What is a scientific experiment?: The impact of a professional development course on teachers’ ability to design an inquiry-based science curriculum

Designing inquiry-based science lessons can be a challenge for secondary school teachers. In this study we evaluated the development of in-service teachers’ lesson plans as they took part in a 10-month professional development course in Peru which engaged teachers in the design of inquiry-based lessons. At the beginning, most teachers designed either confirmatory or structured inquiry activities. As the course progressed, however, they started designing guided and open inquiry lesson plans. We found four factors that accounted for this change: re-evaluating the need for lab materials, revising their views on the nature of science, engaging in guided and open inquiry activities themselves, and trying out inquiry-based lessons with their own students. Our results point to the importance of engaging teachers in prolonged and varied opportunities for inquiry as part of teacher education programs in order to achieve the challenge of changing teachers’ views and practices in science education.Fil: Pérez, María del Carmen B.. Universidad de Piura; PerúFil: Furman, Melina Gabriela. Universidad de San Andrés. Escuela de Educación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

ICT in Latin America: A Microdata Analysis

This book is the final report of the ECLAC-IDRC project Observatory for the Information Society in Latin American and the Caribbean (OSILAC), Third Phase”. OSILAC III is a cooperating project between the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Division of Production, Productivity and Management, ECLAC-UN, which aims at understanding the dynamics of the ICT evolution and revolution and producing evidence on its potential to support socio-economic development, particularly in developing countries. As such, microdata analysis drawn from National Household Surveys and National Innovation Surveys in Latin America were used in the framework of the project in the attempt to reach those objectives Both statistical information sources provide attractive potentialities in order to investigate not only determinants of innovation activities and technology diffusion, but also its economic impacts.ICT, Innovation, Productivity

Impact of PHDs Trained in Europe and North America on the Productivity of Scientific Research: Evidence from Latin America

Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to analyze the differences in research productivity between doctoral degree holders from European and North American universities, and doctoral degree holders from Peru.   Theoretical framework: Internationalization of higher education has become a phenomenon of great relevance in recent years (Romani et al., 2021), allowing an increasing number of doctoral researchers to study in foreign countries. However, little evidence has been generated in Latin America.   Design/Methodology/Approach: The study uses an explanatory approach based on data mining that analyze data from 863 researchers from 24 public and private universities in Perú, according to the two categories of productivity (high and low) defined by the National Scientific Research Agency.   Findings: The results show that of all the factors analyzed, the country of doctoral study is the most important variable in predicting the scientific productivity of researchers. This situation is confirmed when analyzing the number of publications made by researchers according to their category, where a clear tendency in favor of researchers who studied abroad can be seen.   Research, Practical & Social implications: The results suggest that international academics are more likely to publish in top-tier journals. Also, the results may be applicable to other countries, but more studies are going to be necessary.   Originality/Value: The results of this investigation are relevant, because studies about the academic internationalization effects on scientific productivity are scarce and no previous studies about this topic have been conducted in Latin America

Consumer Perception Studies on the Safety of Food Packaging - Final Report of WP7 of the EU Project "Foodmigrosure" QLK1-CT2002-2390

Between March 2003 and September 2006 the FOODMIGROSURE project, contract number QLK-CT2002-2390, was carried out by 9 European project partners with the intention to develop an ¿into-food¿ migration model tool which should enable prediction of mass transfer of constituents from plastics food contact materials into foodstuffs in support of calculations/estimations of the exposure of consumers towards food packaging constituents. A further objective was to investigate the social acceptance of migration modelling versus chemical measurements, and its implications for exposure estimation. This was achieved by several approaches including focus group (as qualitative approach), and questionnaires with a large polling bas as quantitative approach from citizens. A test trial was run on consumer associations and the experiment was then conducted on citizens during a JRC Open Day. Questionnaires and comments were colleted for 700 units which represented about 1400 visitors to the food contact activities. In the last phase, a more specific technical questionnaire was directed to end-user of modelling, which was mailed to a variety of stakeholders such as National Reference Laboratories, commercial laboratories, industries, EFSA, CEN members etc. Globally, people in the overwhelming majority -both for the questionnaire approach and for the focus group approach- felt reassured regarding the safety of packaging simply from the fact that they did not previously know that such research and controls existed. Many citizens also clearly expressed the wish to have this type of research much more visible at the level of both consumer associations and consumers themselves. The responses were echoing quite interestingly between the different approaches directed at consumers/citizens. Although obtained by completely different methodologies, both focus groups and quantitative citizen polling questionnaires showed many similarities even in the specifics. There is a fundamental trust from the public in the scientists to distinguish and understand safety issues. The consumer wants sincerely to be approached and informed by scientists for this reason and is also ready to favour new approaches such as migration modelling if it can be an additional tool for better consumer protection. The benefits of packaging are recognised, and the presence of migrants is considered similarly to the presence of food additives in foods. Modelling is viewed as a additional helping tool to assist the scientist as first and foremost raison d¿être, and was found to have its strongest value as pointing the worst cases that could occur. The consumers or citizens made no mention of environmental or worker health effects benefits. However, the consumer especially in the context of the focus group remarked justly that one needs to be sure that at the root for use of these models are experimental data which demonstrate the applicability of the model.JRC.I.5-Nanobioscience

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality

Sexual behaviour of men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgenders in Southern India

Background The HIV epidemic in India remains predominantly concentrated in groups where individuals display high risk behaviours, including men who have sex with men (MSM). Widespread behavioural changes are crucial to the control of HIV, but need to be informed by an understanding of the risk factors for infection. However, reliability and validity of self-reported behaviour are difficult to determine. This thesis aims to contribute to the literature comparing innovative data collection modes for self-reported HIV risk behaviour in developing countries. Methods The Avahan programme is a large-scale HIV-prevention project that focuses on the six states in India with the highest HIV prevalence. The programme focuses on core and bridging groups, including MSM. This thesis presents the findings of one aspect of the monitoring and evaluation: behavioural data collected using face-to-face interviews (FTFI) and informal confidential voting interviews (ICVI) among MSM sampled in public place and Hammam cruising sites in Bangalore. Results A review of empirical data collected in developing countries comparing FTFI with new interviewing tools, found private data collection methods to have mixed success in reducing underreporting of risky behaviour. A comparison of ICVI and FTFI in India found that ICVI significantly increased reporting of stigmatised behaviours, but results did not adhere consistently to expectation. A number of self-identified categories of MSM are commonly applied in the intervention context in India, each of which was generally associated with different HIV-risk behaviours. Although there was evidence of role segregation and identity-specific behaviour, the categories were found to be more fluid than has previously been documented. Bisexual behaviour was common, and condom use with female partners was low, which suggests a potential bridge of HIV transmission into the general population. Conclusions The dataset provided a solid description of HIV risk behaviours among MSM cruising in public places in Bangalore, which has immediate implications for designing appropriate targeted HIV prevention programmes that address fluidity in risk behaviour between MSM identities and reach out to behaviourally bisexual men, rather than treating MSM as a homogenous group. Both the systematic review and the comparison of ICVI and FTFI highlighted difficulties in gathering ‘truthful’ self-reported behaviour, as determining the precise reasoning where individual responses departed from the presumed norm was impossible. Qualitative research might contribute to a better understanding of the motivations behind reporting biases amongst MSM

Mental health and resilience-promoting strategies associated with El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the north coast of Peru

Cyclic environmental events, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO / El Niño) phenomenon may add to the development or worsening of mental disorders and may have a negative psychosocial impact. Little is known of the effects of El Niño on the mental health of residents from historically vulnerable zones, such as the northern coast of Peru. Community-based strategies, such as those based in theories of Social Capital (SC), may increase mutual cooperation and lower the risk for mental disorders, increasing post-disaster resilience. Using a mixed-methods approach this thesis aimed to understand the effects of El Niño-related events on mental health of affected residents of Tumbes, Peru, explore their perceptions on their mental well-being and identify resilience strategies that would help them to overcome future El Niño events. First, through a systematic review I identified quasi- experimental studies, randomised controlled trials and pilot studies that evaluated interventions with SC components to improve mental health outcomes. Second, I explored whether time trends of mild depression rates changed by exposure to the El Niño 2015-2016 event, through a secondary data analysis. After adjusting for an a priori set of confounders I linked individual and ecological-level data, from participants of a three-year pragmatic stepped-wedge cluster randomized-trial conducted in Tumbes. Finally, through qualitative research methods, I explored the perceived effect of the occurrence of the El Niño events of 2015-2016 and 2017 on residents’ mental well-being, the individual and community responses, availability and access to support systems and community resilience strategies. I found that communities with chronic exposure to El Niño events may not have a high prevalence of a mental disorder, such as depression, but they are affected from prior trauma, through relived personal disturbing experiences, relentless distress associated to scarcity, hopelessness related to authorities’ neglect and lack of community resilience. I recommend that policy should include a two-level (individual and community) approach, with greater emphasis on psychosocial and community empowerment support, nested within and alongside structural interventions that improve survivors’ social and material reconstruction of their livelihoods and fragmented social bonds

An investigation into the effects of commencing haemodialysis in the critically ill

<b>Introduction:</b> We have aimed to describe haemodynamic changes when haemodialysis is instituted in the critically ill. 3 hypotheses are tested: 1)The initial session is associated with cardiovascular instability, 2)The initial session is associated with more cardiovascular instability compared to subsequent sessions, and 3)Looking at unstable sessions alone, there will be a greater proportion of potentially harmful changes in the initial sessions compared to subsequent ones. <b>Methods:</b> Data was collected for 209 patients, identifying 1605 dialysis sessions. Analysis was performed on hourly records, classifying sessions as stable/unstable by a cutoff of >+/-20% change in baseline physiology (HR/MAP). Data from 3 hours prior, and 4 hours after dialysis was included, and average and minimum values derived. 3 time comparisons were made (pre-HD:during, during HD:post, pre-HD:post). Initial sessions were analysed separately from subsequent sessions to derive 2 groups. If a session was identified as being unstable, then the nature of instability was examined by recording whether changes crossed defined physiological ranges. The changes seen in unstable sessions could be described as to their effects: being harmful/potentially harmful, or beneficial/potentially beneficial. <b>Results:</b> Discarding incomplete data, 181 initial and 1382 subsequent sessions were analysed. A session was deemed to be stable if there was no significant change (>+/-20%) in the time-averaged or minimum MAP/HR across time comparisons. By this definition 85/181 initial sessions were unstable (47%, 95% CI SEM 39.8-54.2). Therefore Hypothesis 1 is accepted. This compares to 44% of subsequent sessions (95% CI 41.1-46.3). Comparing these proportions and their respective CI gives a 95% CI for the standard error of the difference of -4% to 10%. Therefore Hypothesis 2 is rejected. In initial sessions there were 92/1020 harmful changes. This gives a proportion of 9.0% (95% CI SEM 7.4-10.9). In the subsequent sessions there were 712/7248 harmful changes. This gives a proportion of 9.8% (95% CI SEM 9.1-10.5). Comparing the two unpaired proportions gives a difference of -0.08% with a 95% CI of the SE of the difference of -2.5 to +1.2. Hypothesis 3 is rejected. Fisher’s exact test gives a result of p=0.68, reinforcing the lack of significant variance. <b>Conclusions:</b> Our results reject the claims that using haemodialysis is an inherently unstable choice of therapy. Although proportionally more of the initial sessions are classed as unstable, the majority of MAP and HR changes are beneficial in nature