Research Group Meetings Research Articles

Disclaiming knowledge to encourage participation in research group meetings

This study investigates instances where experienced researchers make explicit claims of lack of knowledge (e.g., ‘I have to reveal my ignorance completely’) in the context of paper discussions during research group meetings. Drawing on multimodal interaction analysis, the analysis focuses on epistemic disclaimers in their sequential contexts, and the local management of institutional identities and domains of knowledge. The analyzed data draw from video-ethnographic work involving participant observation and video recordings at a research program in Physical Chemistry at a Swedish university. Focusing on epistemic disclaimers occurring in first pair-parts, the analysis explores how senior researchers employ disclaimers to mark the eliciting function of their questions, as they work to encourage participation by opening the floor while positioning co-participants as (more) knowledgeable. The results evidence how the accomplishment of peer collaboration and knowledge distribution in scientific work involves the management of rights and responsibilities with respect to knowledge and scientific expertise.

Development and usability test of a symptom management WeChat Mini Program for parents of children with cancer

ObjectiveSymptom management is a persistent challenge in pediatric oncology. The WeChat Mini Program, a small smartphone application that functions within WeChat, has the potential to assist in symptom management. This study aimed to develop a symptom management WeChat Mini Program for parents and children with cancer aged 5–17 years old and evaluate its usability. MethodsBased on the semi-structured interviews with parents of children with cancer, experts in pediatric oncology and informatics and a survey of children's symptom experience, multidisciplinary research group meetings were conducted to confirm the structure and main contents of the Mini Program. The iterative method was used to develop the Mini Program. A mixed-method study was conducted to test its usability with 10 pairs of parents and children with cancer. The quantitative data were collected through the Poststudy System Usability Questionnaire, and qualitative data were collected from interviews. ResultsThe Mini Program “Child SMILE” was developed, which includes a symptom assessment and management module, an information and emotional support module, a communication module among the parents and medical professionals, and a personal information module. Most users reported that the Mini Program is user-friendly, with satisfaction scores on the Poststudy System Usability Questionnaire ranging from 5.2 to 5.7 (out of 7.0) in four dimensions. In qualitative interviews, most participants thought the Mini Program was convenient, easy to use, and helpful. ConclusionsIt can be concluded that the Mini Program satisfies the needs of parents of children with cancer and has the potential to benefit the symptom management of children with cancer.

Objects in embodied sociolinguistics: Mind the door in research group meetings

AbstractThis article addresses recent calls in sociolinguistics to accommodate the agentive role of material objects in communicative interactions. The study explores how agency is shared between humans and objects, and how the latter may influence and shape the semiotic repertoires in a professional interaction. We adopt interactional sociolinguistics to analyze video recordings from the research group meetings (RGM) of a team of multinational microbiologists in a midwestern American university to demonstrate how the door plays an important role in the RGM genre of discourse. The door serves as a contextualization cue for the opening and composition of the interaction, indexes the participant identities, constructs the interactional space into an ‘ecological huddle’, and frames the ‘professional vision’ by bringing into salience the relevant semiotic resources, footing, participation frameworks, and ethos. (Objects, embodied sociolinguistics, interactional sociolinguistics, ecological huddle, research group meetings)*

Learning “what it’s like to be someone else apart from yourself”: developing holistic empathy with process drama

ABSTRACT A small, but growing, number of studies explore the connections between process drama pedagogy and the development of empathy. In our view, empathy involves affective and cognitive processes of the heart and the mind. In this article, we report findings from a year-long New Zealand research project with four primary school teachers who integrated process drama pedagogy into their programmes. Through a relational lens, we analysed classroom lessons, teacher interviews, research group meetings, student focus group interviews and student writing samples. Three vignettes detail how process drama pedagogy fostered emotionally charged experiences within rich contexts. We argue process drama pedagogy developed students’ cognitive and affective processes, which fostered student capacity to explore diverse perspectives and develop holistic empathy.

Intermural Online Research Group Meetings As Professional Development Tools for Undergraduate, Graduate, and Postdoctoral Trainees

In academic research laboratories, well-organized group meetings are common training tools that can benefit individuals and the group as a whole. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual meetings ha...

Access Needs: Centering Students and Disrupting Ableist Norms in STEM.

This essay describes the concept of access needs as a tool for improving accessibility in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education broadly, from the classroom, to research group meetings, to professional conferences. The normalization of stating access needs and creating access check-ins is a regular practice used in disability justice activist circles, but it has not yet been normalized in STEM education spaces. Just as normalizing the use of pronouns has been an important step for supporting gender justice, we argue that normalizing access talk is an important step for advancing disability justice in STEM fields. Moreover, we argue that all individuals have access needs, regardless of whether they are disabled or nondisabled. We provide concrete suggestions and techniques that STEM educators can use today.

Promoting the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Organic Chemistry Education through Undergraduate Research Experiences at WSSU

Undergraduate research is well recognized as an effective high-impact educational practice associated with student success in higher education. Actively engaging students in research experiences is considered as one of the several high-impact practices by many agencies including the American Chemical Society. Developing and maintaining an active undergraduate research program benefits both the faculty and students especially those from under-represented minority groups (URM). The infusion of research experiences into undergraduate curriculum enables students from all backgrounds to develop independent critical thinking skills, written and oral communications skills that are very important for successful careers in “STEM” area. Several strategies and activities such as a Peer Mentoring Program (PMP), funded research activities, the infusion of research into organic chemistry labs, undergraduate professional development, research group meetings, presentations at regional/national conferences, and publishing as co-authors on peer-review papers are vital in creating a welcoming research group that promotes the diversity, equity, and inclusion in organic chemistry education. The experiences working on funded research projects, presenting their research data at conferences and publishing papers as co-authors will greatly increase the under-represented minority (URM) students’ chance in landing a job or getting admitted into graduate/professional programs in STEM area.

Роль студентського наукового гуртка в підготовці висококваліфікованих фахівців під час дистанційного навчання

An important stage in the formation of the future specialist is the independent work of the applicant, in particular the involvement of the best representatives in research work. Applicants are attracted to the GDR through a student research group. The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and quarantine restrictions have forced almost all countries to reconsider educational strategies. Purpose — to evaluate student research group the role of the functioning in the higher medical educational institution at the Department of Pediatric Dentistry in the training of future highly qualified specialists and the peculiarities of its work during distance learning. Results. An important means of organizing the educational work of applicants for in-depth study of various aspects of pediatric dentistry is their research activities in independent work, in the process of which teachers are initiative and interested applicants who continue research within the student research group department, conducting research on selected topics. During distance learning IFNMU uses the site «Office 365 Cloud Services», which is accessible to all teachers and students. During the quarantine, student research group meetings are held in the format of online conferences in the Microsoft Teams program (previously created team with the type «Class» — student research group Department of Pediatric Dentistry, which added students of all courses of the Faculty of Dentistry and events in the program — in calendar according to the calendar-thematic plan student research group meetings, students and teachers are invited). Microsoft Teams is a teamroom for Office 365, which is a simpler version of learning management systems, but allows the learning team to communicate and share files. The program is convenient because it combines everything in a common work environment, which includes chat for discussion, file sharing and corporate programs. The student research group meeting was organized by video link. Conclusions. Thus, participation in the student research group Department of Pediatric Dentistry IFNMU gives applicants the opportunity to prepare a full-fledged scientific work that enhances the educational process, promotes their professional growth, helps to combine creativity, theoretical knowledge and practical skills. In addition, it increases the level of training of future specialists and the formation of research work skills as a component of professional training of applicants and the development of scientific potential of future scientists even during distance learning. No conflict of interest was declared by the author. Key words: research work, student research group, distance learning, applicant.

Construction of core Competence Index System for nursing emergency personnel in infectious disease emergencies——thinking on nursing emergency rescue based on COVID-19 epidemic

Objective To construct the index system of the core competence of nursing emergency personnel in the case of infectious disease outbreak, and to provide reference basis for the assessment and training of the core competence of nursing emergency personnel. Methods Based on the core competence indicators of nurses defined by the International Nurses' Association and the action framework of WHO's outbreak of infectious diseases as the theoretical framework, the item pool was summarized through semi- structured interviews and research group meetings, the Delphi expert letter consultation method was used to construct the indicator system, and the analytic hierarchy process and the average distribution method were used to determine the weight of indicators at all levels. Results Two rounds of Delphi expert letter consultation, 36 questionnaires were issued in each round, and the effective recovery rate was 86% (31) and 92% (33), respectively.Finally, it was determined that the core competence index system of nursing emergency personnel for infectious disease emergencies included 5 first-level indicators, 13 second- level indicators and 53 third- level indicators. The coefficient of variation ranged from 0 to 0.173, the weight ranged from 0.074 to 0.525, and the balanced combination weight ranged from 0.165 to 0.266. Conclusion The index system of the core competence of nursing emergency personnel in infectious disease emergencies is comprehensive and scientific, which can provide theoretical basis for evaluating and training the core competence of nursing emergency personnel in infectious disease emergencies. © 2021 Chinese Medical Journals Publishing House Co.Ltd. All rights reserved.

Decision-making on maternal pertussis vaccination among women in a vaccine-hesitant religious group: Stages and needs.

IntroductionAs of December 2019, pregnant women in the Netherlands are offered pertussis vaccination to protect their newborn infant against pertussis infection. However, the manner in which pregnant women decide about this maternal pertussis vaccination is largely unknown. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the decision-making process regarding maternal pertussis vaccination, and to explore the related needs among the vaccine-hesitant subgroup of orthodox Protestant women.MethodsCharmaz’s grounded theory approach was used to develop a decision-making framework. To construct this framework we used an explorative multimethod approach in which in-depth interviews and online focus groups were supplemented by a literature search and research group meetings. This study was carried out in a hypothetical situation since the maternal pertussis vaccination had yet to be implemented in the Dutch immunisation programme at the time of the study.ResultsTwenty-five orthodox Protestant women participated in an interview, an online focus group, or in both. The findings of this study resulted in a decision-making framework that included three stages of decision-making; an Orientation stage, a value-based Deliberation stage, and Final decision stage. The Orientation stage included the needs for decision-making categorised into Information needs and Conversation needs. Women indicated that -if they were to receive sufficient time for Orientation and Deliberation- they would be able to reach the stage of Final decision.ConclusionThe decision-making framework resulting from our findings can be used by health care professionals to provide women with information and consultation in the decision-making process. Future studies should investigate whether the stages of and needs for decision-making can be found across other vaccine-hesitant subgroups and vaccinations.

Moments and mechanisms of intervention along textual trajectories: norm negotiations in English-medium research writing

AbstractAcademic text production usually includes various people intervening in the text at different stages of the writing and evaluation process. By focusing on trajectories of English-medium research papers, this article explores the moments and mechanisms of intervention in the text production processes, as well as the associated norm negotiations. The study takes a dynamic approach to text analysis, with focus on tracing the text histories of the research papers from the perspective of how the writing is regulated by different actors and in different ways at various stages along the trajectories. The data include two detailed text histories, covering research interviews with authors and their colleagues, copies of several drafts of the texts, language revisions, written comments from different brokers (reviewers, editors and colleagues), and recordings of research group meetings around writing. The findings illustrate how various evaluation mechanisms and practices function to enable and restrict interventions by specific actors, and how these actors may evoke different evaluating authorities. It is concluded that the moments of intervention serve as sites for (re)negotiating norms and appropriateness criteria.

Embodied semiotic resources in Research Group Meetings: How language competence is framed

AbstractDrawing from Interactional Sociolinguistics (IS), this article presents an analysis of a Research Group Meeting in Microbiology occurring at a mid‐western US university. We focus on the performance of a South Korean postdoctoral scholar who claims limited proficiency in English and demonstrate how he makes valued contributions by leveraging embodied semiotic resources alongside verbal ones. The analysis also highlights the co‐participants’ openness in accepting non‐standard linguistic and discourse features in working toward shared professional goals because of the way this activity is framed. Such an orientation to interaction suggests distributed practice, where co‐participants take joint responsibility for the generation of meanings. Based on the findings, we question institutional policies that privilege advanced proficiency in normative English grammar for skilled migrants, which leads to unfairly judging their competence. We encourage a focus on how participants frame their tasks to judge what semiotic resources are critical for different professional interactions. Findings also have theoretical implications that help IS develop in the direction of embodiment, beyond verbal contextualization cues, individual competence, and intercultural misunderstandings.

Spatial repertoires in the disciplinary communication of international STEM scholars

ABSTRACT The overall goal of this special issue is to understand how bi-/multilingual STEM scholars navigate and deploy spatial repertoires for professional communication. The articles present contextualized, empirical cases from various genre contexts: instructional practices, scholarly writing, language proficiency tests, and research group meetings. While all the articles adopt a spatial orientation to understanding STEM communication, the authors draw from diverse theoretical concepts that include chronotope, new materialism, and stance analysis for their data analysis. The analyses to understand these genre-specific contexts broadly combine two approaches: (1) analysis of actual communicative practices; and (2) meta-discursive comments by the professionals on their practices. In analyzing the disciplinary practices, language ideologies, and textual products, the authors use the methodological tools of interaction analysis, document analysis, observation, and interviews. Several articles combine more than one methodological tool in order to capture various aspects of disciplinary communication in the given genre context. The six articles included in this issue were first presented as a colloquium at the annual conferences of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fostering Trauma and Emergency Research Capacity in Rwanda Through Collaboration

Access to effective emergent care would prevent 45% of all deaths in LMICs, however, trauma and emergency care remain largely neglected. Our collaboration in Rwanda to build prehospital trauma care led us to create a research mentorship program to enhance the ability of the local team to evaluate their system. NIH grant funding had been previously obtained to establish standards for prehospital trauma care in Rwanda and build local research capacity. We created a research mentorship program that involved a surgical resident embedded locally tasked with 1) giving lectures on research, study design, interpretation, and writing, 2) providing mentorship for data interpretation and 3) supporting the development of abstracts, presentations, and publications. Four research teams identified high priority areas for quality improvement research. Research group meetings were held and involved mentored literature searches, critical review of published works, basics of study design, abstract writing and manuscript development. Abstracts were submitted and accepted to three international conferences. At this time 3 manuscripts have been accepted and are in production, 2 abstracts and 1 manuscript has been published. Eleven staff enrolled in master's degree programs in critical and nursing, epidemiology, public health and global health equity across three institutions. Responsive health care systems need capacity for ongoing quality improvement and research. This is especially true to address the massive global burden of disease of trauma and emergency conditions. US academic surgical collaborations have tremendous research expertise that can contribute to improving health system capacity globally. Such collaborations offer the opportunity to set up the foundations of future academic productivity.

Beyond language fluidity: the role of spatial repertoires in translingual practices and stancetaking

ABSTRACT In Research Group Meetings (RGM) and other professional activities, sometimes positions are fluid, but stances illustrate international scholars’ bilingual competence in an RGM in Microbiology. In stances, people index sociocultural values by evaluating discursive figures in talk, proffering epistemic/affective assessments, and positioning each other [Jaffe, A. 2009. “Introduction: The Sociolinguistics of Stance.” In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, edited by A. Jaffe, 3–28. New York, NY: Oxford University Press]. I show how international scholars troubleshoot and problem-solve with senior colleagues as they enact stances to maintain relationships. Competence entails language fluidity and diverse semiotic resources, or translingual practices [Canagarajah, S. 2013. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. London, UK: Routledge], in stances. While existing stance models stress verbal resources [Du Bois, J. W. 2007. “The Stance Triangle.” In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, edited by R. Englebretson, 139–182. Amstderdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company], they overlook the role of spatial repertoires. This micro-interactional analysis of RGMs demonstrates how diverse semiotic resources inform stances, and argues for stance methodologies and analyses which include multimodal, gestural, and semiotic repertoires. Findings indicate that power relations are managed through scholars’ use of verbal and semiotic resources in interpersonal stances. I argue that bilingual competence should acknowledge the role translingual practices play in stance taking, and the management of professional relationships in such meetings.

The strategic use of translingual resources in Inner Circle academic settings

AbstractStandardized American English is treated as normative for US academic interactions. However, international scholars use translingual practices effectively to negotiate academic relationships and practices. In a sequential analysis of research group meetings (RGMs), we show the importance of spatial repertoires in stance negotiations to understand how normative English is renegotiated in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) mentoring interactions. The strategic use of spatial repertoires by an international scholar demonstrates the competence he brings for effective stancetaking in academic communication, belying his classification as lacking proficiency in academic English. Our findings highlight the deft negotiations of power through the scholar's orientations towards verbal and semiotic resources in interpersonal stances. We show that regardless of institutional hierarchies, positions taken by senior and novice scholars reflect the fluidity in knowledge and expertise in STEM. The use of spatial repertoires mediates the negotiation of these relationships and language norms.

Development and reliability and validity test of Patient Comfort Scale after enterostomy

Objective To development a comfort scale for the patients after enterostomy,test its reliability and validity and to provide a tool for nursing staff to measure the comfort level of patients with enterostomy. Methods Pre-test scales were formed based on literature research methods, group meetings and expert consultation. A total of 310 patients after enterostomy were investigated in a top three hospital in Tianjin Union Medical Center, and the scale was tested by project analysis, validity analysis and reliability analysis. Results Exploratory factor analysis identified four principal factors which explained 52.584%, and the scale determined 4 dimensions, including 35 items. The Cronbach′s α coefficient of the scale was 0.937, the test-retest reliability was 0.846, and the half-fold reliability was 0.926. Conclusion The comfort scale for patients after enterostomy in this study has good reliability and validity. It can be used to evaluate the comfort of patients after enterostomy. Key words: Enterostomy; Comfort; Reliability; Validity

Research group meetings as a professional development book club

Research group meetings as a professional development book club

Response to 2019 Barringer Medal award

Response to 2019 Barringer Medal award

Graduate Advising in Experimental Research Groups

ABSTRACTSurvey and laboratory experiments are increasingly common in political science. Investment in experimental data collection comes with costs and benefits, particularly for graduate students and advisers. This article describes a set of institutionalized procedures we have adopted with the goal of capitalizing on the advantages that come with experimental research. This includes requiring planning documents, holding research-group meetings, and centralizing data collection. We conclude by discussing the limitations of our approach, ultimately highlighting the need for more disciplinary conversation about how to best structure research groups to produce quality research and advising.