Easy Question Research Articles

DNA damage due to phototherapy: Single or double lights?

On ward rounds I have sometimes been asked by medical students and residents whether it really matters if we put an infant on single, double or triple phototherapy lights. Can using ‘too much’ phototherapy cause damage to body cells? Phototherapy is not associated with serious side effects, and certainly over the past few decades has become much safer. In the presence of risk factors for severe jaundice e.g. ABO/rhesus incompatibility, using intensive phototherapy has been an easy answer. The benefits likely outweigh the risks anyway. However, it is not such an easy question when it comes to using single or more intensive phototherapy in the first instance in the absence of risk factors with borderline or moderately high serum bilirubin (SBR). A recent case-control study of 36 newborns showed that both conventional and intensive phototherapy increase DNA damage in cells.1 DNA damage was measured using single-cell gel electrophoresis in peripheral mononuclear cells. Interestingly the duration, but not the intensity of phototherapy correlated with the degree of DNA damage (r = 0.86, P < 0.001). The authors argued therefore that it might be more efficacious, less toxic to cell DNA and cost saving with reduced hospital stays to use intensive phototherapy for short duration than conventional phototherapy which will bring down the SBR at a slower rate. What is unclear is if this DNA damage is transient or has any long-lasting consequences.

Social Entrepreneurship as a Norm?

Is the act of entrepreneurship itself a social good? This simple and seemingly easy question goes to the heart of the debate of this issue's Point-Counter Point articles but the answer appears not to be so straightforward. The recently released 2015/16 Global Report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) provides evidence of the breadth, power, and positives of entrepreneurship: increasing participation rates across the globe by individuals of varied backgrounds (Kelley et al., 2016). The GEM report shows that individuals are starting businesses, creating jobs, and building entrepreneurship ecosystems with positive impacts on their communities. On the other hand, some research contends that entrepreneurial activities need to be more closely scrutinized for their negative externalities (Beaver and Jennings, 2005; Khan et al., 2007; Zahra and Wright, 2016). The argument here is that all entrepreneurs have to go beyond providing an economic return and be responsible for a triple bottom line. Suddenly, the simple answer to the opening question is not so simple. I have often thought of the term ‘social entrepreneurship’ as redundant. Entrepreneurs take various forms, but generally speaking they invent or innovate and then execute in the market. They can be small and local, large and global, or somewhere in between, but their function is to match their goods or services to a market segment and provide that segment with value. As such, by their existence and actions they deliver positive value to society. They treat their customers right, build a good business and do no harm. On the other hand, research has noted that entrepreneurship may also have a dark side, as illustrated by Baumol's classic work highlighting unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship (1990). Written to advocate policy change, Baumol's argument illuminated the potential ills of entrepreneurial activity as typified by organized crime and other illegal operators As entrepreneurs focused on the environment and mission-driven causes have come of age over the past two decades, the relationship between ‘social’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ has become less clear. Classifying entrepreneurs as either job creating, innovators (positive) or Ponzi schemers, scam artists, or organized criminals (negative) trivializes the argument. These two poles anchor opposite side of the spectrum and while this simplification may be clear and sufficient for practitioners, it is less so for scholars. The contribution of entrepreneurship to society is and always will be a net positive (Reagan, 1985) but what are the social obligations, if any, for entrepreneurs? The answer to this and the opening question are more nuanced than one might see on the surface. The authors of this Point-Counter Point delve more deeply for us. Entrepreneurs that focus primarily on developing for-profit organization do great things for the world. Is that enough? Is it enough for them to provide economic value and then supplement it with good corporate citizenry? Or does the social aspect of entrepreneurship need to be part of the business at every turn? Do all organizations need to be a hybrid? Does every entrepreneur need to have a social mission intertwined into the very fabric of the business? In their entry in this two article series, Zahra and Wright argue that scholars need to re-examine and redefine the social role of entrepreneurship around five pillars that argue for a balance of the financial, social, and environmental outcomes of all entrepreneurial activity (2016). They rely upon arguments from policymakers, world leaders and billionaire entrepreneurs, who advocate for a greater awareness of the potential downside to entrepreneurial activity. They surmise that scholars need to consider an entrepreneurial canvas focused on hybrid organizations pursuing the blended value that comes from corporate social responsibility and bottom-of-the-pyramid strategies. In conjunction, McMullen and Warnick argue that the criticism of ‘typical and classic’ entrepreneurship may have gone too far. These authors posit that researchers and practitioners should not try to set up norms or legal obligations that require entrepreneurs to create blended value or hybrid organizations (2016). They assert that the social component of entrepreneurship should be a guideline or aspirational ideal instead of a legislated obligation. In sum, while there is ample research on social entrepreneurship and plenty of work that incorporates non-economic factors and variables, the interplay between economic and non-economic forms of entrepreneurship is not clear. Is the singular act of entrepreneuraship in and of itself a social good? Or must we insist that all entrepreneurs bring blended value? It seems that while we as an academy have been discussing the merits of each, we have mostly been doing so in parallel tracks. This Point-CounterPoint is designed to merge the conversations in order to further our understanding. Andrew Corbett Consulting Editor

Test Takers’ Performance Appraisals, Appraisal Calibration, and Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategy Use

ABSTRACTThe current study explores the nature and relationships among test takers’ performance appraisals, appraisal calibration, and reported cognitive and metacognitive strategy use in a language test situation. Performance appraisals are executive processes of strategic competence for judging test performance (e.g., evaluating the correctness or appropriateness of responses to given test tasks). Appraisal calibration denotes a perfect match between appraisal confidence and actual test performance. 294 English as a foreign language (EFL) students took an English test, which was designed to measure four language areas (listening, grammar, vocabulary, and reading). The students reported their level of appraisal confidence immediately after answering each test question. At the end of the test, they were asked to report their overall appraisal confidence and perceived cognitive and metacognitive strategy use in the test. First, it was found that test takers were not well calibrated in all test sections. Second, test takers’ appraisal confidence could predict just above one third of the test performance variance. Third, test takers tended to be underconfident in easy questions but overconfident in difficult questions. Fourth, appraisal calibration was not strongly related to reported metacognitive strategy use. The implications of the study in light of strategic competence research and recommendations for further research are discussed.

Remedying Education with Personalized Learning: Evidence from Randomized Field Experiment in India

Can Information and Communication Technology (ICT) enabled personalization remedy the educational production in resource-strapped schooling systems? We conduct a randomized field experiment on a group of residential schools in Hyderabad India to examine this question. In a school setting, students first learn concepts through class room instructions and then reinforce their learning by doing homework. In our experiment, students were first taught different topics in mathematics through classroom instructions, and then a randomly selected one half of them were assigned computer-generated adaptive homework (CGAHW) and the other half were offered paper-based traditional homework (PBTHW). In a PBTHW, a pre-decided fixed number of easy and hard questions were offered from different topics. In a CGAHW, first half of the total questions were offered in the easy category, and based on a student’s performance on these questions, later questions were adaptively generated such that: (1) more questions were offered on the topics in which student incorrectly answered questions and (2) hard questions on a topic were offered when the student correctly answered easy questions on that topic. Thus, while all PBTHW students received the same number of easy and hard questions on different topics, CGAHW students received different numbers and difficulty levels of questions on different topics based on their individual learning needs. A total of 50 homework in each category were offered to students between October 2014 and April 2015, and their learning was assessed in two standardized exams offered in this period.We found that CGAHW students on average obtained lower homework scores than PBTHW students, but they obtained 4.28 percent higher scores in exams than PBTHW students. Lower homework scores could be attributed to students receiving more questions in their weak areas in CGAHW. However, by doing more questions in their weak areas and less in their strong areas, students achieved personalized learning in CGAHW, and hence obtained higher exam scores. To provide evidence that personalized learning in CGAHW resulted in improvement in their exam scores, we show that students that were offered higher levels of personalization in CGAHW, obtained higher exam scores. To further understand the differential effect of CGAHW on students of different abilities, we categorized students in low, medium, and high categories of ability based on their mathematics scores in standardized exams at the beginning of experiment. We found that personalized learning through CGAHW helped the students in low and medium ability categories but not in high ability category. Overall, we developed and deployed an adaptive homework generation application in a field set up to show how ICT-enabled personalized learning could improve educational production with existing school resources.

Testing with feedback improves recall of information in informed consent: A proof of concept study

ObjectiveThis study investigates whether applying educational testing approaches to an informed consent video for a medical procedure can lead to greater recall of the information presented. MethodsUndergraduate students (n=120) were randomly assigned to watch a 20-min video on informed consent under one of three conditions: 1) tested using multiple-choice knowledge questions and provided with feedback on their answers after each 5-min segment; 2) tested with multiple choice knowledge questions but not provided feedback after each segment; or 3) watched the video without knowledge testing. ResultsParticipants who were tested and provided feedback had significantly greater information recall compared to those who were tested but not provided feedback and to those not tested. The effect of condition was stronger for moderately difficult questions versus easy questions. ConclusionsInserting knowledge tests and providing feedback about the responses at timed intervals in videos can be effective in improving recall of information. Practical implicationProviding informed consent information through a video not only standardizes the material, but using testing with feedback inserted within the video has the potential to increase recall and retention of this material.

Identification of Patients Who Benefit From Bevacizumab in High-Grade Glioma—An Easy Question Turned Difficult: Treat the Scan or the Patient?

TO THE EDITOR: Bevacizumab has activity in the CNS, with a randomized trial documenting its ability to reduce symptoms associated with radiation necrosis 1 and a reproducible impact on symptomsassociatedwithtumor-relatededemainrecurrentglioma. In addition, population-based assessments have suggested that the incorporation of bevacizumab into the treatment armamentarium has incrementally improved outcomes in high-grade glioma. 2

Vandals or Visionaries? The Ethical Criticism of Street Art

To the person unfamiliar with the wide variety of street art, the term “street artist” conjures a young man furtively sneaking around a decaying city block at night, spray paint in hand, defacing concrete structures, ears pricked for police sirens. The possibility of the ethical criticism of street art on such a conception seems hardly worth the time. This has to be an easy question. Street art is vandalism; vandalism is causing the intentional damage or destruction of someone else’s property; causing destruction or damage is wrong. The only remaining question is which of two coarse-grained models of ethical criticism we choose. The ethicist model holds that a work of art that exhibits ethically bad properties is a work that is thereby aesthetically flawed. That is, the work is flawed as a work of art just because of its ethical flaws. Bad ethics make art worse than it otherwise would have been, although it may be aesthetically successful otherwise. The autonomist model, by contrast, holds that the ethical properties of a work of art have no bearing at all on its aesthetic success. One might suppose, therefore, that on either model, a criticism of street art would be relatively easy to undertake. In defacing public property, some street art exhibits and endorses ethically bad attitudes. On the ethicist model, such a work is thereby pro tanto aesthetically flawed because in the process of creating such works, they violate ethical norms concerning the use of public spaces; on the autonomous model, any ethical criticism of the aesthetics of street art would need to be set aside entirely in favor of criticism that focused purely on the aesthetic properties of street art. I will argue in this paper that neither the ethicist nor the autonomist model adequately Vandals or Visionaries? | Willard 96 captures the moral landscape of street art. Street art may indeed be criticized productively on aesthetic grounds for the destruction it does to public spaces, but the existing models of ethical criticism overlook the complex ethical landscape of street art that results from its use of public spaces. In the interplay of various forms of street art we can see the emergence of an ethical criticism of art that is accomplished by the material properties of related artwork, and consists in the creation of a dialogue over the proper use of contested public spaces. Essays Philos (2016)17:95-124 | DOI: 10.7710/1526-0569.1545 Published online: 12 February 2016. © Mary Beth Willard 2016 Contact author: marybethwillard@weber.edu Essays in Philosophy 17(1)

From Sight through to In-Sight: Time, Narrative and Subjectivity in Conrad and Ford by Omar Sabbagh (review)

Reviewed by: From Sight through to In-Sight: Time, Narrative and Subjectivity in Conrad and Ford by Omar Sabbagh Andrew Glazzard Omar Sabbagh, From Sight through to In-Sight: Time, Narrative and Subjectivity in Conrad and Ford. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014. xlv + 232 pp. Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford collaborated on novels, short stories, and magazine editing for an immensely productive decade, and their mutual influence remained strong even after their friendship cooled in 1909. It is all the more surprising, then, that we do not have many parallel or comparative studies of these two major figures. We should therefore welcome Omar Sabbagh’s monograph, which sets out to examine how a selection of Conrad’s and Ford’s narratives narrate and thematize time, how they represent the self, and how they bring these two concerns together by examining time as subjective experience. These would seem to be valuable questions to examine: while the techniques of impressionism have been productively investigated by critics such as John G. Peters (on Conrad) and Max Saunders (on Ford), this study seems to be approaching new territory — the temporal dimension of early twentieth-century literary impressionism. However, several problems with the approach soon become apparent. A 35-page prologue offers an anticipation of some of the material to come in “a personal register.” One of three epigraphs to this prologue is a quotation from Forster’s Howards End (1910): “Only connect.” Aside from assigning this as a rogue epigraph to Forster’s novel — one of the many typographical slips and minor errors that suggest insufficient attention at the proof-reading and copy-editing stages — this instruction is one that we might wish Sabbagh had followed himself. The prologue’s meditations range from St. Paul to G. K. Chesterton via J. S. Mill, George Eliot, and Rosa Luxemburg; the relevance of this material to the questions under examination is hard to discern. And Shandyesque discursiveness is a persistent feature of the book’s style, causing difficulties of comprehension not just with respect to its arguments but even at sentence level. Parenthetical insertions of only tangential relevance are so frequent that the reader not only struggles to follow, but also quickly begins to wonder how much the author is in control of his material. [End Page 182] This problem of parenthetical complication is part of a more fundamental problem of clarity. Even when it does not wander, Sabbagh’s prose is often obscure to the point of impenetrability. At times this is no doubt because he is seeking to communicate subtle and complex ideas. For example, writing conceptually about time — a focus particularly of his examination of Ford’s Parade’s End tetralogy (1924–1928) — is never likely to be straightforward, but it is possible to be clearer than this: “just as the analeptical presentations of the past present the past, and vividly so, so the qualitatively different moments from the latest point in time, the latest present, make of the latter, continuously, a past, from the perspective of the cusp of the future, or future anteriority that is evinced or suggested by this continuous shifting back and forth” (195). Another problem becomes visible when a page-long quotation from Heart of Darkness (1899), in which Marlow expresses his realization that the dying Kurtz is suffering from a kind of moral insanity, appears in the prologue (again, barely linked to what comes before or after). Sabbagh mentions his intention to “look at the constellation of moments of climax and disintegration in detail” in this passage — and yet he moves on with barely a comment. Later in the study he promises us close readings, and those that we get are, on the whole, perceptive and rewarding, but they are few and far between. Analysis too often remains cursory. What, then, is this study actually saying? Because of these (in my view rather fundamental) flaws, this is not an easy question to answer. What Sabbagh says he will address is “why and how Ford and Conrad chose to shape and form their narratives the way they did.” This seems clearly enough to be signalling a narratological approach, but Sabbagh then adds an extra issue: he will examine “how...

The Apostle, the Philosopher, and Friar Thomas: The Place of Aristotle in Thomas Aquinas’s Dominican Vocation

Introduction What is the relationship between faith and philosophy? Can there be such a thing as a Christian or is by its nature independent of faith? This question offides et ratio is at the heart of current debates. For example, what role does doctrine play in public policy: is there a politics, a economics, a political philosophy? (1) In the other direction, what role does play in formation and theology: can non-Christian help us understand our faith? These are not easy questions to answer. The teachings of the Second Vatican Council, Pope St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI all involve answers to the question. But before Vatican II, the question was the subject of a fierce debate among great Catholic thinkers in France in the 1930s. (2) A recent book, Gregory Sadler's Reason Fulfilled by Revelation: The 1930s Philosophy Debates in France, collects the various positions of the debate--and shows us how complicated it was. These philosophers were thinking both about their current situation and about St. Thomas Aquinas. How did he see the relationship between faith and philosophy? How should we? The positions in the 1930s were subtle and difficult. Some said faith generates a new by providing concepts it would never find on its own: before the Bible taught about Creation, there was little philosophical reflection on existence. But others, generating new philosophical concepts, say reason works without faith, but faith gives it a new context, a new set of questions, a state. And a third answer takes a radically opposite position to the first, arguing that Christian philosophy is a contradiction in terms: reason is reason, is philosophy, whether or not. (3) One author even said, Medieval has nearly always suffered from its too close contact with and, Today still, many Catholic philosophers, deformed by theology, do not succeed in imposing on themselves a strictly philosophical method. (4) All three of these positions, and many more subtle ones, make good points. (5) The 1930s debate tried to answer the question for today by looking back to St. Thomas Aquinas. This article will do the same thing. But in light of eighty years of further historical scholarship, this essay will examine the question of from a different angle: in light of his Dominican vocation. I will first examine Thomas's choice of his vocation; then the intellectual demands of that vocation, both as the Order understood them and as Thomas did; and I shall thus reexamine his use of Aristotle. We shall find, on one hand, that Thomas uses Aristotle only in the service of biblical theology; and on the other hand, that it is important to Thomas that his philosophical servant be the non-Christian Aristotle. Approaching from the angle of Thomas's Dominican vocation gives us a more personal approach to the question of philosophy. First, this approach will yield an answer more in line with the moderate or even anti-Christian-philosophy authors of the 1930s. Second, by approaching the question historically rather than abstractly, through personal vocation rather than pure reason, we can take the polemical edge off the discussion. We can see how different vocations might approach the Christian-philosophy question differently, and we can find a more concrete way to think through the implications of our answers. Part One: Friar Thomas HIS LOVE OF ARISTOTLE Causa finalis aliarum causarum causa. Though many fine works have examined Thomas's particular use of sources, here my aim is to establish his goal. What was Thomas trying to accomplish? A first datum in establishing Thomas's goal is his fervent dedication to writing commentaries on Aristotle. …

延展认知的视角：STROOP变式任务中互联网使用频度与问题解决策略的差异

互联网因其所具备的海量信息和便捷搜索功能，对人们认知策略的形成产生影响，同时其又在认知系统中扮演外部交互记忆的角色。本研究选取互联网使用频度不同的两组在校大学生为被试，在回答不同的问题后，被试会进行一个便是STROOP任务，结果发现，面对容易问题时，两组被试都采用内部记忆知识立刻解决问题。在面对困难问题时，互联网高频使用组的解决策略为求助互联网，而互联网低频使用组的解决策略为求助教师和书本。该结论为延展认知观点提供了实证研究佐证。 Internet is influencing the way to form cognition strategy of people due to its mass information and the convenience to use search engine; also it is playing a role as external transactive memory in the cognition system. The aim of this study is to differentiate the strategies based on internal memory and external transactive memory when people are facing problems in different difficulty levels, by using a Modified Stroop Task under the Extended Cognition prospective. Two groups of college students with high and low Internet use frequency participated in the experiments. They answered 2 groups of questions among which one group was easy to answer while the other one was rather hard. After answering each group of questions, the participants completed the modified Stroop task. The results show that when facing easy questions, all participants would use their internal knowledge to answer; when being asked to answer difficult questions, the participants who use the Internet frequently will be primed to think about computer related tools, while the participants who use the Internet on a low frequency will still be keen to turn to tutors and books for help. The finding of this study has also contributed experimental evidence to Extended Cognition.

Difficulty Level of Compulsory Subject ‘Korean History’ of 2017 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) and Course in High School

Turning ‘Korean History’ into a compulsory subject in 2017 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) was successful for student to study ‘Korean History’ harder than before when it was an optional subject. But we should be careful to think that ‘easy questions’ are the best solution for any possible matters. If students consider ‘Korean History’ test unchallenging which can be prepared right before CSAT, high school ‘Korean History’ teachers will have more difficulty leading the classes. In fact, the total class hour of ‘Korean History’ didn’t increase after the subject become compulsory. In addition, the test with very low item discrimination will not guarantee the proper Korean History education. In the past, ‘Korean History’ CSAT had several demanding questions which were too much for students who didn’t take humanities courses. But it’s also problematic that students can find the answers without paying attention to courses at school. That’s why we should constantly listen to high school Korean History teachers’ opinion about controlling the level of difficulty.

A step further in Peer Instruction: Using the Stepladder technique to improve learning

Peer Instruction (PI) is an instructional strategy for engaging students during class through a structured questioning process that improves the learning of the concepts of fundamental sciences. Although all students are supposedly engaged in discussions with their peers during Peer Instruction, the learning gains generally remain at a medium level, suggesting a lack of participation of certain students who do not benefit from social interactions. The present study examined whether the Stepladder technique might optimize the Peer Instruction method and increase learning gains. With this technique, students enter a group sequentially, forcing every group member to participate in discussions. Eighty-four chemistry students were asked to answer easy and difficult multiple-choice questions before and after being randomly assigned to one of three instructional conditions during a chromatography lesson (Classic PI vs. Stepladder PI vs. Individual Instruction without any discussion with peers). As predicted, results showed that learning gains were greatest in the Stepladder PI group, and that this effect was mainly observed for difficult questions. Results also revealed higher perceived satisfaction when students had to discuss the questions with their peers than when they were not given this possibility. By extending the Stepladder technique to higher education, these findings offer a step forward in the Peer Instruction literature, showing how it can enhance learning gains.

Differences in proxy-reported and patient-reported outcomes: assessing health and functional status among medicare beneficiaries.

BackgroundProxy responses are very common when surveys are conducted among the elderly or disabled population. Outcomes reported by proxy may be systematically different from those obtained from patients directly. The objective of the study is to examine the presence, direction, and magnitude of possible differences between proxy-reported and patient-reported outcomes in health and functional status measures among Medicare beneficiaries.MethodsThis study is a pooled cross-sectional study of a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries from 2006 to 2011. Survey respondents can respond to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey either by themselves or via proxies. Health and functional status was assessed across five domains: physical, affective, cognitive, social, and sensory status. Propensity score matching was used to get matched pairs of patient-reports and proxy-reports.ResultsAfter applying the propensity score matching, the study identified 7,780 person-years of patient-reports paired with 7,780 person-years of proxy-reports. Except for the sensory limitation, differences between proxy-reported and patient-reported outcomes were present in physical, affective, cognitive, and social limitations. Compared to patient-reports, a question regarding survey respondents’ difficulties in managing money was associated with the largest proxy response bias (relative risk, RR = 3.83). With few exceptions, the presence, direction, and magnitude of differences between proxy-reported and patient-reported outcomes did not vary much in the subgroup analysis.ConclusionsWhen there is a difference between proxy-reported and patient-reported outcomes, proxies tended to report more health and functional limitations among the elderly and disabled population. The extent of proxy response bias depended on the domain being tested and the nature of the question being asked. Researchers should accept proxy reports for sensory status and objective, observable, or easy questions. For physical, affective, cognitive, or social status and private, unobservable, or complex questions, proxy-reported outcomes should be used with caution when patient-reported outcomes are not available.

Editorial

It gives me great pleasure to introduce this special issue of Teaching Mathematics and Its Applications, dedicated to computer-aided assessment (CAA) of mathematics and statistics. Work in CAA started over 50 years ago. For example, Hollingsworth (1960) was automatically assessing students’ computer code (using punch card technology). Intelligent tutoring systems, e.g. those reported in Sleeman & Brown (1982), predominantly made use of software on individual terminals, or isolated networks. All the work reported in this collection of papers makes use of Internet-based systems. It is easy to forget how profoundly the Internet has changed the world in which we live, including education. Over the last 15 years, CAA has developed rapidly, in parallel with the development of the Internet and taking advantage of the opportunities this offers. CAA offers a number of potential advantages over traditional paper-based assessments, e.g. immediate feedback, more regularly and to larger groups. In the longer term, where courses and systems remain stable, there are potential cost savings. That said, two very important questions remain: (i) how well did the students learn and (ii) is this a genuine improvement in learning? These are not easy questions to answer, particularly at universities where normally staff who teach courses also design and implement the summative assessments, such as the exams. Recent research, such as Braga et al. (2014) and Carrell & West (2010), cast serious doubts on the efficacy of using student satisfaction as a reliable measure of teaching quality.

Measurements of cognitive skill by survey mode: Marginal differences and scaling similarities

This paper addresses how measurements of cognitive skill differ based on survey mode, from a face-to-face interview to a self-completed survey, using the Wordsum vocabulary test found in the General Social Survey. The Wordsum acts as a proxy for general cognitive skill, and it has been used to predict a variety of political variables. Therefore, knowing differences in cognitive skill by mode are important for political science research because of the proliferation of self-completed Internet surveys. I leverage a large-scale mode experiment that randomizes a general population sample into a face-to-face or self-completed interview. Results show that historically easy questions are more likely to yield correct answers in the face-to-face treatment, but modest-to-difficult test questions have a higher rate of correct answers in the self-completed treatment (marginal distributions). A cognitive skill scale using item response theory, however, does not differ by mode because the ordering of ideal points does not change from a face-to-face interview to a self-completed survey. When applying the scale to a well-established model of party identification, I show no difference by mode, suggesting that a transition from face-to-face interviews to self-completed surveys may not alter conclusion drawn from models that use the Wordsum test.

Strontium isotopes as an indicator of human migration – easy questions, difficult answers

Isotope analyses of bones and teeth allow us to study phenomena which occurred in the history of human species and which are difficult to capture by traditional anthropological methods. Measuring oxygen, nitrogen and carbon isotope levels in the skeleton makes it possible to reconstruct climatic changes, diet and/or the weaning process. Among isotopes used in such analyses are strontium isotopes, helpful in analysing migration and studying the mobility of historical and prehistoric human populations. In this respect, the proportion of two isotopes, the heavier 87Sr and the lighter 86Sr, is measured, following their extraction from the bioapatite of the bone mineral. Released from rocks in the weathering process, strontium permeates individual components of inanimate and animate environments, and then finds its way, together with food, to the human body. Thanks to comprehensive environmental studies and the measurement of the strontium ratio 87Sr/86Sr in various animal tissues it is possible to determine the local isotope background for the environment. Values obtained by analysing human skeletons referenced against the range of environmental isotope variability enable researchers to trace back the location inhabited by the individual or group.

Rebranding "community mental health".

What do we mean by ‘‘Community Mental Health’’; what does it mean to be a ‘‘Community Psychiatrist’’? One assumes these are easy questions to answer, but the responses are not as simple as they may seem. Let’s start with some simple history: Community mental health as a term originated over 50 years ago. Related to the work of seminal pioneers like Erich Lindemann, the term originally referred to addressing the mental health needs of an entire community, rather than just individual patients, and to engaging in community consultation that would leverage natural caregivers to respond to crises and promote community health. This concept was transformed by the Community Mental Health Center Act (1963), which led to the first wave of federally funded community mental health centers in the mid to late sixties and early seventies. Although many of these centers initially aspired to broad community missions, their development was heavily influenced by the de-institutionalization movement of the same time period, and the concept of community mental health evolved to include and focus on service in the community (as opposed to in the hospital or in the institution) for adults with chronic and severe mental illness and children with severe emotional served in the public sector. Finally, because the generativity of community mental health arose from several broad social movements (community focus and community organizing; publicly funded and organized mental health service delivery in catchment areas across the nation; the de-institutionalization and ‘‘liberation’’ of individuals who had been trapped in institutions for decades), community mental health and community psychiatry have long been associated with a ‘‘cutting edge’’ movement in response to the challenge of providing innovative services for those most in need and least able to pay. So what is community mental health; what does it mean to be a community psychiatrist? And perhaps the key issue: does this all mean the same thing now as it did 50 years ago? Some questions might help us determine a response:

Faculty development programs improve the quality of Multiple Choice Questions items' writing.

The aim of this study was to assess the utility of long term faculty development programs (FDPs) in order to improve the quality of multiple choice questions (MCQs) items' writing. This was a quasi-experimental study, conducted with newly joined faculty members. The MCQ items were analyzed for difficulty index, discriminating index, reliability, Bloom's cognitive levels, item writing flaws (IWFs) and MCQs' nonfunctioning distractors (NFDs) based test courses of respiratory, cardiovascular and renal blocks. Significant improvement was found in the difficulty index values of pre- to post-training (p = 0.003). MCQs with moderate difficulty and higher discrimination were found to be more in the post-training tests in all three courses. Easy questions were decreased from 36.7 to 22.5%. Significant improvement was also reported in the discriminating indices from 92.1 to 95.4% after training (p = 0.132). More number of higher cognitive level of Bloom's taxonomy was reported in the post-training test items (p<0.0001). Also, NFDs and IWFs were reported less in the post-training items (p<0.02). The MCQs written by the faculties without participating in FDPs are usually of low quality. This study suggests that newly joined faculties need active participation in FDPs as these programs are supportive in improving the quality of MCQs' items writing.

Educational intervention in patients undergoing orthognathic surgery: Pilot study

Objective : This study was to assess the feasibility of educational intervention nusing printed materials and the appropriateness of the instruments chosen to assess the efficacy of the intervention in patients undergoing orthognathic surgery. Methods : Nonrandomized pilot study was conducted with eight patients. In the preoperative period, an educational intervention using printed material and the application of instruments for data collection was carried out; in the postoperative period, only data collection was carried out. Friedman, Wilcoxon, McNemar and Rasch’s statistical tests were applied in order to assess the variables and the instrument. Results : Significant findings with respect to trait anxiety ( p = .016), lower difficulty of patients to perform oral hygiene ( p = .008), mild pain ( p = .025), and moderate pain ( p = .046). For the knowledge test, Rasch analysis showed that the model did not fit, since easy questions were stacked in the lower limit of the map, which showed the need to reformulate some questions. Conclusions : The intervention was consistent, but it can only be confirmed as effective through a research with a control group. It was observed that the use of brochures could improve the management of the signs and symptoms experienced by the patients in the postoperative period.

Student Attitudes to an Online, Peer-instruction, Revision Aid in Science Education

Peer instruction has been shown to have a positive effect on students’ engagement and learning. However, many of the techniques designed to incorporate peer instruction into the student experience are very heavy on resources. PeerWise is a free, low-maintenance, web-tool designed to allow peer instruction between students within a large class group. Students can write, answer and discuss Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) based on their work in-class. In this study, we introduce PeerWise to a wide and varied cohort of science students (N=509) across different disciplines, undergraduate years, levels (certificate to honours degree) and institutes. The attitudes of the students to PeerWise are probed using a questionnaire (356 respondents). This includes responses to Likert-style questions and thematic analysis carried out on free-text responses. It is found that the students are positive about the addition of PeerWise and recognise the advantages of the software in their learning. They recognise, and articulate, the advantages of PeerWise as an active-learning, peer-instruction revision tool. Further advantages and disadvantages are discussed, such as the flooding of system with easy and/or repetitive questions. Overall, the results are positive and are very similar across the varied class groups. In this study, PeerWise performs as free and low-maintenance software that allows the addition of (another) peer-instruction aspect to modules.