Measuring pregnancy planning: An assessment of the London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy among urban, south Indian women

Copyright © 2010 Corinne H. Rocca et al. This open-access work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 2.0 Germany, which permits use, reproduction & distribution in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author(s) and source are given credit. See http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/de/.We evaluated the psychometric properties of the London Measure of Unplanned Pregnancy among Indian women using classical methods and Item Response Modeling. The scale exhibited good internal consistency and internal structure, with overall scores correlating well with each item’s response categories. Items performed similarly for pregnant and non-pregnant women, and scores decreased with increasing parity, providing evidence for validity. Analyses detected small disadvantages, including low endorsement of middle response categories and some evidence of differential item functioning by parity. We conclude that the LMUP is suitable for use in India and recommend steps for improving scale performance for this cultural context.National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Levis Strauss Foundation

The Role of Consequences in validity Theory

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72502/1/j.1745-3992.1998.tb00826.x.pd

Practitioners' views and barriers to implementation of the Keeping Birth Normal tool: A pilot study

Background: Poor implementation of evidence in practice has been reported as a reason behind the continued rise in unnecessary interventions in labour and birth. A validated tool can enable the systematic measurement of care to target interventions to support implementation of evidence. The Keeping Birth Normal tool has been developed to measure and support implementation of evidence to reduce unnecessary interventions in labour and birth. Aims: This pilot sought the views of midwives about the usefulness and relevance of the Keeping Birth Normal tool in measuring and supporting practice; it also identified barriers to implementation. Methods: Five midwives supported by five preceptors tested the tool on a delivery suite and birth centre in a local NHS Trust. Mixed methods were employed. Participants completed a questionnaire about the relevance and usefulness of the tool. Semi-structured interviews explored participants' experience of using the tool in practice. Findings: The domains and items in the tool were viewed as highly relevant to reducing unnecessary interventions. Not all midwives were open to their practice being observed, but those who were reported benefits from critical reflection and role-modelling to support implementation. An important barrier is a lack of expertise among preceptors to support the implementation of skills to reduce unnecessary interventions. This includes skills in the use of rating scales and critical reflection. Where expertise is available, there is a lack of protected time for such structured supportive activity. Norms in birth environments that do not promote normal birth are another important barrier. Conclusions: Midwives found the items in the tool relevant to evidence-informed skills to reduce unnecessary interventions and useful for measuring and supporting implementation. To validate and generalise these findings, further evidence about the quality of items needs to be gathered. Successful implementation of the tool requires preceptors skilled in care that reduces unnecessary interventions, using rating scales, role-modelling and critical reflection. Such structured preceptorship requires protected time and can only thrive in a culture that promotes normal birth

Test development and use in five Iberian Latin American countries

The abundance of scholarship on test development and use generally is higher in English-speaking than in Iberian Latin American countries. The purpose of this article is to help overcome this imbalance by describing and identifying similarities and differences in test development and use in two Iberian (Portugal and Spain) and three of the largest Latin American (Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela) countries. The stages of test development in each country, roles of professional associations, presence of standards for test use, professionals’ educational training, commonly used tests, together with prominent challenges to continued progress are discussed. Test development and use in these five countries are transitioning from a dependence on the use of translated tests to greater reliance on adapted and finally nationally constructed tests. Continued growth requires adherence to international standards guiding test development and use. Stronger alliance among professional associations in the Iberian Latin American countries could serve as a catalyst to promote test development in these regions.A abundância de estudos sobre o desenvolvimento do teste e usar geralmente é maior em Inglês de língua do que nos países latino-americanos ibéricos. O objetivo deste artigo é ajudar a superar este desequilíbrio, descrever e identificar semelhanças e diferenças no desenvolvimento de testes e uso em dois Ibérica (Portugal e Espanha) e três dos maiores países da América Latina (Argentina, Brasil e Venezuela). Os estágios de desenvolvimento do teste em cada país, os papéis das associações profissionais, presença de padrões para uso de teste, a formação dos profissionais da educação, os testes comumente utilizados, juntamente com desafios importantes ao progresso continuado são discutidos. Desenvolvimento de testes e uso nestes cinco países estão em transição de uma dependência do uso de testes traduzidos para uma maior dependência de testes adaptados e finalmente construídos nacionalmente. O crescimento contínuo exige a adesão a padrões internacionais orientadores desenvolvimento de testes e uso. Aliança mais forte entre as associações profissionais dos países latino-americanos ibéricos poderia servir como um catalisador para promover o desenvolvimento do teste nessas regiões

Identifying Nonacademic Behaviors Associated With Post-School Employment and Education

We conducted an analysis of the secondary transition qualitative and quantitative research literature to build comprehensive constructs and lists of student nonacademic behaviors associated with post–high school employment and education. From a pool of 83 initial quantitative and qualitative studies, 35 met the inclusion criteria, and the analysis of these yielded 10 constructs of student nonacademic behaviors associated with post-school education and employment for high school students with mild to moderate disabilities. The constructs are presented along with lists of representative behaviors, implications for their use are discussed, and the next steps in building a new transition assessment using these constructs and behaviors are described.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline