General Education Intervention Research Articles

ICoaching the coach: building capacity with embedded evidence-based practice implementation support

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of iCoaching during reading intervention. An interventionist received mentoring support to implement iCoaching. The goal of the study was to increase teacher-delivered, behavior-specific praise (BSP).Design/methodology/approachUsing a single-case multiple-probe design across participants (Gast, 2010; Horner and Baer, 1978), iCoaching was implemented in a two-part package of (1) professional development (PD) and (2) live iCoaching sessions where three teachers received preemptive coaching comments to increase BSP delivery during reading intervention. Visual analysis identified changes in teacher behavior.FindingsFindings demonstrated the iCoaching intervention package increased teacher knowledge and implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs; i.e. BSP) during tiered reading intervention groups. Most student participants made gains in reading skills (accuracy, words per minute and composite score) across the areas measured.Research limitations/implicationsTeacher absences, observation scheduling, an ongoing global pandemic, IEP meetings during intervention time, and other changes in the schedule were limitations of this study. The first set of earbuds lost the audio signal several times, and researchers lost the ability to hear the instruction occurring in the classroom; the earbuds were replaced by the first intervention phase.Practical implicationsPrevious iCoaching literature demonstrates iCoaching provides implementation support for EBPs learned in PD. Peer coaching can have a positive impact on EBP implementation when iCoaching is non-evaluative, which supports teachers with EBP implementation with minimal disruption to teaching.Originality/valueThis manuscript extends iCoaching research (Randolph et al., 2020, 2021) from small group special education settings to general education intervention groups. Additionally, research shows iCoaching can be extended with mentoring.

The impact of general education in enhancing the self-efficacy of accounting students at universities of technology

The aim of this article is to investigate the integration of General Education in improving the Self-efficacy of Cost and Management Accounting (CMA) students to assess whether Self-efficacy, is having any positive impact on the students’ academic performance. The research design of this article was descriptive, longitudinal and employed a mixed-method approach. The nature of the quasi-experimental approach that was used in the current article is a non-equivalent pre-test and post-test control group design. The target population was CMA students. A census survey was performed. Findings, which were analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics, indicate a significant correlation in the post-test (Self-efficacy) scores of the group that undertook the General Education Modules and not the group that did not undertake the General Education Modules. This article recommends the implementation of General Education skills into the curriculum and a General Education intervention strategy. Moreover, these skills appear to be very poor amongst current learners and respondents believed that Self-efficacy could have a positive effect on the academic performance of learners.  

The association between physician knowledge and inappropriate medications for older populations.

Older patients are often prescribed potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) given their age. We measured the association between a physician's general knowledge and their PIM prescribing. Using a 2013-2017 cross-sectional design, we related a general internist's knowledge (n=8196) to their prescribing of PIMs to fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries, age ≥ 66 years with part D coverage, which they saw in the outpatient setting the year after their exam (n=875,132). Physician knowledge was based on the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Internal Medicine Maintenance of Certification (IM-MOC) exam scores. Medications included 72 PIMs from the American Geriatric Society's Beers Criteria and appropriate alternatives to these medications. Logistic regressions controlled for physicians practice/training characteristics and patient-risk factors. Annually, 11.0% of patients received a PIM and 57.2% received an appropriate alternative medication. Patients seen by physicians scoring in the top versus bottom quartile were 8.6% less likely (95% confidence interval [CI]: -12.7 to -4.5, p < 0.001) to be prescribed a PIM and 4.7% more likely (95% CI: 1.7 to 7.6, p=0.001) to be prescribed an appropriate alternative medication. The difference in PIM prescribing grew to 12.1% fewer (95% CI: -15.1 to -9.1) patients when limiting the sample to the 58.9% of patients being prescribed a PIM or appropriate alternative medication. Among patients receiving any medication, this was similar to the percent difference in PIM prescribing between solo and large practices (≥50 physicians, -10.2%, 95% CI: 13.6-6.5, p < 0.001) or between group and academic practices (-11.7%, 95% CI: -15.3 to -7.9, p < 0.001). PIM prescribing was more positively associated with patient characteristics including age, gender, and total number of medications prescribed. Better physician general knowledge, as measured by an ABIM exam, was associated with fewer PIM prescriptions. Future research should examine whether general educational interventions, such as MOC, effect PIM prescribing.

The effectiveness of interventions to improve self-management for adolescents and young adults with allergic conditions: A systematic review.

This systematic review aimed to review the literature on interventions for improving self-management and well-being in adolescents and young adults (11-25years) with asthma and allergic conditions. A systematic literature search was undertaken across eight databases. References were checked by two reviewers for inclusion. Study data were extracted, and their quality was assessed in duplicate. A narrative synthesis was undertaken. A total of 30 papers reporting data from 27 studies were included. Interventions types were psychological (k=9); e-health (k=8); educational (k=4); peer-led (k=5); breathing re-training (k=1). All interventions were for asthma. Psychological interventions resulted in significant improvements in the intervention group compared with the control group for self-esteem, quality of life, self-efficacy, coping strategies, mood and asthma symptoms. E-Health interventions reported significant improvements for inhaler technique, adherence and quality of life. General educational interventions demonstrated significantly improved quality of life, management of asthma symptoms, controller medication use, increased use of a written management plan and reduction in symptoms. The peer-led interventions included the Triple A (Adolescent Asthma Action) programme and a peer-led camp based on the Power Breathing Programme. Improvements were found for self-efficacy, school absenteeism and quality of life. Although significant improvements were seen for all intervention types, many were small feasibility or pilot studies, few studies reported effect sizes and no studies for allergic conditions other than asthma met the inclusion criteria. Research using large longitudinal interventional designs across the range of allergic conditions is required to strengthen the evidence base.

Gender differences in COPD management in a Sicilian general practice setting: a cohort study evaluating the impact of educational interventions.

AimThe aim of this study was to measure gender differences among COPD patients' quality of care (QOC) before and after two educational interventions in Southern Italy.MethodsIn this prospective cohort study, COPD patients were identified from primary care electronic medical records (EMRs). Twelve process indicators concerning diagnosis, preventative measures and therapeutic processes were developed as a measure of QOC. Educational interventions consisted of clinical seminars and audits on COPD QOC at baseline, and at 12 and 24 months. QOC indicators were stratified by gender: odds ratios (ORs) (males as reference group) of having a good QOC indicator were calculated at baseline, 12 and 24 months, with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using hierarchical generalised linear models.ResultsOf 46 326 people registered in the EMRs, 1463 COPD patients (3.1%) were identified, of which 37% were women. QOC indicators reflecting best practice 24 months after the educational programme were generally not different to baseline, often favouring men. On the other hand, the composite global QOC indicator suggested that while a good overall QOC at baseline was significantly higher in men than women (OR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.57–0.96), it became nonsignificant at 24 months (OR: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.72–1.29).ConclusionsSpecific QOC indicators among COPD patients often favoured men. However, several gender disparities seen at baseline disappeared at 24 months, suggesting that even general educational interventions which do not target gender can improve the gender disparity in QOC.

Curricular innovation and emergency management in higher education: Making the general education connection.

As a distributed function, emergency management in higher education must involve students from outside the field. An introductory emergency management course was redesigned to be attractive and visible to nonmajors via approval for inclusion in the university's core general education curriculum. Pre-/post comparisons were made of enrollment data for two interventions intended to broaden the course's audience. Later, a survey assessed why students took the course. A land grant research university serving over 14,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Participants were students taking the Department's introductory course. Two interventions involved the Department's entry level course originally titled, "Introduction to Emergency Management" and numbered at the sophomore level. First, the Department retitled the course, "Emergencies, Disasters, and Catastrophes," and renumbered the course at the freshman level. Second, the Department later requested and received approval to have the course accepted in the University's general education curriculum. Interventions were assessed by examining the average, annual number of nonmajors in the course, as well as, the academic diversity present among nonmajors. Both interventions, and especially the general education intervention, increased both enrollment measures. A rapid approval for the course's inclusion in general education validated faculty's acceptance of emergency management as an academic discipline while each intervention increased both the number and academic diversity of nonmajors. Long-term, the result should prepare nonemergency management leaders for emergency management as a distributed function.

Comparing educational interventions: Correcting misperceived norms improves college students' mental health attitudes

AbstractThis research targeted potential psychological contributors to college students' low levels of help‐seeking for mental distress using a field experiment. Researchers randomly assigned 520 undergraduates to 15‐min interventions: a novel, theory‐driven social norms intervention correcting misperceived distress, stigma, and help‐seeking norms; a general education intervention increasing mental health awareness; and a stress management active control condition. The norms intervention instilled more accurate perceptions of mental health norms and temporarily reduced perceived public stigma compared to other conditions. The norms and general education interventions improved attitudes toward seeking help for mental distress for at least 2 months, relative to the control. Effects on help‐seeking behavior were not observed in this timeframe. This research elucidates the robustness of brief social psychological mental health interventions on college campuses.

Errors in cause-of-death statement on death certificates in intensive care unit of Kathmandu, Nepal.

BackgroundDeath certificates (DC) are one of the most important medico-legal documents that physicians work through. DCs are extensively used in health statistics for epidemiological studies, and in health policy planning as a public health resource tool. Cause-of-death (COD) statement, which is vulnerable to various errors, is the vital part of a DC that has the potential to mislead the policy makers and statisticians. Hence, we evaluated and analyzed the errors prevalent in COD statement of DC.MethodsA retrospective observational study was conducted at medical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Blue Cross Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal within two years of study period. A total of 204 medical records of the deceased patients were reviewed. Three sub-headings of COD statement of DC- Part I Immediate COD (ICOD), Part I Underlying COD (UCOD), and Part II Other significant conditions (OSC) were extensively evaluated for the major medical errors.ResultsThe study found errors in 78.4 % of DCs. The highest number of errors was in UCOD (83 %). Most common errors were “Mechanism of Death- terminal event” in ICOD, “More than one competing causes” in UCOD, and “OSC present but not listed” in OSC. The error in DC was found to be statistically significant with the severity of sepsis (p = 0.003), and presence of chronic organ failures (p = 0.034). Age, time of death, source of admission, and duration of ICU stay were not found to be statistically associated with the errors in DC.ConclusionPrevalence of errors in DC was quite high. Most errors were committed in underlying cause of death, which is the most important part of DC. Complexity of the cases was the key factor that increased the risks of committing errors. Specific education should supersede general educational interventions to minimize the errors considerably in writing DC in complex cases.

The Legal Dimension of RTI—Confusion Confirmed

In this issue of Learning Disability Quarterly (LDQ), Professors Daves and Walker reply to my earlier LDQ article on confusion in the cases and commentary about the legal dimension of RTI. In this brief rejoinder, I show that their reply confirms rather than resolves the confusion in their original commentary in 2010. This persistent problem appears to be largely attributable to lack of accuracy and precision in examining and evaluating the law—including the legislation, regulations, court decisions, and administrative rulings—as distinct from the lore—including their particular professional perceptions and recommendations. For example, they confuse the specific scope and requirements for RTI in the IDEA with the more generic, long-standing practice of general education interventions. Indeed, their response inadvertently compounds the confusion by less than careful and complete interpretation and citation of various legal sources.

RTI Confusion in the Case Law and the Legal Commentary

This article expresses the position that the current legal commentary and cases do not sufficiently differentiate response to intervention (RTI) from the various forms of general education interventions that preceded it, thus compounding confusion in professional practice as to legally defensible procedures for identifying children as having a specific learning disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). After providing the legal framework for RTI in terms of IDEA and corresponding state laws, including the generally agreed on key components, the article canvasses examples of this confusion in recent case law and the legal commentary—extending even to legal publisher classifications—concerning this case law. The recommendation, starting with local school district policy and practice, is for clear and defensible differentiation that maintains, with fidelity, the integrity of RTI.

Creative Problem Solving for General Education Intervention Teams

Creative problem solving (CPS) is an approach for identifying solutions to problems within a structured, facilitated process. In the current studies, CPS was customized for general education intervention (GEI) teams in elementary schools. In the first study, 24 GEI teams were randomly assigned either to a CPS for GEI training condition or to a control group. Team outcome measures were tracked over the course of a school year, and the CPS for GEI teams consistently demonstrated superior performance relative to controls across all measures. One year later, a second study investigated 2 approaches to delivering training in CPS for GEI teams. Five teams received CPS for GEI training directly from university-based staff, and 9 teams received training from employees in their district who had previously received CPS for GEI training from the university-based staff (a “train-the-trainers” approach). Schools receiving training from their own staff performed as well as the independently trained schools, thereby providing support for the train-the-trainers approach. Discussion focuses on the results from both studies and identifies areas for future research and practice with CPS for GEI teams.

“The Time has Come,” the Walrus Said, “to Speak of Many Things!”

As a special educator, I find myself in an ever-increasing Mad Hatter-March Hare sort of existence. I wonder if you too are having trouble just trying to keep up? This is true on many special education fronts: in curriculum, in classroom settings, and in the shear complexity of our professional conversations. In particular, how did and curriculum standards become the desired goal for all students? Whatever happened to reasonable standards, goals and expectations that used to be acceptable back here in the trenches, where most of us reside? When I think of rigorous, I immediately envision Arctic explorer Anne Bancroft trekking through snow and ice, dragging a dogsled by a shoulder harness, or Lance Armstrong making that final uphill push in the French Alps. Must all of us strive to achieve universal levels? It would appear that few of us are either motivated enough or talented enough to be able to achieve high or rigorous standards. For my part, I think it may be enough to achieve reasonable goals. Frustrated parents, students, and teachers may agree. A Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee rigor issue in my current world is the widely accepted notion that special or general education interventions and curricula must be scientifically based, or variants thereof such as scientifically based, peer reviewed, peer juried and data driven (No Child Left Behind Act). Much of what we know from special education research, just like in other disciplines, is narrowly construed and focused on relative minutia; for example, time on task, reading fluency, or short-term memory. As a consequence, we find ourselves in a place similar to those embracing the new frontier in brain research: We are on the cusp of an explosion of information about practice, but right now we don't have many research-based practices on which to hang our hats. Those few practices we know for sure are effective can be named on the fingers of one hand: direct instruction works; strategy instruction works; children who are safe, alert and fed do better than those who are not; children who are instructed in small, intensive settings have a better chance of improving their skills; and students who achieve at levels one and one-half standard deviations below their peers can make progress but do not catch up (yes, there are a few more fingers). Still, mostly we know how to apply findings when it comes to teaching basic reading skills to young students. In more complex areas such as math application and reading comprehension, we do not yet have the body of scientific evidence needed to make research based practice more than a hope for the future. I must have been taking a Cheshire cat nap when confusion arose about the value of special education settings. The thought goes something like this: Children with disabilities are better off in general education classrooms because special education classrooms are somehow inferior or produce minimal results (the opposite of rigorous). …

Responsiveness to General Education Instruction as the First Gate to Learning Disabilities Identification

Most definitions of learning disabilities (LD) include a qualification that adequate general education instruction was received and the child with LD did not benefit. Rarely is this tenet assessed in either practice or research before a diagnosis is made. We review three studies that investigated children's responsiveness to general education reading instruction as an indicator of need for more intensive interventions. Adequacy of instruction was quantified by children's level and rate of progress, compared to classmates, as measured by curriculum‐based measures of oral reading fluency. We found that the response‐to‐instruction model tested was valid in that (1) children who differ from their peers on level and slope of performance (dual discrepancy) have more severe academic and behavioral problems than children who have IQ‐achievement discrepancies or low achievement; (2) children who demonstrate persistent nonresponsiveness over three years differ from other at‐risk children on reading, reading‐related, and behavioral measures; and (3) at‐risk children who participated in specially designed general education interventions had better outcomes than at‐risk children who did not participate. We conducted additional analyses to assess low achievement definitional variations and found that they lack sensitivity and coverage compared to a dual discrepancy definition.

Individual or group antenatal education for childbirth/parenthood.

Structured antenatal education programs for childbirth and/or parenthood are commonly recommended for pregnant women and their partners by health care professionals in many parts of the world. Such programs are usually offered to groups but may be offered to individuals. The objective of this review was to assess the effects of this education on knowledge acquisition, anxiety, sense of control, pain, support, breastfeeding, infant care abilities, and psychological and social adjustment. The Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group trials register, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, and other databases were searched. The date of the last search was December, 1999. Randomized controlled trials of any structured educational program provided during pregnancy by an educator to either parent, that included information related to pregnancy, birth, or parenthood were included. The educational interventions could have been provided on an individual or group basis. Educational interventions directed exclusively to either increasing breastfeeding success or reducing smoking were excluded, since reviews of these topics can be found elsewhere in The Cochrane Library. Trial quality was assessed and data were extracted by the author from published reports. Six trials, involving 1443 women, were included. Twenty-two were excluded. The largest of the included studies (n = 1275) examined an educational intervention to increase vaginal birth after cesarean section. This high quality study showed similar rates of vaginal birth after cesarean section in 'verbal' and 'document' groups, relative risk (RR) 1.1 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0-1.2). More general educational interventions were the focus of the other five studies (combined n = 168). The methodological quality of these trials is uncertain, since details of the randomization procedure, allocation concealment, and/or participant accrual/loss were not reported. No consistent results were found. Sample sizes were very small, ranging from 10-67. Interventions, populations, and outcomes measured were different in each study. No data from the five general education trials were reported concerning labour and birth outcomes, anxiety, breastfeeding success, or general social support. Knowledge acquisition and factors related to infant care competencies were measured. Individualized prenatal education directed toward avoidance of a cesarean birth does not increase the rate of vaginal birth after cesarean section. The effects of general antenatal education for childbirth and/or parenthood remain unknown.

Section 504: Implications for Physical Education Programs Instructional Responsibilities

Major responsibility for implementation of Section 504 lies with the general education teacher. This article addresses the physical education teacher’s role. Sample referral, group report, and general education intervention plan forms are provided. Considerations for possible physical education accommodations are addressed.