Undergraduate Community Research Articles

Use of Experiential Learning in Undergraduate Community Health Curriculum: Adverse Childhood Events and Trauma-informed Care.

Use of Experiential Learning in Undergraduate Community Health Curriculum: Adverse Childhood Events and Trauma-informed Care.

Addressing Challenges in Undergraduate Community Health Nursing Clinical: Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory.

The undergraduate nursing students enrolled in community health nursing clinical course must assess vulnerable populations impacted by social determinants of health and develop appropriate population-specific and evidence-based community interventions. However, students struggle to associate community-based experiences with learning and clinical course objectives. This article describes the experiential learning theory approach to guide and enhance student learning in the undergraduate community health nursing clinical course. Kolb's experiential learning theory was used to guide self-reflection process after clinical experience for undergraduate nursing students in their last semester of their education. The guided reflection helped nursing students translate experience into concepts and associate community-based clinical experience with their learning to meet clinical course objectives. Kolb's experiential learning theory is transformative in enhancing student learning in community health nursing care clinical education. The landscape of teaching and practice environment is evolving; therefore, teaching methods must follow suit. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(X):XXX-XXX.].

Incorporating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Within Community Health Nursing Simulation.

Undergraduate nursing institutions face difficulties providing learners with community and public health nursing clinical opportunities. An opportunity existed to improve a senior-level undergraduate community and public health nursing course by developing alternative clinical teaching-learning experiences that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. Utilizing theory and evidence-based practice, a simulation emulating a community home health visitation allowed learners to function as members of a health care team who provide care for a family in their home setting. The results indicate that all learners met project objectives, and 88% of learners reported increased self-efficacy related to the project's topics after implementation. Learner reflections offered their perception of the experience. A community and public health nursing teaching-learning project provided learners with clinical hours by completing a simulation learning experience incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion through exposure to patient inequities within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ+) community. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(X):XXX-XXX.].

Performance of ChatGPT on the India Undergraduate Community Medicine Examination: Cross-Sectional Study.

Medical students may increasingly use large language models (LLMs) in their learning. ChatGPT is an LLM at the forefront of this new development in medical education with the capacity to respond to multidisciplinary questions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of ChatGPT 3.5 to complete the Indian undergraduate medical examination in the subject of community medicine. We further compared ChatGPT scores with the scores obtained by the students. The study was conducted at a publicly funded medical college in Hyderabad, India. The study was based on the internal assessment examination conducted in January 2023 for students in the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery Final Year-Part I program; the examination of focus included 40 questions (divided between two papers) from the community medicine subject syllabus. Each paper had three sections with different weightage of marks for each section: section one had two long essay-type questions worth 15 marks each, section two had 8 short essay-type questions worth 5 marks each, and section three had 10 short-answer questions worth 3 marks each. The same questions were administered as prompts to ChatGPT 3.5 and the responses were recorded. Apart from scoring ChatGPT responses, two independent evaluators explored the responses to each question to further analyze their quality with regard to three subdomains: relevancy, coherence, and completeness. Each question was scored in these subdomains on a Likert scale of 1-5. The average of the two evaluators was taken as the subdomain score of the question. The proportion of questions with a score 50% of the maximum score (5) in each subdomain was calculated. ChatGPT 3.5 scored 72.3% on paper 1 and 61% on paper 2. The mean score of the 94 students was 43% on paper 1 and 45% on paper 2. The responses of ChatGPT 3.5 were also rated to be satisfactorily relevant, coherent, and complete for most of the questions (>80%). ChatGPT 3.5 appears to have substantial and sufficient knowledge to understand and answer the Indian medical undergraduate examination in the subject of community medicine. ChatGPT may be introduced to students to enable the self-directed learning of community medicine in pilot mode. However, faculty oversight will be required as ChatGPT is still in the initial stages of development, and thus its potential and reliability of medical content from the Indian context need to be further explored comprehensively.

Building a No Cost Undergraduate Community Speech Clinic

Aim: This study aimed to explore the clinic learning models through student perspectives using that insight to explore how these students viewed a newly established speech clinic program and understand the organizational and learning benefits and limitations of the clinic and how it can be improved for future service for student learning.
 Methods: This exploratory study utilized an observation analysis to understand how the student-led functioning of the clinic fits into both the learning models of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Bandura’s Triadic Reciprocal Model of Causality and the factors that contribute most to these learning models. These models were chosen due to the systemic and progressive nature of learning that reflects the academic mission of the university’s accrediting body: the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. A mixed closed and open-ended student questionnaire was utilized to gain insight into themes that influence the student-led learning model.
 Results: The clinic was overall seen as a place of relationship building and skills development. The main contributors to this relationship-building and skills development lie in the ability of students to apply what they have been learning in the classroom to a functional situation, as well as the opportunity to serve the community and build confidence and leadership skills.
 Conclusion: Student leadership roles in the clinic are leading to self-efficacy which is seen in the highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Bandura’s Triadic Reciprocal Model of Causality.

Preparing Students for Careers in the Third Sector: Critical Teaching and Learning Practice

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies (the “Center”) has helped to expand or create new courses for two degree programs within a School of Human Ecology: the undergraduate Community and Nonprofit Leadership Bachelor of Arts degree program, and the Applied Master of Science in Human Ecology degree program. A post-baccalaureate Capstone Certificate program was then approved and offered, based on the set of courses that the Center has developed. Courses to meet the needs of these programs were developed with a focus on critical pedagogies and an expanded notion of subject matter, relying on community-based learning, praxis applications, and course structures which accommodate a diverse community of learners and contributors. This paper will examine how these course models and some of their key features and approaches advance best practices for applied learning in the field of nonprofit and community studies. Promising pedagogical features and strategies of the courses which the authors recommend for course design in this field include: decentering academic knowledge in favor of practitioner and community wisdom and engagement; emphasizing the value of the learning community as a source of diverse perspective and expertise; and critical consciousness development and practical skills building through reflection, action, and praxis—all taking into account the skills, experiences, and needs of adult learners.

Knowledge, perceptions, and consumption behaviour of cosmetics among undergraduates of Sri Lanka: a descriptive cross-sectional study.

Despite the increasing usage of personal care products among young adolescents in Sri Lanka, limited studies have been conducted to understand the behaviour of cosmetic users and associated health complications. Therefore, the current study was conducted to evaluate the cosmetic consumption related behaviour of the undergraduate community in Sri Lanka and to identify the driving factors behind the incidences of cosmetic related adverse health effects. An analytical cross-sectional study was conducted by recruiting 421 undergraduates from five state universities in Sri Lanka through stratified random sampling, as the study population. Information on socio-demographic factors and cosmetic consumption behaviour of the participants were acquired through a self-administrated structured questionnaire, along with Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices (KAP) relevant for cosmetic usage. The Binary Logistic Regression model was used to determine the significant socio-demographic driving factors on cosmetic usage among the undergraduate community in Sri Lanka at a confidence level of 95%. Around 96.4% of the study population used one or more cosmetic products (77%) out of which, 75.3% experienced cosmetic related adverse health effects. Skin dryness (24%), acne (21%), allergies (20.5%) and rashes (19.8%), were identified as the most dominant adverse health effects, related to cosmetic usage. Perfumes (65.6%), face cream (63.2%) and body lotion/hand cream (60.6%), were the mostly used cosmetic products. Even though half of the study population exhibited higher levels of good practices during purchase (54.9%) and application (52%) of cosmetics, around 47.5% were characterized with a low level of knowledge on cosmetics. Gender, academic year, knowledge on cosmetics, monthly expenditure on cosmetics, source of recommendation for cosmetics, practices related to purchase and consumption of cosmetics and preference to receive medical care in case of cosmetic related emergency were recognized as significant risk factors (p < 0.05) associated with the incidence of cosmetic related adverse health effects among undergraduate students. Given the high prevalence of cosmetic related adverse health effects, the health authorities of Sri Lanka should pay more attention towards the wellbeing and responsible cosmetic usage among undergraduates. Designing of effective tools and regulations to monitor the cosmetic market and improving the knowledge on cosmetics are recommended to ensure safe cosmetic usage within the country in general and of adolescent users in particular.

The Value of Honor Society Participation: Is There a Relationship Between Honor Society Participation and Belief in Psychological Myths?

Psychological myths have become so widespread in both the general public as well as higher education undergraduate communities that it has been damaging to the psychology field (Gaze, 2014; Kowalski &amp; Taylor, 2009; Meinz et al., 2022). Factors such as education, belief in psychology as a science, and their confidence in their myth beliefs (myth confidence) have previously been examined in relation to myth endorsement (Bensley &amp; Lilienfeld, 2015; Richardson &amp; Lacroix, 2021). However, there has been no previous research focusing on the connection between honor society membership and myth belief. The present study examined whether honor society participation could predict to myth belief. To better understand be-lief in psychological misconceptions, this study also measured the participants’ belief in psychology as a science and confidence in myth beliefs. Understanding myth belief predictors may help psychologists mitigate the spread of psychological myths. A total of 972 participants from 2-year colleges across the United States were recruited to take a survey regarding psychological myths. We compared myth belief, belief in psychology as a science, and myth score confidence between two groups: honor society members (N = 129) and non-honor society members (N = 807). Non-honor society members identified significantly fewer myths than honors society members, were less confident when correctly identifying myths than honor society members and had lower belief in psychology as a science than honor society members. These findings suggest that honor society membership may be a predictor of myth detection. This finding is possibly due to honor society eligibility requirements, such as grades and credits taken. Our results may be useful in developing academic interventions to prevent psychological myth belief.

La biblioteca médica digital: un recurso para la formación continua y la actualización profesional

This article describes the experience of using and subscribing to new electronic resources from the Digital Medical Library (BMD) of the Faculty of Medicine (FacMed). Its structure and function are explained, as well as the support received by the General Directorate of Libraries and Digital Services. The backgroundof BMD, created in 1998, is presented. In addition, the development and scope of remoteaccess is explained. In 2021, it becomes the main source of information for the FacMed community. It is made up of 5 sections: electronic resources; electronic book platforms; dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference works; bibliography, catalog and electronic books; electronic journals. Since 2020, the bibliography of all the undergraduate study plans in this entity has been updated and reviewed, thus making it possible for it to be used by the undergraduate community in an unprecedented number during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, the resources most used by the entire community, the process of evaluation and integration of new resources are described. Keywords: Digital library; access; educational resources; digital collections; resource evaluation.

Comparing experiences with mental health issues to perceptions of their prevalence: A study of Duke University undergraduates

Mental illness affects all populations but has disproportionately affected college students in the recent past. Universities provide a unique setting in which students often live away from their families and must make an effort to stay socially engaged. While plenty of research on mental health has been conducted on children and adults, the field is lacking in research on college-aged individuals. The present study identifies the frequency of symptoms of depression and anxiety among the Duke University undergraduate community, as well as demographic factors that are correlated with these symptoms. The data were obtained through a survey asking students about their experiences with well-established symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. The data indicate that students at Duke University experience symptoms of depression and anxiety at a higher rate compared to the average 18-29 year old person in the United States. Other findings include a greater prevalence of mental illness symptoms among low-income students, students with small social-circles, and non-religious students. The results of this study and related studies to follow will be used to inform improvements to mental health counseling and outreach to at-risk individuals at universities across the United States.

Awareness of Counseling Psychology and the Significance of Counseling Service for the Graduate Studies

The study focused about students’ Mental Health Wellness from the psychological aspect and social psychological perspectives, as well as the study mainly investigated to identify challenges and complexities faced by the university students. In the study, the researcher was interested in exploring the following question: how important is Psychological Counseling in the university student community? The main objective of the study was to identify awareness among the university undergraduate community on Psychological Counseling. Because of the recent demographic and societal changes, undergraduates encounter several particular difficulties. The greatest degree of expertise in psychological counseling represented fewer than 10%. Up to 23% of the respondents had less in-depth understanding of the topic. Up to 27% of respondents seeking therapy at the institution are those with less knowledge. 33% of the students in the university’s internal environment have suffered from some mental issue and 92% of students’ do not reach psychological counseling. Findings show the importance of conducting relevant programs for undergraduates in every year at the university and building up the awareness of counseling psychology.

Abstract 5967: ROSA: An ambassador program facilitating bidirectional partnerships between communities and basic scientists

Abstract Background: Community Outreach and Engagement (COE) is integral in NCI-designated Cancer Centers. COEs work with community stakeholders identifying community needs, communicating research, and catalyzing significant activities to Cancer Center’s catchment areas. To facilitate this, the University of Arizona Cancer Center (UACC) Office of COE established the Research Outreach for Southern Arizona (ROSA) program, supporting bidirectional partnerships between basic scientists and underrepresented communities in catchment areas. Objective: To describe a community and student ambassador program developed as ROSA, bridging gaps between basic science programs and community needs in UACC catchment areas. Methods: The UACC catchment areas include five southern Arizona counties where 40% of residents are Hispanic, compared to 18.3% in the US. Moreover, ambassadors were bilingual/bicultural Hispanic undergraduate students (n=4) and Hispanic community members (n=4). The ambassador program held weekly cancer educational discussions, research methods, monthly Meet the Scientist events, and presentations on experiences. Evaluations for ROSA were completed by all affiliates. Results: Overall, ROSA ambassadors reported increased knowledge of research and increased confidence sharing cancer information. Facilitators of ROSA community members included a bilingual/bicultural team, outreach collaborations, and participant compensation. Barriers included payments for undocumented members, lack of Spanish-speaking scientists, and reduced in-person activities. As a result of ROSA partnerships, scientists, healthcare professionals, and stakeholders is developing Scientific Cafes where scientists present research proposals for community feedback. The workgroup will select a community-driven project to implement in the future. Discussion: Based on positive ambassador evaluations and working group collaborations, ROSA is successful in growing authentic partnerships between scientists and communities. Recently, a community-based survey was developed by members to examine perceptions of cancer and willingness of clinical research participation. This survey will inform how basic scientists align research within community needs. ROSA will continue to be valuable in providing bidirectional engagement from basic scientists and community members in cancer research. Citation Format: Gabriela Ruiz, MEd., Amanda Lee. ROSA: An ambassador program facilitating bidirectional partnerships between communities and basic scientists [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 5967.

Marginalized engineering students' narrative construction through photo elicitation

PurposeThe goal of this study is to explore an immediate step in understanding the lived experiences of under-represented students through metaphor construction and possibly collect more in-depth data through photograph-based interviews.Design/Methodology/ApproachThis article introduced photo-elicitation based narrative interviews as a qualitative methodology while interviewing fourteen undergraduate community college students mostly from underrepresented groups (URGs). At the beginning of each interview, the authors probed the participants with 8 photographs chosen by the research team to represent a diverse set of experiences in engineering. The authors conducted a thematic analysis of the interview data.FindingsThe findings suggested that the inclusion of photo-elicitation often catalyzed consumption of representations, images, metaphors, and voice to stories passed unnoticed; and finally produces more detailed descriptions and complements semi-structured narrative interviews.Research Limitations/ImplicationsThis study advances the scholarship that extends photograph driven interviews/photo elicitation methodology while interviewing marginalized population and offers a roadmap for what a multi-modal, arts-based analysis process might look like for in-depth interviews.Practical ImplicationsThe use of photo-elicitation in our research enabled a deeper, more poignant exploration of the URG students' experience of navigating engineering. The participants were able to relate to the photographs and shared their life narratives through them; hence, use of photographs can be adapted in future research.Social ImplicationsOur research revealed that PEI has excellent potential to capture marginalized narratives of URGs, which is not well explored in educational research, specially, in higher education. In our research, PEI promoted more culturally inclusive approaches positioning the participants as experts of their own narratives.Originality/ValueThe study presented in this paper serves as an example of qualitative research that expands methodological boundaries and centers the role of power, marginalization, and creativity in research. This work serves as a unique and important contribution to the photo-elicitation literature, offering a critical roadmap for researchers who are drawn to photo elicitation/photograph driven interviews as a method to explore their inquiry.

Past-Positive time perspective predicts academic achievement via motivation, and procrastination might not be as bad as it seems

PurposeThe present research was based on an online questionnaire. A total of 256 undergraduate psychology students aged 18–44 (M = 23.61; SD = 0.57) from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina took part in the study (137 women; 53.3%). A sociodemographic and academic survey and the locally adapted versions of the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI), the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and the Tuckman Procrastination Scale were used in this study. Participants were contacted by an email advertisement in which the main purpose of the study was explained, and the instruments remained open from September to November of 2021. Descriptive analyses – means, standard deviations and frequencies – were calculated using IBM SPSS v.25, and mediation and moderation analyses were conducted on PROCESS macro.Design/methodology/approachAcademic achievement has always been a concern in the high undergraduate's community. Numerous studies have addressed psychological aspects of students' academic life; however, a past-positive (PP) time perspective, a warm and sentimental view of past events that took place in someone's life, has not been profoundly contemplated. The fact that students might organize their activities, employ different strategies to fulfill their tasks and motivate themselves to pursue their academic goals based primarily on their past experiences calls the attention on conducting research on this time perspective dimension and its relationship with procrastination and academic motivation. It was hypothesized that the PP time perspective would positively predict academic achievement via the mediation of academic motivation in a way that the potentiate effect of PP time perspective on academic achievement would be increased in highly motivated students, but this effect would be reduced in less motivated students. Also, it was hypothesized that the relationship between motivation and academic achievement would be negatively moderated by procrastination such that academic achievement would increase with academic motivation; however, that increase would be attenuated by procrastination.FindingsAcademic achievement was positively associated with PP time perspective (r = 0.39; p < 0.01) and academic motivation (0.36; p < 0.01) and negatively associated with procrastination (r = −0.15; p < 0.05). Results showed that academic motivation mediated the relationship between PP time perspective and academic achievement (ß = 1.37; R2 = 0.21; p < 0.001). Additionally, procrastination moderated the relationship between academic motivation and academic achievement but only at the low (ß = 0.76; p < 0.001) and medium (ß = 0.44; p < 0.001) levels of procrastination, while at high levels of procrastination, that relationship was not statistically significant (ß = 0.11; p > 0.05).Originality/valueThis is the first study that examined the mediated role of academic motivation in the relationship between PP time perspective and academic achievement and that included the moderating role of procrastination.

Walking to Build a Critical Community-Engaged Project: Collaborative Observations of Neighborhood Change in Long Beach, California

Academic and community research partnerships have gained traction as a potential bridge between the university and local area to address pressing social issues. A key question for developing justice-oriented research is how to integrate best practices for creating genuine, authentic research partnerships. In this paper, we discuss the process of building a critical community-engaged project that examines how urban redevelopment changes neighborhoods within immigrant and/or communities of color. Focusing on Long Beach, California, in this article, we detail the development of a mixed-methods study that involves undergraduate students and community members as co-collaborators. We discuss the use and outcomes of co-walking as method, emphasizing observational findings, as well as the process of building team collaboration. We find that neighborhoods in Long Beach are changing rapidly in terms of the use of greening, increased technology integration within neighborhoods, and modern aesthetics, revealing that new residents will likely be younger and single residents with disposable income and no children. From this process, we identified a more critical question for the research project: “Development for whom?”. We argue that co-walking as method is an observational and relational process that assists with the foundational steps of building a critical community-engaged research project.

Reprint of: The Swiss StudentLife Study: Investigating the emergence of an undergraduate community through dynamic, multidimensional social network data

The Swiss StudentLife Study (SSL Study) is a longitudinal social network data collection conducted in three undergraduate student cohorts (N1 = 226, N2 = 261, N3 = 660) in 2016−2019. The main goal of the study was to understand the emergence of informal student communities and their effects on different individual outcomes, such as well-being, motivation, and academic success. To this end, multiple dimensions of social ties were assessed, combining computer-based surveys, social sensors, social media data, and field experiments. The dynamics of these social networks were measured on various time scales. In this paper, we present the design and data collection strategy of the SSL Study. We discuss practical challenges and solutions related to the data collection in four areas that were key to the success of our project: study design, research ethics, communication, and population definition.

Teaching Intimate Partner Violence Education: A Quasi-Experimental Study Exploring Gaming and Storytelling.

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to evaluate best strategies for teaching intimate partner violence (IPV) education in an undergraduate community health nursing course. Results suggest gaming was a more effective strategy than storytelling for knowledge acquisition and storytelling was more effective for knowledge retention. IPV-related nursing interventions can impact client outcomes; therefore, education is needed prior to entering the workforce. The evaluation of strategies to improve knowledge acquisition and retention of IPV content is essential to ensure best practices for detection and intervention.

From Deficits in Emotional Intelligence to Eating Disorder Symptoms: A Sequential Path Analysis Approach Through Self-Esteem and Anxiety.

Past studies have reported emotional intelligence (EI) as a relevant factor in development and maintenance of eating disorders (ED), as well as in increasing self-esteem and reducing anxiety. Similarly, research has showed that anxiety and self-esteem are positively and negatively associated to ED criteria, respectively. However, no prior studies have yet tested the multiple intervening roles of both self-esteem and anxiety as potential mediators of the association between EI and ED symptomatology. The present study aims to bridge these gaps by testing a sequential path model. Specifically, we examine the potential sequential mediation effects of self-esteem-anxiety on the link between EI and ED. A sample composed of 516 Spanish undergraduate students and community adults completed measures of EI, self-esteem, anxiety, and ED symptomatology. The results show that high levels of EI were positively associated with self-esteem and negatively associated with anxiety and ED symptoms. Anxiety was positively associated to ED symptoms, while self-esteem levels were negatively linked to ED symptoms. Moreover, path analyses showed that self-esteem and anxiety fully mediated the relationship between EI and ED symptoms in sequence. These findings suggest that EI plays a key role in reducing symptomatology of ED through increased self-esteem and reduced anxiety symptoms, providing novel evidence regarding psychological mechanisms through which EI contributes to a reduction of ED symptomatology. Implications for assessing and improving these psychological resources in ED preventive programs are discussed.

Does polyculturalism explain the relationship between personality, thinking style, and prejudice in Australia?

ABSTRACT Objective: Polyculturalism, a relatively new intergroup ideology conceptualises culture as dynamic by emphasising intergroup connections. Previous research has linked polyculturalism to less negative attitudes towards different racial and ethnic groups. However, the underpinnings of this relationship is not well understood. It was predicted that openness to experience, agreeableness, and cognitive flexibility (alternative and control) would be associated with lower racial and ethnic prejudice and that polyculturalism would mediate these relationships. Method: The sample consisted of 391 undergraduate students and community members who completed a polyculturalism measure, openness to experience and agreeableness scales of the Big Five Aspect Scale, the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory, and the Australian Racism, Acceptance, and Culture-Ethnocentrism Scale. Results: Path analysis indicated openness to experience, agreeableness, and cognitive flexibility (alternative) were each associated with less generalised racial and ethnic prejudice, and that polyculturalism mediated the relationship between openness to experience and prejudice and cognitive flexibility- alternative and prejudice. Conclusion: Polyculturalism may be an important avenue for understanding and reducing racial and ethnic prejudice in a racially and ethnically diverse Australia. Key Points What is already known about this topic: The traits of openness to experience and agreeableness, and cognitive flexibility are associated with less negative racial and ethnic attitudes. Polyculturalism is a lay diversity ideology where culture is viewed as a dynamic andevolving system that does not provide the basis for differentiating between groups. Instead of focusing on differences between cultural groups, connections between groups through interactions are emphasised. Polyculturalism is associated with less negative attitudes towards different racial and ethnic groups among other pro-diversity attitudes. What this topic adds: This study adds to the limited research into the role of lay diversity ideologies in explaining the relationship between personality and intergroup attitudes. Openness to experience, agreeableness, and cognitive flexibility (alternative) were each associated with less generalised racial and ethnic prejudice. Polyculturalism mediated the relationship between openness to experience and racial and ethnic prejudice, and the relationship between cognitive flexibility (alternative) and racial and ethnic prejudice. The Racism Acceptance and Cultural-Ethnocentrism Scale (RACES) is a psychometrically sound measure developed for the Australian context. It is a suitable tool for measuring the effectiveness of interventions for promoting more positive intergroup attitudes.

DeSCIpher Undergraduate Sciences Competition: Reinventing Our Competition Online During COVID-19

DeSCIpher: McMaster University Life Sciences Competition (MULSC) brings together undergraduate students of various science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to collaboratively compete in a one-day competition. As one of McMaster University’s largest science competitions, DeSCIpher aims to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration within the undergraduate community. This editorial will explore the changes that have been made to the competition since shifting to an online setting during COVID-19, specifically for the 2020-2021 academic year.