Search

We studied social-psychological effects over time of a faculty-mentor workshop intervention that addressed attitudes associated with language variety and their impact on scientific communication (SC) skill development of PhD and postdoctoral STEM research trainees (N = 274). Six months after their mentors attended the workshop, all mentees had significant gains in productivity in speaking tasks. In particular, mentees with high language discomfort rated their quality of communication with their mentor and their enthusiasm about communicating more highly (p < .05 for both measures), compared to mentees with low language discomfort. In addition, mentees raised speaking nonstandardized varieties of English reported significant reductions in discomfort related to language use (p = .003), compared to mentees raised speaking standardized English. We conclude that training mentors to understand and respond to language diversity and development results in multiple beneficial outcomes for mentees, including the amelioration of language-variety related discomfort in the research environment.

The social and behavioural determinants of COVID-19 vaccination have been described previously. However, little is known about how vaccinated people use and rate their health system. We used surveys conducted in 14 countries to study the health system correlates of COVID-19 vaccination. Country-specific logistic regression models were adjusted for respondent age, education, income, chronic illness, history of COVID-19, urban residence, and minority ethnic, racial, or linguistic group. Estimates were summarised across countries using random effects meta-analysis. Vaccination coverage with at least two or three doses ranged from 29% in India to 85% in Peru. Greater health-care use, having a regular and high-quality provider, and receiving other preventive health services were positively associated with vaccination. Confidence in the health system and government also increased the odds of vaccination. By contrast, having unmet health-care needs or experiencing discrimination or a medical mistake decreased the odds of vaccination. Associations between health system predictors and vaccination tended to be stronger in high-income countries and in countries with the most COVID-19-related deaths. Access to quality health systems might affect vaccine decisions. Building strong primary care systems and ensuring a baseline level of quality that is affordable for all should be central to pandemic preparedness strategies.

International graduate trainees, many of whom are non-native English-speaking (L2) trainees, comprise more than half of graduate-level trainees in STEM, but little is known regarding factors that influence their career intentions, especially those that foster their growth as scientists to achieve their full potential in research. Thus, the purpose of our studies was to examine the relationship between L2 status and contextual factors that help shape the learning experiences and plans for research-focused careers. Study 1 collected cross-sectional survey data from doctoral and postdoctoral trainees (N=510) from research institutes in the Texas Medical Center in Houston. We examined which factors were associated with research career intentions using multiple linear regression analysis. Study 2 collected longitudinal data from doctoral and postdoctoral trainees (N=185) from 71 institutions in 33 states in the U.S. Repeated measures of career intentions were evaluated using mixed-effect modeling, and cross-tabulation analysis evaluated job-seeking behaviors by language status. Results showed that L2 trainees had stronger intentions to pursue research careers than did native English-speaking trainees (L1), controlling for other variables. Mentoring, trainee self-efficacy, and the perception of working more than mentors expected influenced each career intention differently. In Study 2, career intentions did not change over time for L2 or L1 trainees, but L2s preferred working in higher education or research institutes more than L1s. L2s, however, were more likely to be in early stages of seeking jobs compared to L1s. These findings provide implications for research mentors, advisors, and academic administrators in facilitating L2 career advancement and success.

Prospective elementary teacher (PSET) education programs vary greatly in the courses and course sequences employed to prepare their students. This article explores potential tradeoffs that arise for mathematics teacher educators, PSETs, and their future students due to the choices PSET education programs make regarding their design. Specifically, the sequencing of content and pedagogy across courses, integration of content and pedagogy within courses, content coverage, mathematical rigor, and interactions between PSETs' beliefs and experiences are explored from the perspective of mathematics teacher educators using vignettes. Based on the vignettes and literature, future directions for research regarding PSET education program design are suggested.

Research findings and reform-oriented standards emphasise the importance of mathematical connections in support of students' conceptual development. Previous research on teachers attending to mathematical connections has tended to focus on expert teachers' practice. Complementing previous research, this study describes how a cohort of twelve prospective mathematics teachers attended to and made sense of mathematical connections that arose when working with secondary students in small-group instruction. Results indicated prospective teachers were able to attend to mathematical connections during instruction and made several pedagogical considerations around such connections. We present a framework, the "Pedagogical Considerations of Mathematical Connections" (PCMC) framework, which offers mathematics teacher educators a new model to expand prospective teachers' attention to and awareness of mathematical connections. The study contributes to the existing literature on teacher noticing by providing a new kind of theme-specific noticing (i.e., mathematical connections) and informing mathematics teacher educators of how prospective secondary teachers attend to mathematical connections.

BackgroundPatient-reported measures attempt to quantify the value health services provide to users. Satisfaction is a common summative measure, but often has limited utility in identifying poor quality care. We compared satisfaction and the net promoter score (NPS), which was developed to help businesses quantify consumer sentiment, in a nationally representative survey in Peru. We aimed to compare NPS and satisfaction as individual ratings of care, assess the relationship of patient-reported experience ratings to these outcome measures and consider the utility of these measures as indicators of facility performance based on reliability within facilities and capacity to discriminate between facilities.MethodsWe analysed the 2016 National Survey on User Satisfaction of Health Services, a cross-sectional outpatient exit survey. We assessed ratings by patient characteristics and compared the distributions of satisfaction and NPS categories. We tested the association of patient-reported experience measures with each outcome using multilevel ordinal logistic regression. We used intraclass correlation (ICC) from these models to predict minimum sample for reliable assessment and compared patient-reported experience measures in facilities with average satisfaction but below or above average NPS.Results13 434 individuals rated services at 184 facilities. Satisfaction (74% satisfied) and NPS (17% reported at least 9 out of 10) were largely concordant within individuals but weakly correlated (0.37). Ratings varied by individual factors such as age and visit purpose. Most domains of patient-reported experience were associated with both outcomes. Adjusted ICC was higher for NPS (0.26 vs 0.11), requiring a minimum of 7 (vs 20) respondents for adequate reliability. Within the 70% of facilities classified as average based on satisfaction, NPS-based classification revealed systematic differences in patient-reported experience measures.ConclusionWhile satisfaction and NPS were broadly similar at an individual level, this evidence suggests NPS may be useful for benchmarking facility performance as part of national efforts in Peru and throughout Latin America to identify deficits in health service quality.

Understanding and supporting students' development of graph literacy is important. We studied how aspects of graph literacy might be supported (or hindered) in middle school by analyzing the content in textbooks. Specifically, we conducted a content analysis of tasks involving two-dimensional Cartesian graphs presented in grade 6-8 US textbooks. Three elements were analyzed: the type of activity involved in graphing, the nature of the graph, and the relevant mathematical topic. We first present three illustrative tasks to demonstrate how we made sense of these three elements with graphing tasks. Second, we present the frequency of different types of coordinate system activity, graph activity, and coordinate system types involved in textbook tasks and how they change across grade level and mathematical domain. Our findings reveal varying levels of exposure to different graphing elements students might encounter through textbooks. We discuss implications of our findings on research, teaching, and curriculum development.

Over 600,000 newborns in India died in their first month of life in 2017 despite large increases in access to maternal health services. We assess whether maternal and newborn health system quality in India is adequate for institutional delivery to reduce neonatal mortality. We identified recent births from the cross-sectional 2015-2016 National Family Health Survey and used reported content of antenatal care and immediate postpartum care averaged at the district level to characterize health system quality for maternity and newborn services. We used random effect logistic models to assess the relationship between institutional delivery and neonatal (death within the first 28 days of life) and early neonatal (death within 7 days of live births) mortality by quintile of district maternal and newborn health system quality. Three quarters of 191,963 births were in health facilities; 2% of newborns died within 28 days. District-level quality scores ranged from 40 to 90% of expected interventions. Institutional delivery was not protective against newborn mortality in the districts with poorest health system quality, but was associated with decreased mortality in districts with higher quality. Predicted neonatal mortality in the highest quintile of quality would be 0.018 (95% CI 0.010, 0.026) for home delivery and 0.010 (0.007, 0.013) for institutional delivery. Measurement of quality is limited by lack of data on quality of acute and referral care. Institutional delivery is associated with meaningful survival gains where quality of maternity services is higher. Addressing health system quality is an essential element of achieving the promise of increased access to maternal health services.

Developing new scales to measure aspects of mentoring, including guidance in scientific communication (SciComm), is important to enhance success among trainees pursuing research careers in science and medicine. This study examined the psychometric properties of three new measures, based on social cognitive career theory (SCCT), as mentors address skills in scientific writing, oral presentation, and impromptu speaking. Faculty research mentors (N = 194) completed online questionnaires assessing perceptions of mentoring barriers in SciComm, outcome expectations, and practice behaviors in research and SciComm. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses rendered support for a three-factor measure of barriers, one-factor measure of expected outcomes, and a five-factor measure of practices. Good support was also found for a path model that included the variables in the prediction of mentoring practices. Findings support applying SCCT to mentoring and clarify contextual barriers--choice outcome relations which can inform barrier-coping, SciComm interventions among mentors.

The need to specifically mentor graduate and medical students performing biomedical and biobehavioral research in communication skills is increasingly being highlighted to increase intention to pursue academic research careers, including physician-scientist careers. This study used data collected from 354 research faculty in 33 states across the United States to examine beliefs and perceived barriers about mentoring in scientific communication (writing, presenting, and informal discussion about science), with the goal of advancing evidence-based recommendations for mentoring interventions. Latent profile analysis identified four mentor profiles, based on beliefs regarding mentoring responsibility, expected outcomes, and barriers in scientific communication mentoring. Problem solvers, who acknowledged trainee problems but reported high efficacy in overcoming them, offered the highest levels of supportive and instructive mentoring. Since mentoring messages and actions influence trainee career development significantly, our results have important implications for faculty development to advance effective mentoring, especially in scientific communication.

In this study, we examined graphical representations in several mathematics, science, and engineering textbooks and practitioner journals with the goal of identifying similarities and differences across these sources. To do this, we drew from the extant research on students interpreting graphs and reasoning covariationally to develop a framework to analyse different aspects of graphical representations in these sources. We present several key findings which include identifying different uses of coordinate system which are prevalent in specific sources, the prevalence of contextualized and decontextualized quantities across sources, and differences in the frequency with which certain graphing conventions are maintained. We conclude by discussing implications of this study in relation to the teaching and learning of graphical representations across these fields and directions for future research.

Background The Republic of Korea has reported the highest suicide rate globally since 2018. Previous studies have highlighted disability as a significant risk factor for suicide. However, comprehensive examination on the association between suicide mortality and severities and types of disabilities, and on how these associations vary according to sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviours and comorbidity profiles has never been performed. Methods We performed a retrospective cohort study of a nationally representative sample of 3 591 398 individuals subject to the health check-up provided by the Korean National Health Insurance in 2009, including individuals with (n  = 126 508) and without (n  = 3 734 890) disabilities, and followed-up until December 2021 Results Overall, the presence of disability was associated with an increased risk of suicide mortality [hazard ratio (HR), 1.38; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.30–1.47] compared to the absence of disability. This risk was more pronounced in individuals with Grade 1–3 disabilities (HR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.52–1.85) than those with Grade 4–6 disabilities (HR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.20–1.47). Among various types of disabilities, individuals with a disability associated with a mental disorder had the highest HR (HR, 4.49; 95% CI, 3.38–5.97), followed by those with visual impairment (HR, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.26–1.73), brain damage (HR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.18–1.79), hearing impairment (HR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.15–1.58) and extremity disability (HR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.21–1.40). Stratified analyses revealed that the suicide risk associated with disabilities was more pronounced in individuals with specific sociodemographic characteristics and health behaviours. Conclusion Our findings highlight the need to prioritize policy efforts to address suicide mortality among people with disabilities, considering the distinct risks associated with disability types and severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study "Gut permeability and its correlation with patient's traits and blood inflammatory markers in severe asthma: Real-world assessment from the Korean severe asthma registry-2 (KoSAR-2)" explores the relationship between gut permeability and severe asthma. The research found that patients with severe asthma exhibited increased gut permeability compared to non-asthma controls. Atopy was identified as the most significant patient trait influencing gut permeability in severe asthma, with elevated calprotectin levels associated with increased gut permeability in allergic severe asthma patients. The study suggests a potential bidirectional interaction between gut permeability and airway inflammation in severe asthma. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: This study aimed to analyze the usage patterns and hypersensitivity reaction (HSR) profiles of six nonionic iodinated contrast media (ICMs) used in computed tomography (CT) to enhance patient safety and inform evidence-based contrast agent selection. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 248,209 CT scans obtained between January 2020 and December 2022. Six ICMs (iomeprol, iohexol, ioversol, iopromide, iodixanol, and iobitridol) were compared on the basis of their usage rates, HSR incidence, and severity. This study also evaluated the impact of premedication protocol reinforcement and assessed the quarterly HSR rates. Results: Among the 248,209 CT scans, 1603 (0.65%) were associated with HSRs. Most HSRs were mild (86.2%), with moderate (10.9%) and severe (2.9%) reactions being less common. Four ICMs were used as first-line agents and two ICMs were used as second-line agents. The second-line agents, iobitridol and iodixanol, exhibited 7–8 times higher HSR rates compared to the first-line agents. A modified premedication protocol implemented in mid-2022 significantly reduced the incidence of moderate HSRs (p = 0.0075). The quarterly analysis indicated a trend in higher HSR rates in the first quarter and a statistically significant increase in severe HSRs in the third quarter (p = 0.033). Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of tailored premedication protocols and a 7–8 times higher rate of HSR with second-line agents in contrast-enhanced imaging. Future research should focus on elucidating the mechanisms underlying these variations to further refine contrast agent selection and management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students are expected to use the Cartesian plane to represent and reason about mathematical concepts such as number systems, geometric figures, and functions. However, the simplicity of representing mathematical concepts that the Cartesian plane provides can cause us to overlook the difficulties many students have in constructing and using it. These difficulties include struggling with constructing and scaling axes appropriately (Herscovics 1989) or with constructing and interpreting graphs on the Cartesian plane (Leinhardt, Zaslavsky, and Stein 1990). Students "may come to know 'how to graph' without understanding what graphs are for or why the conventions make sense" (DiSessa et al. 1991, p. 157). When students are able to connect everyday experiences such as navigating to the Cartesian plane as a system for locating points, then the plane becomes more meaningful to students. In this article, Hwa Young Lee shares two tasks designed to provide students with opportunities to deepen their understanding of coordinate systems, building on their intuition and experience in locating objects in space. With these tasks, students gain a deeper understanding of coordinate systems through creating their own.