The association of health literacy with adherence in older 2 adults, and its role in interventions: a systematic meta-review

Background: Low health literacy is a common problem among older adults. It is often suggested to be associated with poor adherence. This suggested association implies a need for effective adherence interventions in low health literate people. However, previous reviews show mixed results on the association between low health literacy and poor adherence. A systematic meta-review of systematic reviews was conducted to study the association between health literacy and adherence in adults above the age of 50. Evidence for the effectiveness of adherence interventions among adults in this older age group with low health literacy was also explored. Methods: Eight electronic databases (MEDLINE, ERIC, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, DARE, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Knowledge) were searched using a variety of keywords regarding health literacy and adherence. Additionally, references of identified articles were checked. Systematic reviews were included if they assessed the association between health literacy and adherence or evaluated the effectiveness of interventions to improve adherence in adults with low health literacy. The AMSTAR tool was used to assess the quality of the included reviews. The selection procedure, data-extraction, and quality assessment were performed by two independent reviewers. Seventeen reviews were selected for inclusion. Results: Reviews varied widely in quality. Both reviews of high and low quality found only weak or mixed associations between health literacy and adherence among older adults. Reviews report on seven studies that assess the effectiveness of adherence interventions among low health literate older adults. The results suggest that some adherence interventions are effective for this group. The interventions described in the reviews focused mainly on education and on lowering the health literacy demands of adherence instructions. No conclusions could be drawn about which type of intervention could be most beneficial for this population. Conclusions: Evidence on the association between health literacy and adherence in older adults is relatively weak. Adherence interventions are potentially effective for the vulnerable population of older adults with low levels of health literacy, but the evidence on this topic is limited. Further research is needed on the association between health literacy and general health behavior, and on the effectiveness of interventions

Purported use and self-awareness of cognitive and metacognitive foreign language reading strategies in tertiary education in Mozambique

This paper explores the results of a Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS)-based questionnaire administered to 28 university student participants. The study is carried out in a post-colonial multilingual context, Mozambique. The main aims of the paper are to assess the degree of purported use and awareness of participants own use of reading comprehension skills and strategies in a foreign language (English). The participants were tested for their reading text comprehension using an IELTS comprehension test (Cabinda, 2013). The results revealed low reading comprehension levels. Results contrast with results from the SORS-based questionnaire (Cabinda, 2013) which revealed claims of use of a wide range of cognitive, metacognitive and supply strategies – aspects of high level reading ability and text comprehension. Conclusions show that the participants used or claimed to chiefly use metacognitive and cognitive reading strategies equally, matching the behaviour of good readers, but they also reported a high degree of supply strategies to construe meaning from text, mainly code-switching, translation and cognates. The latter confirms results from studies by Jimenez et al. (1995, 1996) and Zhang & Wu (2009), yet do not conclusively show a correlation between the participants’ degree of text comprehension and their effective use of reading skills and strategies to construe meaning. Further conclusions show that the reported high use of these L1 (Portuguese or other) related supply strategies (not used by English L1 readers) does not aid their reading comprehension

Engaging the 'Xbox generation of learners' in Higher Education

The research project identifies examples of technology used to empower learning of Secondary school pupils that could be used to inform students’ engagement in learning with technology in the Higher Education sector. Research was carried out in five partnership Secondary schools and one associate Secondary school to investigate how pupils learn with technology in lessons and to identify the pedagogy underpinning such learning. Data was collected through individual interviews with pupils, group interviews with members of the schools’ councils, lesson observations, interviews with teachers, pupil surveys, teacher surveys, and a case study of a learning event. In addition, data was collected on students’ learning with technology at the university through group interviews with students and student surveys in the School of Education and Professional Development, and through surveys completed by students across various university departments. University tutors, researchers, academic staff, learning technology advisers, and cross sector partners from the local authority participated in focus group interviews on the challenges facing Higher Education in engaging new generations of students, who have grown up in the digital age, in successful scholarly learning

Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading

Analyzes studies showing that writing about reading material enhances reading comprehension, writing instruction strengthens reading skills, and increased writing leads to improved reading. Outlines recommended writing practices and how to implement them

Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy

Outlines fifteen key elements that educators can use to develop an effective adolescent literacy intervention program. Focuses on elements of interventions that are most promising for students that struggle with reading and writing after third grade

Diffusion of social cognitive theory in information systems research: A bibliometric study

Recently, Social Cognitive theory (SCT) has been widely adapted across various disciplines in business and management as well as Information Systems (IS) research. In IS, the use of SCT remains in its early stages. Few bibliometric analyses have been published on mapping theories across previous literature. However, to date factors related to literature review mapping in relation to SCT in IS have not been much examined. This paper aims to investigate the expliotiation of SCT in IS research based on bibliometric analysis. In this study a biblimetric analysis is conducted on previous literature reviews/abstracts based on Association of Business Schools (ABS) journal rankings from Information Management field perspective. 62 articles in Information Management field have utilised SCT were published in 17 (out of 53 journals) between 1995 and 2010. The study findings has identified that the organisation/firm and actors as a unit of analysis, positivist paradigm, empirical and quantitative research as well as survey method were used significantly in combination with SCT in IS studies. This bibliometric study will provide the needed platform for a better understanding of high quality research activities. Consequently, this can be used as an indicator to measure research quality and the impact of future direction and exploitation of SCT in IS research

Building on the cultural and linguistic capital of English learner (EL) students

Approaches and strategies that value and build upon the cultural and linguistic capital of English learner students are described. Through implementing such strategies, teachers can impress upon students and families that multiculturalism and multilingualism are highly beneficial to the classroom, school, and community