D4 Strategic Project:Developing Staff Digital Literacies.Internal Scoping Report

This report is the second stage of the 2014-2015 TALI Strategic Project exploring Developing Staff Digital Literacies. The first stage was the external scoping report which identified a range of approaches taken by other HEIs alongside guidance from sector bodies such as Jisc and the HEA. This report focusses on the University of Huddersfield context by outlining and critically analysing how the issue has developed at the University. The report is discussing the methodology, findings, conclusions and recommendations. The finding section starts by discussion of the local context at University of Huddersfield then is structured around same sections as were used in the external scoping report. The categories are curriculum design, academic champions, centralised staff development courses, localised staff development courses, accredited courses, informal approaches, on-demand resources, specific events, student champions and institutional strategies. Relevant past projects that have a digital literacy focus, are then identified. This has enabled comparison between the rest of the sector and the provision at University of Huddersfield and has enabled us to identify strengths and omissions. The report concludes by making recommendations, and in particular identifies how the D4 project might develop. This next stage of the project involves undertaking a intervention with colleagues who have not traditionally engaged in digital practices, to help them to developing their digital capability

Competences to self-manage low back pain among care-seeking adolescents from general practice - a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: There is limited knowledge about when and how adolescents with low back pain (LBP) interact with health care providers. This limits our understanding of how to best help these young patients. This study aimed to understand when and how care-seeking adolescents with LBP interact with health care providers and which health literacy competencies and strategies do they use to self-managing their LBP.METHOD: Ten semi-structured interviews (duration 20-40 min) were conducted online among adolescents aged 15-18 with current or recent LBP (pain duration range; 9 months - 5 years). The interview guide was informed by literature on health literacy and self-management in patients. We conducted a semantic and latent thematic data analyses.RESULTS: Three major themes emerged from the analysis: (1) Self-management, (2) Pain and Function, and (3) Communication. All adolescents were functionally limited by their pain but the main reason to consult a health care provider was an increase in pain intensity. Many were able to navigate the healthcare system, but experienced difficulties in communicating with health care providers, and many felt that they were not being taken seriously. Their first line self-management option was often over-the-counter pain medicine with limited effects. Most adolescents expressed a desire to self-manage their LBP but needed more guidance from health care providers.CONCLUSION: Adolescents with LBP seek care when pain intensifies, but they lack self-management strategies. Many adolescents want to self-manage their LBP with guidance from health care providers, but insufficient communication is a barrier for collaboration on self-management.</p

Lexical-Level Predictors of Reading Comprehension in Third Grade: Is Spelling a Unique Contributor?

Purpose: Considerable research effort has focused on understanding reading comprehension and reading comprehension difficulties. The purpose of this correlational study was to add to the small but growing body of literature on the role that spelling may play in reading comprehension, by investigating the full range of lexical-level literacy skills and whether spelling makes a unique contribution. This study also explored whether these relations vary with the spelling scoring metric. Method: Data were collected from 63 children attending Grade 3 in a Midwestern state. In addition to measuring reading comprehension, word recognition, and vocabulary, 4 spelling scoring metrics were examined: the number of words spelled correctly, the number of correct letter sequences (CLS), and Spelling Sensitivity Scores for elements and for words. Results: All spelling metrics were significantly correlated with reading comprehension. Results of hierarchical regressions showed that spelling was a significant, unique predictor of reading comprehension when the CLS metric was used. The scoring metrics were differentially related to reading comprehension. Metrics that gave credit based on orthographic precision only (number of words spelled correctly and CLS) were more highly related to reading comprehension than metrics that scored not only on orthographic accuracy but also on phonological and morphological accuracy (Spelling Sensitivity Scores for elements and for words). Conclusion: These results indicate that spelling is related to reading comprehension and have theoretical and clinical implications for the use of spelling assessment

An Automated Diagnostic Test and Tutorial Package for Basic Skills of Mathematics in Post Secondary Vocational Education of Kentucky: Construction and Validation

The purpose of this research study was to determine characteristics of entering vocational students in Kentucky Area/State vocational schools and to develop a computerized diagnostic instrument and tutorial package for assisting students in the mastery of necessary basic skills in mathematics. After specific math skills were identified in which proficiency is required of vocational education students, item pools were constructed for each skill. The skill item pools were validated using approximately 500 public school students throughout the grades of four through eight in public schools of Harlan County, Kentucky, Lee County, Virginia, and Washington County, Tennessee. The items within each item pool were found to be statistically equivalent. Computer programs were coded in the BASIC language using the item pools to randomly select and generate a diagnostic instrument and tutorial program relevant to the basic math skills. Three randomly generated forms of the diagnostic instrument were sent to 100 students in twenty area state vocational schools of Kentucky for normalization and form validation. The diagnostic instrument showed a strong positive coefficient of reliability with an average of.95 over the three forms used in the normalization process. There was no significant difference between the mean raw scores of the three forms. A 67 percentile score was found to be the norm which was to be statistically equivalent to the Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE) at the 8.75 grade equivalent. An experiment was conducted using vocational students at Hazard State Vocational School as subjects to determine the affects of the tutorial package on basic math skill mastery using equivalent forms of the diagnostic instrument for pretesting and posttesting. Results of the experiment indicated that the computer managed instruction tutorial package had a significant affect in increasing posttest scores of the experimental group over the control group. It was concluded that the problem of constructing a computerized diagnostic math instrument and tutorial package capable of enhancing mastery of basic math skills to assist vocational students in gaining entrance into vocational school was achieved. A recommendation was made for further research and development to use the random item pool model for other development of computer assisted instruction (CAI) software

Highly Decodable Reading Passages as a First-Grade Screening Measure: A Validation Study

Early identification and intervention is essential for promoting achievement in early readers and preventing long-term reading difficulties (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Juel, 1988; Oakhill & Cain, 2012; Spira, Bracken, & Fischel, 2005). Universal screening represents a widely accepted practice for identifying students in need of intervention (Fuchs & Vaughn, 2012). However, existing screening measures demonstrate a number of scientific and practical limitations, such as floor effects, poor predictive accuracy, and limited face validity, and can also be time consuming to administer with multiple measures in kindergarten and first grade (e.g., Catts et al.; 2009; Clemens, Hilt-Panahon, Shapiro, & Yoon, 2012; Goffreda, DiPerna, & Pedersen, 2009; Johnson, Jenkins, Petscher, & Catts, 2009, Goodman, 2006; Pearson, 2006). A newly developed screening measure for early readers, Highly Decodable Passages (HD passages, Shinn, 2009; 2012) was developed in response to these issues.The current study was intended to investigate the psychometric properties, as well as the acceptability of HD passages. A total of 234 first grade students from 4 elementary schools in Eastern Pennsylvania participated in the study. A group of 20 first grade teachers in Pennsylvania and New York participated in an acceptability survey. Students were assessed in the winter and spring of first grade using HD passages and screening procedures adopted by each school (DIBELS Next; Good et al., 2013). In the spring, students were administered a standardized criterion outcome measure (GRADE; Williams, 2001). Teachers completed an electronic acceptability survey online. Results indicate strong reliability, validity, and diagnostic accuracy, as well as an influence of classroom membership on HD passage outcome scores. Results of the acceptability survey failed to indicate a significant difference between teacher opinions of HD passages versus existing measures of nonsense word fluency

Impact of internet experience on citizens’ adoption of e‐government in Sri Lanka

Electronic Government implementation and adoption of its services are in early stage in many developing countries. The fruitful outcome of this effort not only depends on the government side but also the citizen’s side as well. This study amended and used Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model to identify the factors influencing citizens’ adoption of electronic government and moderating effect of citizens’ internet experience. University students from Sri Lanka were the participants of the study. The real data disclosed that factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence determine the participants’ behavioural intention to use electronic government services, and these factors are influenced by the participants’ internet experienc

Maximizing Test Efficiency: The Effects of Test Format on Nonsense Word Reading

A repeated measures study was conducted to determine the effects of test format on accuracy and fluency performance on a computer-based, nonsense word, decoding task. Decoding is a phonics skill that is highly predictive of overall reading performance (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007). Therefore, identifying students who are struggling with decoding and providing instruction to remedy skill deficits is of high importance to teachers. A possible way for teachers to determine the instructional needs of their students is through testing (Hosp & Ardoin, 2008). However, time dedicated to test completion in classrooms limits the time available for instruction. Therefore, it is prudent that testing practices are efficient, but still yield reliable and valid data that can be used to inform instructional decision-making. This study examined how test format may be a variable that might improve the efficiency of decoding tests. Fifty-three second grade students from a single elementary school in the northeast participated in this study. Participants completed a battery of decoding and reading tests. These included: A computer-based modified 100-word Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) task that was formatted five ways, the DIBELS Next NWF benchmark, the Decoding Inventory for Instructional Planning - Screener (DIIP-S), DIBELS Next Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) benchmark, and the Group Reading and Diagnostic Evaluation (GRADE). Results from a series of repeated measures ANOVAs showed there are performance differences across test formats for both accuracy and fluency performance metrics. In addition, results show there are no performance differences across formats between student indicated preferred and non-preferred formats. Last, correlational analyses show there is evidence of criterion-related validity for each test format, but the strength of the evidence is dependent on test format, score metric, and criterion of interest. The effect of test format on student performance indicates test format is a potential variable in exploring ways to improve the efficiency of decoding testing practices. Results align with previous research on the effects of the number of words presented at a time affecting reading speed, as fluency scores were significantly higher on the formats with more words, but diverge from previous research on the effects of student motivation, as results in this study did not find any effect on student preference for format. Implications for test development and directions for future research are discussed