III. From performance to mastery: rethinking diverse writing assessments across disciplines

BackgroundThe YOURS- Youth for Road Safety organisation has established the ‘SDG Champions,’ a youth-led structure designed to empower dedicated youth advocates and researchers. This project focuses on crafting policy briefs...

BackgroundPolicies targeting obesogenic environments and behaviours are critical to counter rising obesity rates and lifestyle-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Policies are likely to be most effective and enduring when they are based on the best available evidence. Evidence-informed policy making is especially challenging in countries with limited resources. The Pacific TROPIC (Translational Research for Obesity Prevention in Communities) project aims to implement and evaluate a tailored knowledge-brokering approach to evidence-informed policy making to address obesity in Fiji, a Pacific nation challenged by increasingly high rates of obesity and concomitant NCDs.MethodsThe TROPIC project draws on the concept of ‘knowledge exchange’ between policy developers (individuals; organisations) and researchers to deliver a knowledge broking programme that maps policy environments, conducts workshops on evidence-informed policy making, supports the development of evidence-informed policy briefs, and embeds evidence-informed policy making into organisational culture. Recruitment of government and nongovernment organisational representatives will be based on potential to: develop policies relevant to obesity, reach broad audiences, and commit to resourcing staff and building a culture that supports evidence-informed policy development. Workshops will increase awareness of both obesity and policy cycles, as well as develop participants’ skills in accessing, assessing and applying relevant evidence to policy briefs. The knowledge-broking team will then support participants to: 1) develop evidence-informed policy briefs that are both commensurate with national and organisational plans and also informed by evidence from the Pacific Obesity Prevention in Communities project and elsewhere; and 2) collaborate with participating organisations to embed evidence-informed policy making structures and processes. This knowledge broking initiative will be evaluated via data from semi-structured interviews, a validated self-assessment tool, process diaries and outputs.DiscussionPublic health interventions have rarely targeted evidence-informed policy making structures and processes to reduce obesity and NCDs. This study will empirically advance understanding of knowledge broking processes to extend evidence-informed policy making skills and develop a suite of national obesity-related policies that can potentially improve population health outcomes.

The urgency in the first decade of the 21st century to scrutinize American student achievement, compared with global competition, has resulted in a greater emphasis in the literature on the role and influence of school leaders in relation to student outcomes. As a result of this emphasis on accountability, researchers have aimed to determine the relationship between successful school leadership behaviors and practices and their effect on increasing teacher effectiveness and student achievement outcomes. Although an attempt was made to include the empirically validated research, much of the literature and research on linking principal leadership skills, knowledge, and actions to academic performance is qualitative in nature, meaning that findings are generally based on surveys, interviews, questionnaires, self-report checklists, and researcher observations. Accounting for the variability that principals contribute to raising teacher knowledge, teacher instructional abilities, student motivation, and student academic achievement has confounded researchers and statisticians for many reasons. Most of all, it is very difficult to control for such variables as teacher experience, teacher training and content knowledge, principal preparation programs, the resources available for professional development and continuing education, the community and family involvement in a school, and the presence or lack of research-based curriculum materials and resources. Fortunately, researchers, program evaluation specialists, educational agencies, and foundations have begun designing mixed-method and quantitative research studies isolating the areas of influence that school leaders can have and tying those areas directly to student achievement results. Summary findings from national reports, policy briefs, journal articles, online sources, and books that represent early-21st-century evidence-based principal behaviors, qualities, skills, and preparation programs directly related to improving teaching instruction and student achievement have been included in this article. Although empirically validated evidence linking principal performance to student achievement outcomes is limited, and there is need of further research efforts, this article reports on the reliable information on why leaders need to be more accountable for increasing students’ academic performance and how they can achieve this.

American public education faces increasing pressure to carry out its mission of preparing youths with the skills to compete in today's global economy and to participate constructively in a democratic society. As part of this pressure, policymakers have developed increasingly sophisticated and support systems to steer schools towards improved performance. These accountability approaches emphasize student performance over system inputs, focus on schools rather than school districts as units of improvement, and use public reporting of student outcomes and rewards and sanctions as ways to motivate schools to alter their curriculum and instructional practices (Fuhrman, 1999). These strategies embody two key assumptions: (a) that systems can be made powerful enough to influence the behavior of schools; and (b) that schools have or will develop the capacity to identify, select, and implement policies and practices that will improve their performance. Working under these assumptions, state and national policymakers have set academic goals, defined incentives, and provided supports, expecting that these actions would motivate schools to expend resources on improving organization, curriculum, and practice, and that schools' responses would improve educational programs and instruction and, in turn, improve student outcomes. State and national assessment results show that student performance in many elementary schools has improved over the last decade. Some researchers have argued that a portion of these gains can be attributed to the pressures generated by state systems that have set standards, focused attention, and created stronger incentives for improved performance (Carnoy & Loeb, 2004; Grissmer & Flanagan, 1998; Grissmer, Flanagan, Kawata, & Williamson, 2000; Hanushek & Raymond, 2002). High schools, however, have not experienced the same positive effects, and we know little about how high school staff respond to new external pressures. The study (Gross & Goertz, 2005) reviewed in this issue of CPRE Policy Briefs provides insight into how teachers and administrators in American public high schools are influenced by and attempt to address the problems posed by standards based state systems. Our analysis builds upon earlier studies that used smaller and less representative samples of secondary schools (e.g., Carnoy, Elmore, & Siskin, 2003), sometimes agreeing with and sometimes challenging their conclusions about the effects of increased and high schools.

Next article FreeEditorialA Word from the EditorEditor: Catherine L. KlingEditor: Catherine L. KlingReview of Environmental Economics and Policy Ithaca, New York Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreAs I settle in to write my second introduction to an issue of the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, I continue to feel the warm glow of having seen an environmental economist (and one of our own authors) win the 2018 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Congratulations to Professor William Nordhaus! As most REEP readers will know, he shared this most prestigious honor with Paul Romer. The Nobel Committee awarded William Nordhaus the prize “for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis.” The coincidental timing of the release of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report with the Nobel Prize announcement highlights the importance of Nordhaus’s work and, indeed, the important role of economics in addressing the major environmental challenges of the day.This issue of REEP provides readers with further examples of the relevance of economics in identifying and moving towards solutions to these challenges. The symposium on distributional effects, coordinated by Don Fullerton, addresses an issue that economics has inadequately recognized as an important driver of public policy and provides excellent jumping off points for readers interested in gaining a better understanding of the distributional impacts of the costs of regulations, the remaining environmental damages, and the distributional impacts of an important policy: energy taxes. Articles on the issue of border carbon adjustments (a key topic in the area of trade and the environment), the role of grandfathering in policy design, and the continuing critical challenges of water allocations and water markets in the U.S. West round out the list of full-length articles in this issue.In our Features section, I am delighted that we have a Reflections article from AERE Fellow Kathy Segerson, who has distilled for our readers her prescient remarks at the annual AERE luncheon (held at the 2018 ASSA meetings) on the role of theory in environmental economics. Other short articles in this section include a feature on fisheries management and policy briefs on the use of reverse auctions for renewables and energy storage, insights from the Deepwater Horizon accident for regulating oil and gas exploration, and the pesky persistence of (and search for alternatives to) the “VSL” terminology.I also want to take this opportunity to warmly welcome Sarah West to our editorial team as one of our two Features editors. Sarah replaces Frank Convery, who is retiring as Features editor at the end of 2018. Frank has overseen our excellent Features section since January 2016 and we are grateful to him for his creative ideas and thoughtful guidance of our Features writers. Frank has written multiple Reflections articles, proposed the idea of policy briefs and shorter feature articles, and was part of our original roster of Reflections authors. We are truly indebted to him for his outstanding contributions to REEP; he will be greatly missed. Sarah joins Marty Smith, and together this dynamic duo will be seeking and overseeing Features articles that are concise (5000 words or less) and address timely policy issues that span the breadth of environmental and resource issues around the world.I always welcome your feedback. If you have suggestions or comments about content, potential authors, or the direction of the journal, please do not hesitate to contact me. Next article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Review of Environmental Economics and Policy Volume 13, Number 1Winter 2019 Published for the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Views: 210Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rey025HistoryPublished online February 21, 2019 © 2019 by The Author. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

As citizens address the issues of climate change, earth-friendly technologies, and jumpstarting a green economy, environmental politics has gained a prominent position on the American political landscape. Environmental Policy and Politics: A Documentary History shows readers the many ways throughout American history in which environmental concerns have intersected with issues of energy production and consumption, government regulation, private property rights, economic growth, and lifestyle choices. The primary sources featured in the book illuminate essential events and environmental controversies that have roiled the waters of American politics and policymaking from the colonial era to the twenty-first century. This volume opens with a narrative overview which develops the major environmental themes discussed in the chapters and documents that follow. Each chapter leads with a comprehensive narrative that provides background information necessary for understanding the significance of the primary documents. The wide-ranging document collections include over 150 full and excerpted speeches, writings by conservationists, federal and state legislation, court opinions, testimonies, policy briefs, and more. The documents are preceded by context-setting headnotes which provide information on the key players and events. Some of the topics covered include: population growth and territorial expansion; toxins and waste disposal; air pollution and climate change; wilderness and species protection; energy production; conservation and environmental justice; land and water use; urban development and public health; mining and logging. A timeline listing major events from the colonial era to the present provides an overview of U.S. environmental history, while illustrations and an index further supplement this title. Environmental Policy and Politics is well-suited for collections at academic, community college, and public libraries. It key features: thematic, primary source documents; and, chronological chapters from colonial era to the present. It addresses current concerns about climate change and energy conservation. It tracks the rise of regulatory agencies.

IntroductionAttendance at university can result in social support network disruption. This can have a negative impact on the mental health of young people. Demand for mental health support continues to increase in universities, making identification of factors associated with poorer outcomes a priority. Although social functioning has a bi-directional relationship with mental health, its association with effectiveness of psychological treatments has yet to be explored.ObjectivesTo explore whether students showing different trajectories of change in social function over the course of treatment differed in eventual treatment outcome.MethodsGrowth mixture models were estimated on a sample of 5221 students treated in routine mental health services. Different trajectories of change in self-rated impairment in social leisure activities and close relationships (Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS) items 3 and 5) during the course of treatment were identified. Associations between trajectory classes and treatment outcomes were explored through multinomial regression.ResultsFive trajectory classes were identified for social leisure activity impairment (Figure 1), and three classes were identified for close relationship impairment (Figure 2). For both measures the majority of students remained mildly impaired (Class 1). Other trajectories included severe impairment with limited improvement (Class 2), severe impairment with delayed improvement (Class 3), and, in social leisure activities only, rapid improvement (Class 4), and deterioration (Class 5). There was an association between trajectories of improvement in social functioning over time and positive treatment outcomes. Trajectories of worsening or stable severe impairment were associated with negative treatment outcomes.Image:Image 2:ConclusionsChanges in social functioning impairment are associated with psychological treatment outcomes in students, suggesting that these changes may be associated with treatment effectiveness or recovery experiences. Future research should look to establish whether a causal link exists to understand if additional benefit for students can be gained through integrating social support within psychological treatment.Disclosure of InterestNone Declared

Abstract: This project examines the effects of different educational environment use of technology on the learning outcomes of students. Education has been made more accessible and adaptable with the help of digital interfaces, web-based material, and smart classroom equipment. The study explores different technology tools and their effects on the development of abilities, motivation, and academic achievements. To give a balanced picture, data are collected from various sources such as students, teachers, and policy briefs. Future policy and teaching strategy developments are intended to be guided by the findings.

The transition to university and resultant social support network disruption can be detrimental to the mental health of university students. As the need for mental health support is becoming increasingly prevalent in students, identification of factors associated with poorer outcomes is a priority. Changes in social functioning have a bi-directional relationship with mental health, however it is not clear how such measures may be related to effectiveness of psychological treatments. Growth mixture models were estimated on a sample of 5221 students treated in routine mental health services to identify different trajectories of change in self-rated impairment in social leisure activities and close relationships during the course of treatment. Multinomial regression explored associations between trajectory classes and treatment outcomes. Five trajectory classes were identified for social leisure activity impairment while three classes were identified for close relationship impairment. In both measures most students remained mildly impaired. Other trajectories included severe impairment with limited improvement, severe impairment with delayed improvement, and, in social leisure activities only, rapid improvement, and deterioration. Trajectories of improvement were associated with positive treatment outcomes while trajectories of worsening or stable severe impairment were associated with negative treatment outcomes. Changes in social functioning impairment are associated with psychological treatment outcomes in students, suggesting that these changes may be associated with treatment effectiveness as well as recovery experiences. Future research should seek to establish whether a causal link exists to understand whether integrating social support within psychological treatment may bring additional benefit for students.

The Royal Society of Canada Task Force on COVID-19 was formed in April 2020 to provide evidence-informed perspectives on major societal challenges in response to and recovery from COVID-19. The Task Force established a series of working groups to rapidly develop policy briefings, with the objective of supporting policy makers with evidence to inform their decisions. This paper reports the findings of the COVID-19 Long-Term Care (LTC) working group addressing a preferred future for LTC in Canada, with a specific focus on COVID-19 and the LTC workforce. First, the report addresses the research context and policy environment in Canada’s LTC sector before COVID-19 and then summarizes the existing knowledge base for integrated solutions to challenges that exist in the LTC sector. Second, the report outlines vulnerabilities exposed because of COVID-19, including deficiencies in the LTC sector that contributed to the magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis. This section focuses especially on the characteristics of older adults living in nursing homes, their caregivers, and the physical environment of nursing homes as important contributors to the COVID-19 crisis. Finally, the report articulates principles for action and nine recommendations for action to help solve the workforce crisis in nursing homes.

BackgroundHealth-policy decision making is a complex and dynamic process, for which strong evidentiary support is required. This includes scientifically produced research, as well as information that relates to the context in which the decision takes place. Unlike scientific evidence, this “contextual evidence” is highly variable and often includes information that is not scientifically produced, drawn from sources such as political judgement, program management experience and knowledge, or public values. As the policy decision-making process is variable and difficult to evaluate, it is often unclear how this heterogeneous evidence is identified and incorporated into “evidence-based policy” decisions. Population-based colorectal cancer screening poses an ideal context in which to examine these issues. In Canada, colorectal cancer screening programs have been established in several provinces over the past five years, based on the fecal occult blood test (FOBT) or the fecal immunochemical test. However, as these programs develop, new scientific evidence for screening continues to emerge. Recently published randomized controlled trials suggest that the use of flexible sigmoidoscopy for population-based screening may pose a greater reduction in mortality than the FOBT. This raises the important question of how policy makers will address this evidence, given that screening programs are being established or are already in place. This study will examine these issues prospectively and will focus on how policy makers monitor emerging scientific evidence and how both scientific and contextual evidence are identified and applied for decisions about health system improvement.MethodsThis study will employ a prospective multiple case study design, involving participants from Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Quebec. In each province, data will be collected via document analysis and key informant interviews. Documents will include policy briefs, reports, meeting minutes, media releases, and correspondence. Interviews will be conducted in person with senior administrative leaders, government officials, screening experts, and high-level cancer system stakeholders.DiscussionThe proposed study comprises the third and final phase of an Emerging Team grant to address the challenges of health-policy decision making and colorectal cancer screening decisions in Canada. This study will contribute a unique prospective look at how policy makers address new, emerging scientific evidence in several different policy environments and at different stages of program planning and implementation. Findings will provide important insight into the various approaches that are or should be used to monitor emerging evidence, the relative importance of scientific versus contextual evidence for decision making, and the tools and processes that may be important to support challenging health-policy decisions.

Research news UC Global Food Initiative: UC ANR student fellows work on food insecurity, food communication and developing the next generation of Cooperative Extension experts T he UC Global Food Initiative (GFI), launched by UC President Janet Napolitano in July 2014, is a systemwide effort to address food security, health and sustainability through coordinated work across the 10 campuses, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The GFI targets food systems at all scales, from the local to the global, and aims to drive changes that will help to sustainably and nutritiously feed a world population of 8 billion by 2025. Among the first programs funded through the GFI was a fellowship program for UC students. In December 2014, Napolitano announced the 54 winners, each of whom received a $2,500 stipend. UC ANR’s three GFI student fel- lows have worked on projects this year with researchers or staff in the division. Jacqueline Chang, who graduated in May from UC Berkeley with a degree in nutritional sciences, helped to carry out a two-pronged study of food insecurity and food environments on the 10 UC campuses. The project was motivated, Chang said, by the grow- ing evidence that many college students, for a variety of reasons, ex- perience food insecurity, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture defines as “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.” She worked with Director Lorrene Ritchie and other UC ANR researchers at the Nutrition Policy Institute. The project included two major parts: A 10-campus sur- vey of students designed to gather data on the prevalence and correlates of food insecurity; and a study of the retail food environment in the vicinity of each UC campus that assessed the quality of the available foods. Chang presented results from the food environment study at a conference of GFI fellows in July. Nutrition Policy Institute researchers are continuing to analyze data from the 10-campus survey. During her undergraduate years, Global Food Initiative 140 CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE • VOLUME 69 , NUMBER 3 Chang was involved in several food security initiatives on the UC Berkeley campus and in the city of Berkeley. She is currently working at a health clinic in Los Angeles through Community HealthCorps, an AmeriCorps-funded program. Samantha Smith, a graduate student in public health sciences at UC Davis, used her GFI fellowship to interview UC scientists about their research and extension efforts in agriculture, food and nutrition. The objective, she said, was to tell the stories of “people who have been notorious for not tooting their own horns.” Working with Constance Schneider, UC ANR’s Youth, Families and Communities Director, as well as UC ANR Public Information Representative Jeannette Warnert, Smith wrote six profiles that are now featured in the “Stories from the field” section on the UC ANR Global Food Initiative website. “There will never be a time when having writing skills is not going to be useful,” said Smith, who learned of the GFI fellowship opportunity in a communications course during the Fall 2014 quarter. Smith completed her MPH degree in September and is currently working with a group developing a smartphone app related to personal sexual health and safety. Kevi Mace, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, used her GFI fellowship to expand her ongo- ing work to raise awareness about career opportunities in Cooperative Extension (CE) and help graduate students develop skills for CE work. Many graduate students are interested in doing applied science but don’t know much about CE, Mace said. “If you don’t know what it is, it’s hard to go about preparing to do extension,” she said. Mace grew up in rural Colorado and is a 4-H alum. In 2014, she was a member of the first cohort of graduate stu- dents funded through a 3-year UC ANR pilot, the Graduate Training in Cooperative Extension program. CE-specific training through the program includes workshops on out- reach to non-scientists, communicating with people outside one’s field and writing effective policy briefs. Mace’s fellowship, with UC ANR Program Policy Analyst Vanessa Murua, supported her work in helping to host this year’s CE showcase, an annual outreach event for students on the Berkeley campus in February. c — Jim Downing

Interaction between environmental health science and policy has moved from separate spheres to higher levels of communication with scientists sharing results with policy makers. However, much of this interaction is one-way and at the tail end of the scientific process, with the generation of easy to understand policy briefs on scientific evidence after analysis is complete. While useful to inform decision making, this process misses the opportunity to design scientific studies with multi-directional interaction between policy makers and scientists, so that research can be directed to be most informative to policy. Here we present examples from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funded Solutions to Energy AiR Climate and Health (SEARCH) Center's Policy and Decision-Making Unit. This Center includes interaction between scientists and policy makers at all stages of the scientific process to best enhance the direct applicability of scientific evidence to improve public health.

BackgroundLimited research exists on researchers' knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) in the eastern Mediterranean region (EMR). This multi-country study explores researchers' views and experiences regarding the role of health systems and policy research evidence in health policymaking in the EMR, including the factors that influence health policymaking, barriers and facilitators to the use of evidence, and the factors that increase researchers' engagement in KTE.MethodsResearchers who published health systems and policy relevant research in 12 countries in the EMR (Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) were surveyed. Descriptive analysis and Linear Mixed Regression Models were performed for quantitative sections and the simple thematic analysis approach was used for open-ended questions.ResultsA total of 238 researchers were asked to complete the survey (response rate 56%). Researchers indicated transferring results to other researchers (67.2%) and policymakers in the government (40.5%). Less than one-quarter stated that they produced policy briefs (14.5%), disseminated messages that specified possible actions (24.4%), interacted with policymakers and stakeholders in priority-setting (16%), and involved them in their research (19.8%). Insufficient policy dialogue opportunities and collaboration between researchers and policymakers and stakeholders (67.9%), practical constraints to implementation (66%), non-receptive policy environment (61.3%), and politically sensitive findings (57.7%) hindered the use of evidence. Factors that increase researchers' engagement in KTE activities in the region were associated with involving policymakers and stakeholders at various stages such as priority-setting exercises and provision of technical assistance.ConclusionsResearchers in the EMR recognize the importance of using health systems evidence in health policymaking. Potential strategies to improve the use of research evidence emphasize two-way communication between researchers and policymakers. Findings are critical for the upcoming World Health Report 2012, which will emphasize the significance of conducting and translating health research to inform health policies.

BackgroundThe importance of using research evidence in decisionmaking at the policy level has been increasingly recognized. However, knowledge brokering to engage researchers and policymakers in government and non-government organizations is challenging. This paper describes and evaluates the knowledge exchange processes employed by the Translational Research on Obesity Prevention in Communities (TROPIC) project that was conducted from July 2009 to April 2012 in Fiji. TROPIC aimed to enhance: the evidence-informed decisionmaking skills of policy developers; and awareness and utilization of local and other obesity-related evidence to develop policies that could potentially improve the nation’s food and physical activity environments. The specific research question was: Can a knowledge brokering approach advance evidence-informed policy development to improve eating and physical activity environments in Fiji.MethodsThe intervention comprised: recruiting organizations and individuals; mapping policy environments; analyzing organizational capacity and support for evidence-informed policymaking (EIPM); developing EIPM skills; and facilitating development of evidence-informed policy briefs. Flexible timetabling of activities was essential to accommodate multiple competing priorities at both individual and organizational levels. Process diaries captured the duration, frequency and type of each interaction and/or activity between the knowledge brokering team and participants or their organizations.ResultsPartnerships were formalized with high-level officers in each of the six participating organization. Participants (n = 49) developed EIPM skills (acquire, assess, adapt and apply evidence) through a series of four workshops and applied this knowledge to formulate briefs with ongoing one-to-one support from TROPIC team members. A total of 55% of participants completed the 12 to18 month intervention, and 63% produced one or more briefs (total = 20) that were presented to higher-level officers within their organizations. The knowledge brokering team spent an average of 30 hours per participant during the entire TROPIC process.ConclusionsActive engagement of participating organizations from the outset resulted in strong individual and organizational commitment to the project. The TROPIC initiative provided a win-win situation, with participants expanding skills in EIPM and policy development, organizations increasing EIPM capacity, and researchers providing data to inform policy.