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Both intestinal schistosomiasis and giardiasis are co-endemic throughout many areas of sub-Saharan Africa, significantly impacting the health of millions of children in endemic areas. While giardiasis is not considered a neglected tropical disease (NTD), intestinal schistosomiasis is formally grouped under the NTD umbrella and receives significant advocacy and financial support for large-scale control. Although there are differences in the epidemiology between these two diseases, there are also key similarities that might be exploited within potential integrated control strategies permitting tandem interventions. In this review, we highlight these similarities and discuss opportunities for integrated control of giardiasis in low and middle-income countries where intestinal schistosomiasis is co-endemic. By applying new, advanced methods of disease surveillance, and by improving the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) initiatives, (co)infection with intestinal schistosomiasis and/or giardiasis could not only be more effectively controlled but also better understood. In this light, we appraise the suitability of a One Health approach targeting both intestinal schistosomiasis and giardiasis, for if adopted more broadly, transmission of both diseases could be reduced to gain improvements in health and wellbeing.

Suleiman Mayaki,1 Martyn Stewart2 1Department of Pediatrics, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Shika-Zaria P.M.B 06, Nigeria; 2Department of Education and Training, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool L3 5QA, UKCorrespondence: Suleiman MayakiDepartment of Pediatrics, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Shika-Zaria P.M.B 06, NigeriaTel +2348054919184Email mayakisuleiman@yahoo.comPurpose: Modern healthcare is delivered by teams of multidisciplinary professionals. Conflicts have been widely reported between these professionals in Nigeria. Furthermore, the health system is frequently crippled by industrial actions by trade unions representing these professionals. This study aimed to shed light on the complexities of factors perceived to cause workplace conflicts, including the extent to which these are thought to link to industrial action.Materials and methods: Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted with nurses, doctors, and medical laboratory scientists who work in multiprofessional settings giving a total of 41 participants. Results were analyzed within the framework of the social identity theory.Results and conclusions: The dominant themes that emerged as barriers to teamwork include professional hierarchy, role ambiguity, and poor communication. At the same time, the health sector leadership and remuneration were the main themes concerning industrial actions. The salience of professional identities was also demonstrated, providing a link between interprofessional conflict in the workplace and competitive industrial actions by trade unions representing health professionals. The implications for educational and clinical practice and the need for interprofessional education are discussed.Keywords: interprofessional conflict, industrial action, professional identity, teamwork

Within schistosomiasis control, assessing environmental risk of currently non-treated demographic groups e.g. pre-school-aged children (PSAC) and their mothers is important. We conducted a pilot micro-epidemiological assessment at the crater lake of Barombi Kotto, Cameroon with GPS tracking and infection data from 12 PSAC-mother pairs (n = 24) overlaid against environmental sampling inclusive of snail, parasite and water-use information. Several high-risk locations or ‘hotspots’ with elevated water contact, increased intermediate snail host densities and detectable schistosome environmental DNA (eDNA) were identified. Exposure between PSAC and mother pairs was temporally and spatially associated, suggesting interventions which can benefit both groups simultaneously might be feasible. When attempting to interrupt parasite transmission in future, overlaid maps of snail, parasite and water contact data can guide fine-scale spatial targeting of environmental interventions.

The use of student surveys in higher education to evaluate teaching has escalated in the past decade, in many cases deployed at national level. With the focus on quantitative ratings, systematic and theory-grounded analysis of students’ written feedback comments has been largely neglected in research. This study applies a linguistic model for analysing evaluative discourse to a sample of student feedback comments. Findings quantify the extent to which students manage language through intensification or moderation of views, highlighting significant asymmetry in how praise and criticisms are presented. Praise is often direct and targeted at lecturers, whereas criticisms frequently objectify teaching as an act. Interpretations consider functional aspects of language used in feedback, and applications of the framework for comparative studies.

Study goals and effective management of study time are both linked to academic success for undergraduates. Mastery goals in particular are associated with study enjoyment and positive educational outcomes such as conceptual change. Conversely, poor self-regulation, in the form of procrastination, is linked to a range of negative study behaviours. Many researchers have treated goal orientations and procrastination tendency as stable traits and few have examined differences across academic levels. This study reports a cross-sectional measure of study goal orientation and procrastination tendency profiles at different academic levels on two undergraduate programmes. Findings concur with other studies in revealing a significant decline in mastery goals, particularly between the first and second years of study. Procrastination tendency is significantly higher in the second year. Potential causes of these differences and their implications are discussed, alongside considerations for positive learning environments.

This population-based cross-sectional study aims to explore the effect of China’s Rural Hospital Delivery Subsidy (RHDS) policy on the utilization of women’s hospital delivery between rural and urban areas. A total of 2398 women were drawn from the Fourth and Fifth National Health Service Surveys, from the Shaanxi province. A generalized linear mixed model was used to analyze the influence of the RHDS policy on the hospital delivery rate. Concentration index and decomposition methods were used to explore the equity of hospital delivery utilization. Prior to introduction of the RHDS policy, the difference in hospital delivery rates was −0.09 (95% CL: −0.16, −0.01) between rural and urban women when adjusting the influence of socioeconomic factors on hospital delivery; after implementation of the policy, the difference was reduced to 0.02 (95% CL: −0.01, 0.06). The horizontal inequity index was reduced from 0.084 to 0.009 for rural women and from 0.070 to 0.011 for urban women. China’s Rural Hospital Delivery Subsidy policy had some positive effect on reducing the gap between rural and urban women’s hospital delivery rate and inequity. However, there is still a pro-rich inequity of hospital delivery utilization for both rural and urban women.

To professionalise teaching in universities, certificated teaching programmes for academics are increasingly widespread and often mandatory for new lecturers. Evaluations of impact have escalated in the past decade. Existing studies show mixed results but few consider the differential effects on individuals over the longer term. This study examines narratives of course participants a number of years following completion to understand how lecturers made sense of formal teaching development. Powerful outcomes materialise for some individuals, highly focused by personal reference frames and career experiences. Findings are related to wider studies of teacher growth and individual orientations to teaching professional development.

This study utilised concept mapping software to aid interpretation of the qualitative data from student satisfaction surveys. The analysis revealed differences in student priorities and attitudes across the three years of an undergraduate degree. First-year students were more concerned with social and academic integration and demonstrated an emotional response to their engagement with higher education. Comments from second-year students indicated an emphasis on academic progress and development, while final-year students were focused on achievement-oriented learning. Critical aspects of the student experience hidden between survey questions were also revealed. The paper discusses the implications of the findings for understanding the changing interaction between different aspects of student experience and satisfaction. It concludes with suggestions on how this approach to analysis might benefit the work of quality assurance teams and academic developers in other institutions.

In the physical and natural sciences, the complexity of natural systems and their interactions is becoming better understood. With increased emphasis on learning about complex systems, students will be encountering concepts that are dynamic, ill‐structured and interconnected. Concept‐mapping is a method considered particularly valuable for enabling learning in subject areas that are complex or ill‐structured. Evaluations of concept‐mapping tend to reflect their many applications. Many evaluations that try to measure enhancements in learning use test scores or grade‐point averages as performance indicators, which provide little information on how cognitive processes have developed. In this study, a modification of the Biggs and Collis’ Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy is applied to measure differences in the cognitive and structural complexity of learning outcomes between groups of students who participated in a concept‐mapping activity with those from a cohort that did not. The ...

Greater flexibility in delivery resulting from increased use of e-learning will inevitably change the way university students approach studying. Recent studies have examined relationships between attendance, online learning and performance but findings are inconclusive. One concern is that an unintended consequence of placing lecture resources online may be increased absenteeism possibly leading to decrease in performance. This study explores patterns of student engagement across two geography courses. Findings corroborate the importance of attendance as a predictor of performance, demonstrate how assessment influences study behaviour, particularly online, and provide evidence for a need for integrated blended learning designs.

Chapter 1 Why study the second year? Chapter 2 Defining the second year Chapter 3 Shifting perspectives from first to second year Chapter 4 Psychological orientations to learning in the second year Chapter 5 Positive curriculum design for the second year Chapter 6 Implications for student support in the second year Chapter 7 Maximising the use of institutional data Chapter 8 Listening for signals in the noise, and acting on them

Knowing what is likely to work, when and why, is important when designing teaching at university. This chapter guides you through the complex field of learning theories, the explanations of how learning takes place as a process. It introduces you to the main influential theories and how these ideas have matured and conflicted, to help you make sense of their implications for teaching. It introduces terms such as ‘constructivism’ and ‘behaviourism’ that you may encounter in teaching and learning literature, and explores developments in cognitive psychology and more recently, neuroscience, that examine how individuals process and recall information. The social influences on learning follow, before turning to important works on metacognition and ‘self’ theories that increasingly inform recent teaching designs. Contemporary theories on networked and distributed learning relevant to the internet age are also reviewed. Throughout this chapter, the influence and implications of different theories for teachers are considered, with key criticisms of the different perspectives, theories and models summarised to help the reader make informed choices about when particular approaches might be applicable or not. While ‘theory’ is often seen as detached from everyday practice in teaching, the chapter closes with thoughts on how your enhanced knowledge of learning as a process can be harnessed to optimise effective teaching designs.