Inside View Research Articles

OfSTED from within: Inspectors’ views on challenges and future direction

In England, current punitive and performative inspection practices have intensified public resentment towards the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (OfSTED). In 2024, a new His Majesty's Chief Inspector was appointed, initiating a system-wide review of the inspection framework and practice. In July 2024, the Labour government won the general election, raising hopes of resetting the accountability system. Against this backdrop, this paper presents an insider's view of OfSTED. Eleven former Her Majesty's Inspectors and serving OfSTED inspectors were interviewed. Through the lenses of espoused theories and theories-in-use, this study uncovered inspectors’ shared concerns about an increasingly politicised OfSTED, a narrowed focus on education quality, an increased workload and diminished professional autonomy. Some root causes behind inconsistent inspection judgements and highly standardised inspection reports were explained. While only a few inspectors wanted to abolish one-word judgements at the time of the interviews, all expressed genuine belief in the value of inspection when carefully designed and properly conducted to serve pupils and schools. This paper highlights why scrapping one-word judgements is a welcome change, but more work is needed to rebuild trust, professionalise and depoliticise OfSTED, encourage local ingenuity and lower the stakes of inspections.

Long-term probabilistic forecasts of activity mitigation in English hospitals: a national elicitation exercise providing an outside view based on judgements of experts in support of the New Hospital Programme

ObjectivesThe planning process for a new hospital relies on assumptions about future levels of demand. Typically, such assumptions are characterised by point estimates, the flaw-of-averages, base-rate neglect and overoptimism from...

Workload and the crisis in Australian school teaching

The teaching profession in Australia is in crisis. There is a dramatic shortage of teachers and little prospect of significant improvement in the years ahead. This commentary gives an insider view of what is wrong with the teaching profession. The crisis is a complex problem with complex causes. This view is necessarily partial, with a focus on Queensland, and on teacher workload as a cause of the workforce crisis.

ADHD in surgeons: an inside view

A surgeon recalls how getting an ADHD diagnosis and treatment transformed their career and helped improve their mental wellbeing.

Insider Views and Practices of Translanguaging Classrooms in Early Childhood Education

This study, situated within the domain of language education, delves into the intricate dynamics of translanguaging practices and their profound influence on learning and teaching procedures in a linguistically and culturally enriched early childhood education environment. Focused on the context of Greece, the research aims to uncover the nuanced ways in which translanguaging shapes the language communication and interaction of four-year-old children, considering both native Greek speakers and their peers from migrant or refugee backgrounds. The study cohort consists of 50 children aged four, comprising both native Greek and migrant-background children attending early childhood education. Employing a comprehensive research approach, the study includes in-depth, semi-structured interview sessions with young children and specific observational protocols designed to capture authentic interactions and communications. These methods are employed to trace the development of intercultural awareness and sensitivity within an environment conducive to translanguaging. The findings highlight that the incorporation of translanguaging practices in early education settings not only refines communication and intercultural skills among young children but also significantly influences cultural awareness. Moreover, translanguaging fosters active engagement in learning activities and provides educators with valuable insights and support in implementing innovative language teaching techniques. This research contributes to the advancement of language education practices, particularly within linguistically and culturally diverse early childhood education contexts, emphasizing the transformative impact of translanguaging on crucial aspects of language learning and teaching.

An Analysis of Primary School Teacher Candidates’ Perceptions of Foreign Language Teaching Anxiety

Anxiety is a crucial factor in the process of teaching/learning a foreign language. This study, designed as a mixed-method quasi-experimental study, investigates primary school teacher candidates’ a) foreign language teaching anxiety levels, b) sources of anxiety, and c) expectations and suggestions about “Foreign Language Teaching in Primary School” course. The study used quantitative and qualitative tools to collect data. The results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in FLT anxiety levels of the participants over the Foreign Language Teaching in Primary Schools course. This study provided insider views about how to make this innovative course more cost-effective and better tailor its content to help them gain practical ideas about how to handle factors triggering foreign language teaching anxiety.

Dual-narrowband bandpass filter with exact equations of scattering parameters

Abstract In this article, a new microstrip dual-narrowband bandpass filter employing parallel-coupled transmission lines and open stubs is presented, investigated, and fabricated. The proposed dual-narrowband bandpass filter is analyzed and its exact scattering parameters are calculated, simulated, and measured. So, calculated scattering parameters offer a deep inside view of the performance of the proposed filter. To analyze the proposed filter, the even- and odd-mode excitation are utilized. The input impedance under even- and odd-mode excitation are achieved by transmission line theory and inserted in the scattering parameter equations. Finally, the accurate scattering parameters are derived and compared with simulation results. Simulation results prove the theoretical results. Then, an optimized proposed filter is fabricated and matched with simulation results. The center frequency bands are 4.5 and 6.8 GHz. The optimized filter occupies 0.12 $ \times $ 0.096 $\lambda _g^2$ , which is small. Its fractional bandwidth of the first and second passband are 1.5 and 2.5%, respectively. Furthermore, wide and strong rejection levels in the stopbands are offered. The structure of the proposed filter provides many freedoms to design. There is an agreement between experimental and simulation results.

Are Local Commune Governments Interested in the Development of Photovoltaics in Their Area? An Inside View of Poland

A growing number of installations for generating energy from renewable sources has provoked an increased response in society. The tendency to support such investments is noticeable. The main actors in the PV market include investors, administrative bodies that issue relevant permits, and communities in locations where such investment projects are planned. Not every property should be allotted for such investments. Some entities are interested in having Renewable Energy Source (RES) installed in their area. This study aims to demonstrate the benefits that local commune governments can gain from implementing PV farms in their area and to perform an analysis of socio-economic and spatial determinants of locating PV farms at the regional level. The scenario method and a multiple regression analysis were applied in this study. The research was conducted for the territory of Poland, taking into consideration the number of PV farms in individual regions/voivodeships (NUTS-2). The results show that the number of PV farms in Poland is not growing evenly. The growth of the investment project number is the greatest in the north and the northwest of Poland. Local commune governments are interested in implementing PV farms because of a much higher income from the real estate tax and because of a decrease in the rate of unemployment among agricultural farm owners. All of these results should be observed from a longer-term perspective to confirm the trends.

‘Quality’ Service to Society? Continuing Education and Training Centers in Universities: Insider Views

The zeitgeist of Continuing Education and Training viz. CET organizations globally is in tandem with the fast-shifting dynamics as well as altering mindsets pertaining to lifelong learning. Particularly for developing countries like Türkiye, a country which is highly heterogenous vis-à-vis its demographic structure, these changes are worthy of dwelling on. The present qualitative study intends to delve into the current practices in the CET organizations in question via seeking first-hand-information of leaders (heads / principals / coordinators / administrators) as well as those attending the said organizations with a view to shedding light to the practicum in relation to reaching out communities outside the immediate shareholders. Whilst doing so it is attempted to cast light on the challenges of novel sort too. The main research questions: 1) What leadership styles come to the forefront in CET organizations to better serve the society? 2) What are the perceived challenges and how are these addressed? 3) How is the future of CET organizations respecting catering to community needs in a quality fashion? The study is conducted with 10 leaders alongside 6 attendees of CET organizations in various regions of Türkiye, resorting to purposeful sampling and by carrying out semi-structured interviews on a one-to-one basis. The findings indicate the leaders along with the attendees of CETs as the participants of this study hold views that do not bear a lot of resemblance yet there exist some commonalities in this regard.

Socioeconomic and political settings for the land development decreasing urban green. Inside view from Moscow

The analysis shows the impact of socioeconomic factors and civil freedom on allocating green areas for investments. The research was conducted for the period 1992–2020 using the example of Moscow as the metropolis in a country with a robust centralized political system. Quantitative research methods included recognizing changes in land use, selected socioeconomic parameters, and indicators measuring the power of civil society. Calculated correlations and modeling of the collected data were used to identify Russia's revenue for petroleum and Moscow's budget revenue as predictors for losing green areas. Among the social activity indicators, the Press Freedom indicator was the best correlated and used for modeling. The analysis of the decision-making procedure for land development and the reconstruction of the case Krylatskie Kholmy allowed gaining insight into actual mechanisms leading to investment in urban green areas. The outcomes that were reachedexpress that investing in bare soils is of the most significant importance; however, the dynamics of change decreased in the analyzed period. The modeling showed that growing Russia's revenue for petroleum increases the likelihood of greenfield investment. The legal nature-protection status brings the most significant effect of preventing land development. The likelihood of land development decreases with the growth of Moscow's budget revenue. It indicates the support for the redevelopment of abounded land located within the range of the existing infrastructure. The modeling of the dependence between the Press Freedom index and land development probability demonstrates the possible effectiveness of public opinion pressure to protect natural and semi-natural areas within the urban fabric. The described decision-making mechanism for land development made it possible to assess that the role of civil society in the decision-making process is insufficient, given the converging interests of investors and administration. The results show that in highly centralized countries with a marginal role of civil society, the concentration of capital from the export of strategic natural resources is the key factor of urban green losses. These findings contribute to understanding differences in urban spatial policy approaches to green areas and their effectiveness.

Current issues of intercultural interaction: experience of western countries

The current difficulties of intercultural interaction, experience of counteracting xenophobia and other problems are considered in the framework of the article on the example of Western countries, mainly the United States, as a state with a significant proportion of its population, including in percentage ratio, occupied by representatives of different races and cultures. In the course of the research the relevance and acuteness of the problems of intercultural interaction are assessed, the problems of weakening of peoples' self-awareness and formation of complexes of the race accused of xenophobia, as well as attempts to introduce xenophobic ideas into science are considered. The author also touches upon the topic of selective tolerance. The research is based on the analysis of scientific and informational publications on the topic under study, both domestic and foreign, representing an inside view of the problem. The material considered in the article allows us to conclude that the problems of intercultural relations in the United States are becoming more and more complicated over time, and similar processes are taking place in other Western countries, which gives grounds to recognize the policy of fighting xenophobia as ineffective. These articles can be used as a basis for further research into the problems of intercultural interaction and the possible development of measures for the settlement and subsequent prevention of these problems.

Effect of End Groups on the Cloud Point Temperature of Aqueous Solutions of Thermoresponsive Polymers: An Inside View by Flory-Huggins Theory.

In an effort to gain insight into the origin of the effects of end groups on the cloud point temperature (Tcp) as a function of the polymer molar mass of thermoresponsive polymers with lower critical solution behavior in dilute aqueous solutions, we use the Flory-Huggins (FH) theory amended for end groups. The theory was applied to available experimental data sets of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM), poly(4-vinylbenzyl methoxytris(oxyethylene) ether) (PTEGSt), and poly(α-hydro-ω-(4-vinylbenzyl)tetrakis(oxyethylene) ether) (PHTrEGSt). The theory relates the variations in TcpM,ϕcp for different end groups to the effective FH χ parameter of the end groups and explains the qualitative notion that the influence of the end groups is related to the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity of the end groups relative to that of the so called intrinsic TcpM,ϕcp response of a polymer without end groups. The limits to the applicability of the FH theory are established, and a set of possible theoretical improvements is considered. The ultimate scrutiny of the simple FH theory and suggested improved theories must await the measurement of truly thermodynamic cloud points; the available cloud points are merely estimations of the thermodynamic cloud point, for which the deviation to the true cloud point cannot be established with sufficient accuracy.

Nurse’s Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Medical Cannabis Legalization in Thailand

Objective: To determine the attitudes and perceptions among nurses towards legalization of cannabis for medical use in Thailand.Material and Methods: This anonymous, cross-sectional paper and online survey was conducted from May 2020 to November 2021. Data collection was done using the Cannabis as Medicine: Thai Nurse’s Attitudes and Perceptions Survey. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.Results: This study included 287 Thai registered nurses across Thailand. The top 3 positive attitudes and perceptions among the nurses were: 1) currently, most patients use or intend to use cannabis oil, 2) it’s not uncommon if nurses with advanced cancer decide to use cannabis oil, and 3) a patient’s values and beliefs in cannabis oil can them feel better. The top 3 negative attitudes and perceptions were: 1) cannabis reduces tumor growth in advanced cancer stages, 2) nurses administer medical cannabis as other medications; and (3) nurses like taking care of patients with the non-medicinal use of cannabis.Conclusion: Thai registered nurses were more likely to have negative attitudes towards medical cannabis. The respondents required to increase their knowledge about medical cannabis. Understanding Thai nurses’ attitudes and perceptions towards medical cannabis use is necessary to see their insider views, the difficulties they face, and provide room for improvement to enhance the benefits and safety of medical cannabis use. Future research with larger sample sizes is recommended to strengthen the quality of evidence.

Nurse’s Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Medical Cannabis Legalization in Thailand

Objective: To determine the attitudes and perceptions among nurses towards legalization of cannabis for medical use in Thailand.Material and Methods: This anonymous, cross-sectional paper and online survey was conducted from May 2020 to November 2021. Data collection was done using the Cannabis as Medicine: Thai Nurse’s Attitudes and Perceptions Survey. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.Results: This study included 287 Thai registered nurses across Thailand. The top 3 positive attitudes and perceptions among the nurses were: 1) currently, most patients use or intend to use cannabis oil, 2) it’s not uncommon if nurses with advanced cancer decide to use cannabis oil, and 3) a patient’s values and beliefs in cannabis oil can them feel better. The top 3 negative attitudes and perceptions were: 1) cannabis reduces tumor growth in advanced cancer stages, 2) nurses administer medical cannabis as other medications; and (3) nurses like taking care of patients with the non-medicinal use of cannabis.Conclusion: Thai registered nurses were more likely to have negative attitudes towards medical cannabis. The respondents required to increase their knowledge about medical cannabis. Understanding Thai nurses’ attitudes and perceptions towards medical cannabis use is necessary to see their insider views, the difficulties they face, and provide room for improvement to enhance the benefits and safety of medical cannabis use. Future research with larger sample sizes is recommended to strengthen the quality of evidence.

Assessment Automation of Complex Student Programming Assignments

Grading student programming assignments is not an easy task. This task is even more challenging when talking about complex programming assignments at university graduate level. By complex assignments, we mean assignments where students have to program a complete application from scratch. For example, building a complete web application with a client and server side, whereby the application uses multiple threads that gather data from some external service (like the REST service, IoT sensors, etc.), processes these data and store them in some storage (e.g., a database), implements a custom protocol over a socket or something similar, implements their own REST/SOAP/GraphQL service, then sends or receives JMS/MQTT/WebSocket messages, etc. Such assignments give students an inside view of building real Internet applications. On the other hand, assignments like these take a long time to be tested and graded manually, e.g., up to 1 h per student. To speed up the assessment process, there are different automation possibilities that can check for the correctness of some application parts without endangering the grading quality. In this study, different possibilities of automation are described that have been improved over several years. This process takes advantage of unit testing, bash scripting, and other methods. The main goal of this study is to define an assessment process that can be used to grade complex programming assignments, with concrete examples of what and how to automate. This process involves assignment preparation for automation, plagiarism (i.e., better said similarity) detection, performing an automatic check of the correctness of each programming assignment, conducting an analysis of the obtained data, the awarding of points (grading) for each programming assignment, and other such activities. We also discuss what the downsides of automation are and why it is not possible to completely automate the grading process.

Can Implementing New Services Organization Models to Better Meet the Needs of Young People Bring About Practice Changes? Analysis of an Experiment in Québec.

The research question addressed in this article is: Can implementing new services organization models to better meet the needs of young people bring about practice changes? More precisely, we examine the effects of a new model called Aire Ouverte (AO) which is implemented gradually across Quebec since 2019. This new model involves public sector and community organizations. To grasp practices' change, we use cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) and employ a qualitative approach. Beyond a precise description of work activities, we gained an inside view of how the actors involved represented their practice and context. Our results show that practice changes seen by actors are in line with the object of the intervention, that is, responding rapidly to the expressed needs of young people. The development of new tools, flexible functioning, strengthening of interprofessional and intersectoral collaboration, involvement of young people in decision-making, all should contribute to improving response to their needs. This being said, a critical look at practice changes reveals a challenge in aligning the design and objective of AO with the needs of some young people. We noted also a poor alignment of effective collaborative practices between levels of care and the practices sought from intersectoral collaboration.

Current challenges of healthcare co-creation and testbeds

In the recent years, co-creation – especially in the form of testbeds – has been more and more utilized in healthcare sector. As is common in the Northern Europe, most of the testbed services are offered by public sector organizations, such as higher education institutes. These kinds of organizations have core functions, that are often defined in the law, and co-creation in one form or another, may not be included in the functions. It follows from this that the operational maturity may differ significantly from one testbed to another. This paper investigates the current state of the Finnish healthcare testbeds, their “good” and the “bad”. The data used in this review was collected during the development of Health Care Testbed Maturity Assessment instrument (HCTM). During the development, a series of so-called friendly audits were performed on Finnish testbeds, during which the testbed operators’ insider views were collected for later use alongside data used for instrument development. This article will summarize these views, provide a current view to the Finnish healthcare testbeds, and conclude with practical remarks on how to develop the maturity of Finnish healthcare testbeds.

Discovery and Selection

Have you ever wondered about the work of recruitment and admissions? And how it connects to the work of librarians and libraries, especially collection development? Join an insider's view that breaks down the essential tasks of recruitment, admissions, and financial aid while connecting these to the common work of librarians. We will also together explore ways that admissions departments and libraries might form creative partnerships that can advance the work of institution. These could include work around recruiting student workers, articulating research values, and preparing for future generations of students.

Ecotton: Rebranding a substantiable, sustainable ingredient brand

This case study provides an inside view regarding a highly successful B2B rebranding initiative in the clothing and textiles space. Enova — a B2B brand launched in 2008 as an eco-friendly unused-cotton reclamation process — was rebranded and relaunched in late 2022 as ‘precycled’ ‘ecotton’, with a view to greater solution descriptiveness and brand-essence clarity. Problems addressed in the present ecotton case include the following: (1) overcoming greenwashing scepticism; (2) renaming and repositioning the brand as a premier eco-friendly ingredient brand; (3) developing phase one of a celebrity-endorsement programme for the new brand; (4) identifying, connecting with and pitching consumer-facing clothing brands; and (5) simplifying the articulation of a complex technical solution. Important trends identified include the finding that greenwashing lawsuits by environmental advocacy groups as well as stricter governmental regulations are on the rise across the West, and, thus, brands must be able to authenticate eco-friendly claims, not simply be ‘certified’ as eco-friendly sans a concomitant ability to prove such claims. Notable success factors identified for ecotton — and that may also serve as takeaways for other authentically eco-friendly and social-impact-friendly B2B ingredient brands — include the following: (1) a portfolio of factory-proven interlocking patents allowing would-be waste materials to be transmuted into a high-value authentic (and authenticatable) green commodity; (2) a deep network of trusting connections at highly respected consumer-facing brands; (3) world-class branding and marketing skills; and (4) recognition that the recent emergence of greenwashing-related litigation and pending eco-regulations has created a forcing function and concomitant huge window of opportunity for authentic-and-authenticatable green inputs such as precycled ecotton.

Teacher Education in Singapore: An Insider View

Teacher Education in Singapore: An Insider View