2,309 research outputs found
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Feedback on Academic Essay Writing through pre-Emptive Hints: Moving Towards "Advice for Action"
This paper adopts an “advice for action” approach to feedback in educational practice: addressing how provision of “hints” to participants before they write academic essays can support their understanding and performance in essay-writing tasks. We explored differences in performance by type of hint, and whether there was a transfer of better performance in subsequent essays. Fifty participants were recruited, consisting of eight men and 42 women aged 18-80. Participants were assigned in rotation to four groups, and asked to write two essays. Groups 1 and 3 received hints before Essay 1, whilst Groups 2 and 4 received hints before Essay 2. Groups 1 and 2 received essential hints; Groups 3 and 4 received helpful hints. Essays were marked against set criteria. The results showed that an “advice for action” approach to essay-writing, in the form of hints, can significantly improve writers’ marks. Specifically higher marks were gained for the introduction, conclusion and use of evidence: critical components of “good” academic essays. As the hints given were content-free, this approach has the potential to instantly benefit tutors and students across subject domains and institutions and is informing the development of a technical system that can offer formative feedback as students draft essays
Maternal vegetable intake during and after pregnancy
Background: Improved understanding of vegetable intake changes between pregnancy and postpartum may inform future intervention targets to establish healthy home food environments. Therefore, the goal of this study was to explore the changes in vegetable intake between pregnancy and the postnatal period and explore maternal and sociodemographic factors that are associated with these changes. Methods: We examined sociodemographic, dietary, and health characteristics of healthy mothers 18-43y from the prospective Infant Feeding Practices II cohort (n = 847) (2005–2012). Mothers completed a modified version of the diet history questionnaire, a food-frequency measure, developed by the National Cancer Institute. We created four categories of mothers, those that were: meeting vegetable recommendations post- but not prenatally (n = 121; improved intake), not meeting vegetable recommendations during pregnancy and postnatally (n = 370; stable inadequate), meeting recommendations pre- but not postnatally (n = 123; reduced intake), and meeting recommendations at both time points (n = 233; stable adequate). To make our results more relevant to public health recommendations, we were interested in comparing the improved vegetable intake group vs. stable inadequate vegetable intake group, as well as those that reduced their vegetable intake compared to the stable adequate vegetable intake group. Separate multivariable-adjusted logistic regression were used to examine sociodemographic predictors of improved vs. stable inadequate and reduced vs. stable adequate vegetable intake. Results: Women with improved vegetable intake vs. stable inadequate smoked fewer cigarettes while women with reduced vegetable intake vs. stable adequate were more likely to experience less pregnancy weight gain. In adjusted models, employed women had greater odds of reduced vegetable intake (OR = 1.64 95% CI 1.14–2.36). In exploratory analyses, employment was associated with greater odds of reduced vegetable intake among low-income (OR = 1.79; 95% CI 1.03–3.1), but not higher income women (OR = 1.31; 95% CI 0.94–1.84). After further adjustment for paid maternity leave, employment was no longer associated with vegetable intake among lower income women (OR: 1.53; 95% CI: 0.76–3.05). Conclusions: More women with reduced vs. stable adequate vegetable intake were lower income and worked full time. Improved access to paid maternity leave may help reduce disparities in vegetable quality between lower and higher income women
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OpenEssayist: real-life testing of an automated feedback system for draft essay writing
OpenEssayist is unique in being an automated feedback system that has been developed to offer feedback on students' draft essays, rather than assessment on their finished work. This is therefore a system that offers opportunities for students to engage with and reflect on their work, and to improve their work through understanding of the requirements of academic essay writing. In trialling use of the system in a genuine Open University course, we found that students made use of it to varying degrees, which is perhaps likely with any study resource. Those who took the time to explore system affordances and what they could be used for however tended to report more positively on its perceived value. From our analysis we were also able to conclude that a significant positive correlation exists in this sample of students between marks on essay 1 and the number of drafts submitted. We could speculate as to what this may mean for this set of students, or more widely, but it seems clear that use of a system such as OpenEssayist has many potential advantages to students and tutors, which will benefit from further research and exploration
What types of essay feedback influence implementation: Structure alone or structure and content?
Students approach educational courses with varying levels of experience and understanding, and so need appropriate support to inform them of expectations and to guide their learning efforts. Feedback is critical in this process, so that learners can gauge how their performance aligns with expectations, and how they can improve their efforts and attainments. This study focused on the effects of providing different types of feedback on participants’ written essays, as well as on participants’ motivations for learning using measures of motivation and self-efficacy. In terms of research questions, it was important to ascertain whether participants performed differently in subsequent essays after receiving feedback on structure alone or on structure and content; whether their self-reported levels of motivation and attitudes to learning were related to essay performance; and whether the difference in type of feedback affected their self-reported levels of motivation and attitudes to learning. Findings revealed no significant difference in marks between those receiving feedback on structure alone and those receiving feedback on structure and content, which is surprising and deserves further exploration. Even so, using feedback to highlight certain structural elements of essay writing can have a lasting positive impact on participants’ future essay performance
Achieving Cardiovascular Health in Young Adulthood—Which Adolescent Factors Matter?
AbstractPurposeTo examine associations of adolescent body mass index (BMI), tobacco use, and physical activity with optimal physiologic cardiovascular health (CVH) in adulthood.MethodsData were from 12,139 participants in Waves I (1995–1996) and IV (2007–2008) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. We defined optimal CVH as normal blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol without diabetes or cardiovascular disease. We used logistic regression to estimate odds of having optimal CVH at ages 24–32 years (Wave IV) according to BMI category, smoking status, and physical activity at ages 11–19 years (Wave I).ResultsFew young adults (16%) had optimal CVH. Adolescents with normal BMI were more than twice as likely to have optimal young adult CVH compared to those who were obese (adjusted odds ratio, 2.77; 95% confidence interval, 1.97–3.89). Adolescent smoking and physical activity did not predict young adult CVH.ConclusionsLower adolescent BMI is associated with young adult CVH
Maternal One-Carbon Nutrient Intake and Risk of Being Overweight or Obese in Their Offspring: A Transgenerational Prospective Cohort Study
Adherence to healthful dietary patterns is associated with lower body mass index (BMI) in adults; however, whether maternal diet quality during peripregnancy is related to a lower overweight risk in the offspring remains to be elucidated. We investigated the associations between the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), Alternate Mediterranean Diet (aMED) and Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension (DASH) during peripregnancy and offspring weight outcomes in a study including 2729 mother-child pairs from the Nurses' Health Study II and offspring cohort Growing Up Today Study II. Children, 12-14 years at baseline were 21-23 years at the last follow-up. Overweight or obesity was defined according to International Obesity Task Force (< 18 years) and World-Health-Organization guidelines (18 + years). Maternal dietary patterns were calculated from food frequency questionnaires. Log-binomial models were used to estimate relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals. In models adjusted for sex, gestational age at delivery and maternal total energy intake, greater maternal adherence to aMED and DASH, but not AHEI, was associated with lower overweight risk in the offspring (RRQ5 vs Q1 = 0.82 [0.70-0.97] for aMED and 0.86 [0.72-1.04] for DASH, P for trend < 0.05 for both). After additional adjustment for maternal pre-pregnancy lifestyle factors and socio-demographic characteristic, none of the diet quality scores were significantly associated with offspring overweight risk. Maternal pre-pregnancy BMI did not modify any of these associations. In this population of generally well-nourished women, maternal healthful dietary patterns during the period surrounding pregnancy were not independently associated with offspring overweight risk at ages 12-23 years
Perception of overweight and self-esteem during adolescence
To examine sex- and race/ethnicity-specific relationships between adolescents' self-esteem and weight perception
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Bayesian approach to determining penetrance of pathogenic SDH variants.
BACKGROUND: Until recently, determining penetrance required large observational cohort studies. Data from the Exome Aggregate Consortium (ExAC) allows a Bayesian approach to calculate penetrance, in that population frequencies of pathogenic germline variants should be inversely proportional to their penetrance for disease. We tested this hypothesis using data from two cohorts for succinate dehydrogenase subunits A, B and C (SDHA-C) genetic variants associated with hereditary pheochromocytoma/paraganglioma (PC/PGL). METHODS: Two cohorts were 575 unrelated Australian subjects and 1240 unrelated UK subjects, respectively, with PC/PGL in whom genetic testing had been performed. Penetrance of pathogenic SDHA-C variants was calculated by comparing allelic frequencies in cases versus controls from ExAC (removing those variants contributed by The Cancer Genome Atlas). RESULTS: Pathogenic SDHA-C variants were identified in 106 subjects (18.4%) in cohort 1 and 317 subjects (25.6%) in cohort 2. Of 94 different pathogenic variants from both cohorts (seven in SDHA, 75 in SDHB and 12 in SDHC), 13 are reported in ExAC (two in SDHA, nine in SDHB and two in SDHC) accounting for 21% of subjects with SDHA-C variants. Combining data from both cohorts, estimated lifetime disease penetrance was 22.0% (95% CI 15.2% to 30.9%) for SDHB variants, 8.3% (95% CI 3.5% to 18.5%) for SDHC variants and 1.7% (95% CI 0.8% to 3.8%) for SDHA variants. CONCLUSION: Pathogenic variants in SDHB are more penetrant than those in SDHC and SDHA. Our findings have important implications for counselling and surveillance of subjects carrying these pathogenic variants
Severe neurocognitive and growth disorders due to variation in THOC2, an essential component of nuclear mRNA export machinery
Highly conserved TREX-mediated mRNA export is emerging as a key pathway in neuronal development and differentiation. TREX subunit variants cause neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) by interfering with mRNA export from the cell nucleus to the cytoplasm. Previously we implicated four missense variants in the X-linked THOC2 gene in intellectual disability (ID). We now report an additional six affected individuals from five unrelated families with two de novo and threematernally inherited pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in THOC2 extending the genotypic and phenotypic spectrum. These comprise three rare missense THOC2 variants that affect evolutionarily conserved amino acid residues and reduce protein stability and two with canonical splice-site THOC2 variants that result in C-terminally truncated THOC2 proteins.We present detailed clinical assessment and functional studies on a de novo variant in a female with an epileptic encephalopathy and discuss an additional four families with rare variants in THOC2 with supportive evidence for pathogenicity. Severe neurocognitive features, including movement and seizure disorders, were observed in this cohort. Taken together our data show that even subtle alterations to the canonical molecular pathways such asmRNAexport, otherwise essential for cellular life, can be compatible with life, but lead to NDDs in human
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