of 20 points before and 17.5 +/- 1.9 points after the education. There was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of nurses before and after training (p < 0.001). It was found that educational intervention has a large effect (Cohen's d = 5.540) on nurses' knowledge about palliative care. It was determined that educational intervention was an effective way to improve nurses' knowledge about palliative care.

Background: Emotional intelligence (EI) has often been linked to improvements in professional performance. Indeed, generic competencies related to EI have been included in university curricula. However, learning EI involves significant time and effort on the part of students, and this may hinder the acquisition of specific content for each degree. In this study, an intervention to develop EI in higher education students is described and evaluated. Methods: The intervention consisted of eight group sessions performed in a regular course aiming to increase EI. The sessions included strategies and training on perceiving and understanding one’s own emotions and others’ emotions, identifying and understanding the impact one’s own feelings in adopting decisions, expressing one’s own emotions and the stress experienced, and managing both one’s own emotions and emotions of others. Participants were 192 students studying for a Master of Primary Education degree. A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was adopted. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated using multi-level analyses. Results: The results showed a significant improvement in the EI of students in the experimental group compared with the control group. Conclusions: This research demonstrates that it is possible to develop EI in higher education students, without hindering the acquisition of specific content competencies and, therefore, without interfering with their academic performance and without overburdening students with work outside the classroom. Trial registration: The experiment has been registered in the Initial Deposit of the Spanish Center for Sociological Research (CIS). 7/6/2015. http://www.cis.es/cis/opencms/ES/index.html. This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under Grant number EDU2015-64562-R.

The aim of this study is to find out the effectiveness of Booktrack in teaching reading comprehension on the tenth grade students of a senior high school in Semarang. In order to achieve the objective of this research, the writer designed a quasi-experimental study. The subject of this study was 64 students of the tenth grade of a senior high school in Semarang; 32 students acted as the experimental group to be taught reading comprehension by using Booktrack App and the other 32 students as the control group to be taught reading comprehension by using regular medium. The results of the study showed that the score of experimental group was higher than control group. Based on the results, it can be concluded that Booktrack App is effective as a medium in teaching reading comprehension.

Diario della Salute [My Health Diary] is a school-based program designed to enhance the subjective well-being and health of 12- to 13-year-old students. We hypothesized that providing students with the social and emotional skills to fulfill their potential and deal with common developmental tasks of adolescence (e.g., onset of puberty, identity development, increased responsibilities and academic demands) would result in improved well-being and health. The program comprises five standardized interactive lessons concerning common psychosocial and health issues in adolescence, and two narrative booklets addressed to both students and their parents. We evaluated the effectiveness of the program in terms of the students' subjective well-being, aggressive behavior, and health behavior. Using a quasi-experimental study design, schools in the intervention group implemented the full program and those in the comparison group received their regular curriculum. We administered measures of the study's objectives both before and after program implementation. Statistical analyses accounted for within-school clustering, potential socioeconomic and demographic confounding, and pre-implementation levels of these measures. We sampled 62 schools and allocated 2630 students to either an intervention or comparison group. Sociodemographic characteristics and baseline outcomes were balanced across study groups. Unexpectedly, respondents in the intervention group had 0.38 greater mean adjusted score of the WHO/Europe Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children Symptom Checklist instrument than respondents in the comparison group, indicating a reduction in subjective well-being. We did not observe any program effects on aggressive and health behaviors. The apparent reduction in subjective well-being reflected by an increased perception of psychosomatic complaints is suggestive of either increased emotional competence or, potentially, iatrogenic program effects. While greater emotional competence is positively associated with well-being over the course of life, the program in its present form should not be disseminated due to the possibility of adverse unintended effects.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of electronic information resources to solve cultural translation problems at different stages of acquisition of the translator’s cultural competence. Design/methodology/approach A process and product-oriented, cross-sectional, quasi-experimental study was conducted with 38 students with German as a second foreign language from the four years of the Bachelor’s degree in Translation and Interpreting at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and ten professional translators. Findings Translation students use a wider variety of resources, perform more queries and spend more time on queries than translators when solving cultural translation problems. The students’ information-seeking process is generally less efficient than that of the translators. Training has little impact on the students’ use of electronic information resources for this specific purpose, since all students use them similarly regardless of the year they are in. Research limitations/implications The study has been conducted with a small sample and only one language pair from a single pedagogical context. The tendencies observed cannot be generalised to the whole population of translation students. Practical implications This paper has implications for translator training, as it encourages the development of efficient information-seeking processes for the resolution of cultural translation problems. Originality/value Unlike other studies, this paper focusses on a specific translation problem type. It provides information related to the students’ information-seeking strategies for the resolution of cultural translation problems, which can be useful for translation training.

Background/Objectives: This paper aimed to validate the Spanish version of scores of the Visual Analogue Scale for Anxiety-Revised (VAA-R) in child population, and to verify the existence of anxiety profiles and to relate them to school refusal. Method: The sample was made up of 911 Spanish students between 8 and 12 years old (M = 9.61, SD = 1.23). The measures used were the VAA-R and the School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised for Children (SRAS-R-C). Results: Confirmatory factorial analysis supported the three-dimensional VAA-R structure: Anticipatory Anxiety (AA), School-based performance Anxiety (SA) and Generalized Anxiety (GA). The VAA-R has an adequate reliability and structural invariance across sex and age. No latent mean differences were found across sex, but did occur through age in AA and GA factors. Cluster analysis identified four child anxiety profiles: High Anxiety, High Anxiety School-type, Low Anxiety, and Moderate Anxiety, which differed significantly in all dimensions of school refusal. Conclusions: These findings may be useful for the assessment and treatment of anxious symptoms originated at school. Antecedentes/objetivos: Este trabajo tuvo como objetivo validar la versión española de las puntuaciones de la Visual Analogue Scale for Anxiety-Revised (VAA-R) en población infantil, y comprobar la existencia de perfiles de ansiedad y relacionarlos con el rechazo escolar. Método: La muestra estuvo conformada por 911 alumnos españoles entre 8 y 12 años (M = 9,61; DT = 1,23). Las medidas usadas fueron la VAA-R y la School Refusal Assessment Scale-Revised for Children (SRAS-R-C). Resultados: El análisis factorial confirmatorio apoyó la estructura tridimensional de la VAA-R: Ansiedad Anticipatoria (AA), Ansiedad de ejecución en la Escuela (AE) y Ansiedad Generalizada (AG). La VAA-R posee una adecuada fiabilidad e invarianza estructural en función del sexo y de la edad. No se encontraron diferencias de medias latentes en función del sexo, pero sí a través de la edad en los factores AA y AG. Los análisis de conglomerados identificaron cuatro perfiles de ansiedad infantil: Alta Ansiedad, Alta Ansiedad de tipo Escolar, Baja Ansiedad y Moderada Ansiedad, que difirieron significativamente en todas las dimensiones de rechazo escolar. Conclusiones: Estos hallazgos pueden resultar útiles para la evaluación y el tratamiento de síntomas ansiosos originados en la escuela. This study was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation [EDU2012-35124], the University of Alicante [GRE16-07], and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport [FPU16-01386].

The goal of the present study is to describe the implementation of two Evidence-based treatments (EBT) for adolescent Cannabis Use Disorders (CUD) in the Spanish Public Health System, and its main clinical outcomes. Adolescent Community Reinforcement Approach (A-CRA) and Contingency Management (CM) were chosen as the most efficacious treatment programs for this population. A total of 26 adolescent cannabis users entered the study (91.7% male; age = 16.50) at two outpatient clinical facilities in Spain. A quasi-experimental design was utilized, with one group receiving A-CRA only and the other A-CRA + CM. Implementation of both EBTs resulted feasible, with positive clinical outcomes. Results indicated that A-CRA has positive retention (81.3%) and abstinence rates (68.8%). Results for the group receiving A-CRA + CM were not significantly better than A-CRA in retention (100%) or abstinence (75.5%), although sample is too small to establish firm conclusions. Cannabis-related problems and depressive symptomatology also decreased during treatment. Several limitations prevent us from determining the clinical efficacy of A-CRA in this study. The process of translating EBT's to clinical contexts presented with many difficulties that need to be overcome. Recommendations are made for further attempts to implement EBTs in these contexts.

Background: Providing care in the hospital has become more complex and specialized. In order to keep up with the demand of ever increasing knowledge about evidence based practice, patient care providers are encouraged to read, understand, and implement the current literature. One strategy to update knowledge of current evidence is participation in a journal club. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to test the following hypothesis: Participation in a unit-based journal club will improve perspectives about evidence-based practice as evidenced by an increase in scores on the EBP Belief Scale. Design: A quasi-experimental study was conducted with pre-post comparison using a survey of EBP beliefs. Methods: Conducted on an ortho/trauma acute care unit of an academic medical center in the South Eastern United States, the study included a pre-survey, 4 months of in person journal club meetings, and a post-survey to evaluate changes. Nine participants completed the pre and post survey. Results: A statistically significant improvement was found between pre and post scores (t=3.57, df=8, p=0.0007) on the EBP Belief Scale following participation in this monthly journal club. Conclusions: Participation in this monthly journal club significantly improved the nurses’ beliefs in evidence based practice. Instituting journal club meetings on a unit can increase nurses’ beliefs in evidence based practice and therefore may improve care for patients.

Background Venous thromboembolism (VTE) causes morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients, and regulators and payors are encouraging the use of systems to prevent them. Here, we examine the effect of a computerized clinical decision support (CDS) intervention implemented across a multi-hospital academic health system on VTE prophylaxis and events. Methods The study included 223,062 inpatients admitted between April 2007 and May 2010, and used administrative and clinical data. The intervention was integrated into a commercial electronic health record (EHR) in an admission orderset used for all admissions. Three time periods were examined: baseline (period 1), and the time after implementation of the first CDS intervention (period 2) and a second iteration (period 3). Providers were prompted to accept or decline prophylaxis based on patient risk. Time series analyses examined the impact of the intervention on VTE prophylaxis during time periods two and three compared to baseline, and a simple pre-post design examined impact on VTE events and bleeds secondary to anticoagulation. VTE prophylaxis and events were also examined in a prespecified surgical subset of our population meeting the public reporting criteria defined by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Indicator (PSI). Results Unadjusted analyses suggested that “recommended”, “any”, and “pharmacologic” prophylaxis increased from baseline to the last study period (27.1% to 51.9%, 56.7% to 78.1%, and 42.0% to 54.4% respectively; p Conclusions The CDS intervention was associated with an increase in “recommended” and “any” VTE prophylaxis across the multi-hospital academic health system. The intervention was also associated with increased VTE rates in the overall study population, but a subanalysis using only admissions with appropriate POA documentation suggested no change in VTE rates, and a prespecified analysis of a surgical subset of our sample as defined by the AHRQ PSI for public reporting purposes suggested reduced VTE. This intervention was created in a commonly used commercial EHR and is scalable across institutions with similar systems.

Background Health promotion is a key component for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD). This study evaluated the impact of healthy lifestyle promotion campaigns on CVD risk factors (CVDRF) in the general population in the context of a community-based programme on hypertension management. Methods A quasi-experimental intervention study was carried out in two rural communes of Vietnam from 2006 to 2009. In the intervention commune, a hypertensive-targeted management programme integrated with a community-targeted health promotion was initiated, while no new programme, apart from conventional healthcare services, was provided in the reference commune. Health promotion campaigns focused on smoking cessation, reducing alcohol consumption, encouraging physical activity and reducing salty diets. Repeated cross-sectional surveys in local adult population aged 25 years and over were undertaken to assess changes in blood pressure (BP) and behavioural CVDRFs (smoking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity and salty diet) in both communes before and after the 3-year intervention. Results Overall 4,650 adults above 25 years old were surveyed, in four randomly independent samples covering both communes at baseline and after the 3-year intervention. Although physical inactivity and obesity increased over time in the intervention commune, there was a significant reduction in systolic and diastolic BP (3.3 and 4.7 mmHg in women versus 3.0 and 4.6 mmHg in men respectively) in the general population at the intervention commune. Health promotion reduced levels of salty diets but had insignificant impact on the prevalence of daily smoking or heavy alcohol consumption. Conclusion Community-targeted healthy lifestyle promotion can significantly improve some CVDRFs in the general population in a rural area over a relatively short time span. Limited effects on a context-bound CVDRF like smoking suggested that higher intensity of intervention, a supportive environment or a gender approach are required to maximize the effectiveness and maintain the sustainability of the health intervention.

Background Schools can be effective settings for improving eating habits and physical activity, whereas it is more difficult to prevent obesity. A key challenge is the “implementation gap”. Trade-off must be made between expert-driven programmes on the one hand and contextual relevance, flexibility, participation and capacity building on the other. The aim of the Stockholm County Implementation Programme was to improve eating habits, physical activity, self-esteem, and promote a healthy body weight in children aged 6–16 years. We describe the programme, intervention fidelity, impacts and outcomes after two years of intervention. Methods Nine out of 18 schools in a middle-class municipality in Sweden agreed to participate whereas the other nine schools served as the comparison group (quasi-experimental study). Tailored action plans were developed by school health teams on the basis of a self-assessment questionnaire called KEY assessing strengths and weaknesses of each school’s health practices and environments. Process evaluation was carried out by the research staff. Impacts at school level were assessed yearly by the KEY. Outcome measures at student level were anthropometry (measured), and health behaviours assessed by a questionnaire, at baseline and after 2 years. All children in grade 2, 4 and 7 were invited to participate (n=1359) of which 59.8% consented. The effect of the intervention on health behaviours, self-esteem, weight status and BMIsds was evaluated by unilevel and multilevel regression analysis adjusted for gender and baseline values. Results Programme fidelity was high demonstrating feasibility, but fidelity to school action plans was only 48% after two years. Positive and significant (p Conclusions School staff has the capacity to create their own solutions and make changes at school level on the basis of self-assessment and facilitation by external agents. However these changes were challenging to sustain over time and had little impact on student behaviours or weight status. Better student outcomes could probably be attained by a more focused and evidence-based approach with stepwise implementation of action plans.

2019

Os jogos têm despertado o interesse de investigadores no sentido de averiguar o benefício da sua prática no desenvolvimento de capacidades. Este interesse emerge, possivelmente, das caraterísticas motivadoras do jogo em geral e do facto de determinado tipo de jogos envolverem destrezas cognitivas na sua prática. Estas caraterísticas levaram-nos a serem considerados como agentes facilitadores do processo de ensino e aprendizagem da matemática. A capacidade de identificar padrões é igualmente apontada como essencial a este processo, sendo considerada uma capacidade intrínseca à atividade matemática. Neste artigo apresentar-se-ão as etapas essenciais de um estudo conduzido junto de uma amostra de alunos do 1.º ciclo do ensino básico, envolvendo o jogo do Semáforo, bem como as principais conclusões. Como resultados principais do estudo verificámos a existência de uma relação entre a força de jogo e a capacidade de identificar padrões, tendo-se verificado também uma relação entre estas variáveis e a classificação obtida nas provas de aferição de matemática. Verificou-se, ainda, que uma turma sujeita à prática sistemática do jogo diferiu significativamente da turma de controlo., Games have been triggering researcher’s interest to verify whether their practice brings benefits to the development of abilities. This interest emerges, probably, from the motivating characteristics of playing in general and from the fact that certain types of games involve cognitive skills during practice. These characteristics took them to be considered facilitating agents of mathematics teaching and learning. The ability to identify patterns is equally viewed as essential to this process, as it is considered as intrinsic to mathematics activity. In this paper we will present the major steps of a study conducted within a sample of primary school students, involving the game ‘Traffic Lights’, as well as some results. As major results from this study, we have verified the existence of a relationship between strength of play and the ability to identify patterns. We have also verified the existence of a relationship between these variables and the grades obtained on the national exams in mathematics. We have also found that one class subjected to the game systematic practice has differed significantly from the control group., Les jeux ont attiré l’intérêt des chercheurs pour déterminer s’il n’y a aucun bénéfice de sa pratique en matière de développement des capacités. Cet intérêt apparaît peut-être motivé par les caractéristiques du jeu en général et du fait que certains types de jeux impliquent des compétences cognitives dans sa pratique. Ces faits ont conduit à que beaucoup de gens les considèrent comme des facilitateurs pour l’enseignement des mathématiques. La capacité à identifier des régularités est également impliquée comme essentielle à ce processus, étant considérée comme une capacité intrinsèque à l’activité mathématique. Cet article présente les étapes essentielles d’une étude menée auprès d’un échantillon d’élèves du 1er Cycle de l’enseignement fondamental, concernant le jeu Sémaphore, bien comme les principales conclusions. On a constaté l’existence d’une relation entre la force de jeu et la capacité d’identifier les régularités, et on a également observé une relation entre ces variables et les résultats obtenus dans les tests officiels en mathématiques. On a aussi constaté que le groupe soumis à la pratique systématique du jeu diffère de manière significative du groupe de contrôle., Los juegos han atraído el interés de los investigadores con el fin de determinar el beneficio de su práctica en el desarrollo de capacidades. Este interés surge posiblemente de las características motivadoras del juego en general y el hecho de que ciertos tipos de juegos implican habilidades cognitivas en su práctica. Estas características nos llevan a considerar los juegos como agentes facilitadores del proceso de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de las matemáticas. La capacidad de identificar patrones también está implicado como esencial para este proceso, y se considera la capacidad intrínseca de la actividad matemática. La capacidad de identificar los patrones también se menciona como algo esencial para este proceso, y se considera una capacidad intrínseca de la actividad matemática. Este documento presenta los pasos esenciales de un estudio realizado con una muestra de estudiantes de escuela primaria, que implica el juego Traffic Lights, así como las principales conclusiones. Como principales resultados se ha constatado la existencia de una relación entre la fuerza de juego y la capacidad de identificar los patrones, y ha habido también una relación entre estas variables y las calificaciones obtenidas en las pruebas de medición de las matemáticas. También se encontró que una clase sujeta a la práctica sistemática de juego difería significativamente de la clase de control., (undefined)