Taking time to appreciate the scenery: an exploration of PhD supervision as pedagogy

A PhD generates new knowledge and builds new links with existing research literature – by definition a ‘mind-bending’ exercise, even without the additional challenges brought on by Covid-19 restrictions. As an undertaking, it is both self-directed and requiring of sustained independence (a part-time PhD may require sustained investment for up to eight years) and demanding of trust and effective communication between candidate and supervisor. This project used visual and creative methodologies to explore an emerging PhD supervisory relationship as it developed during the lockdown restraints of the pandemic. It sought to understand this relationship through the development of a visual and creative methodology designed to help both parties understand the ontological and epistemological assumptions underpinning the research project. Visual artefacts and literary extracts were discussed as metaphors for the supervisor/supervisee relationship and the PhD ‘journey’, providing an exploration that proved valid and valuable to both supervisor and candidate

‘Howling at the scrabble-board’: Exploring classroom literature from an autistic viewpoint

There has, to date, been little discussion of how autism may affect the experience of the reading of fiction for pupils in the classroom, other than through a deficit model. One of the researchers in this study (‘Celia’) is training to be a secondary school English teacher and identifies as autistic. Her experience provides an enriched understanding of the subject and enables the study to be undertaken in line with best practice for autism research. Her experiences are explored within the concepts of Theory of Mind, empathic regulation, language awareness and local rather than global processing bias. Impact on managing authentic engagement with texts for all pupils is discussed, together with specific questions for teachers regarding appropriate support for – and celebration of – autistic pupils’ reactions to fiction

Enhancing the Messages Displayed on Dynamic Message Signs

A human factors study was carried out to help enhance ways tocommunicate with highway motorists through dynamic message signs (DMS).Overhead mounted DMSs have been increasingly used by highway authorities inthe United States to present real-time traffic information and travel advice tomotorists. It is critical to post sign messages that can be quickly and clearlyunderstood by motorists, especially in high-volume traffic and construction/repairzones. Properly worded and formatted sign messages could spell the differencebetween comprehension and confusion. Message display factors investigated inthe study include display effects, color schemes, wording, and formats. Twoapproaches were employed in this study. First, a questionnaire survey wasdeveloped to collect motorists’ preferences regarding various message displayfactors. Second, a series of lab driving simulation experiments were set up toassess the effects of these factors and their interactions on motorists’comprehension of DMS messages. Study results suggested that static, one-framedmessages with more specific wording and no abbreviations were preferred.Amber or green or a green-amber combination were the most favored colors.Younger subjects took less response time to the DMS stimuli with higheraccuracy than older subjects. There were no significant gender differences

'Harder than other lessons but good': the effect of colleague collaboration on secondary English pupil engagement

Research examining the effects of collaborative planning in British secondary schools relates primarily to the effect it has on a teacher’s professional development. Researchers seldom focus on the impact it has on the pupils. This study was designed to understand the effect collaboratively planned lessons had on pupil engagement in a British secondary school. Transcripts from lessons observations, reflective diaries and field notes were analysed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). One theme was identified: ‘Pupils’ Engagement with Differentiated Instruction’. This research concludes that the collaboratively planned lessons allowed some pupils to engage in learning better than individually planned lessons. The professional learning occurring from the planning process allowed teachers to collaboratively plan a lesson that was stronger than an individually planned lesson; the most successful teaching and learning took place when teachers adopted their colleagues’ suggestions, thus supporting some of the pupils’ engagement with learning. This is significant as the UK’s Independent Teacher Workload Review Group promotes collaborative planning as a method of reducing workload (Independent Teacher Workload Review Group, 2016). However, collaborative planning is only worth doing if evidence implies that it maintains and improves outcomes for pupils. Authors discuss implications and outline areas for future research

Exploring the presentation of Black autistic characters in children's picture books

In 2019, 441 children’s and young adult’s books were published that featured a Black person as a primary character representing 11.9% of all children’s books published (CCBC, 2020). Similarly, representations of autistic characters in children’s books remain rare and disproportionate to the demographic (Azano, Tackett, & Sigmon, 2017). Indeed, books that contain a Black, autistic character remain even rarer. This presentation explores the initial stages of a project that examines the representation of Black autistic characters in children’s picture books. It samples four children’s books with a main character who is Black and autistic, exploring the representation of their Blackness and their autism. This project is predicated on the concept of books as mirrors (Bishop, 1990), with smaller mirrors showing smaller and more imperfect reflections. Whilst white, neurotypical children have a variety of different versions of themselves represented in fiction, the underrepresentation of Black autistic characters in children’s books means that Black, autistic students may arrive at university having never seen characters they can identify with represented sufficiently. This has implications for educators and learning support departments in HE who may be able to use our findings to better understand Black autistic students’ experience prior to arriving at university and tailor their provision accordingly

Commentary on the use of the reproduction number R during the COVID-19 pandemic

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reproduction number R has become a popular epidemiological metric used to communicate the state of the epidemic. At its most basic, R is defined as the average number of secondary infections caused by one primary infected individual. R seems convenient, because the epidemic is expanding if R>1 and contracting if R<1. The magnitude of R indicates by how much transmission needs to be reduced to control the epidemic. Using R in a naïve way can cause new problems. The reasons for this are threefold: (1) There is not just one definition of R but many, and the precise definition of R affects both its estimated value and how it should be interpreted. (2) Even with a particular clearly defined R, there may be different statistical methods used to estimate its value, and the choice of method will affect the estimate. (3) The availability and type of data used to estimate R vary, and it is not always clear what data should be included in the estimation. In this review, we discuss when R is useful, when it may be of use but needs to be interpreted with care, and when it may be an inappropriate indicator of the progress of the epidemic. We also argue that careful definition of R, and the data and methods used to estimate it, can make R a more useful metric for future management of the epidemic

Genetic and morphological divergence between Littorina fabalis ecotypes in Northern Europe

Low dispersal marine intertidal species facing strong divergent selective pressures associated with steep environmental gradients have a great potential to inform us about local adaptation and reproductive isolation. Among these, gastropods of the genus Littorina offer a unique system to study parallel phenotypic divergence resulting from adaptation to different habitats related with wave exposure. In this study, we focused on two Littorina fabalis ecotypes from Northern European shores and compared patterns of habitat-related phenotypic and genetic divergence across three different geographic levels (local, regional and global). Geometric morphometric analyses revealed that individuals from habitats moderately exposed to waves usually present a larger shell size with a wider aperture than those from sheltered habitats. The phenotypic clustering of L. fabalis by habitat across most locations (mainly in terms of shell size) support an important role of ecology in morphological divergence. A genome scan based on amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) revealed a heterogeneous pattern of differentiation across the genome between populations from the two different habitats, suggesting ecotype divergence in the presence of gene flow. The contrasting patterns of genetic structure between nonoutlier and outlier loci, and the decreased sharing of outlier loci with geographic distance among locations are compatible with parallel evolution of phenotypic divergence, with an important contribution of gene flow and/or ancestral variation. In the future, model-based inference studies based on sequence data across the entire genome will help unravelling these evolutionary hypotheses, improving our knowledge about adaptation and its influence on diversification within the marine realm.Peer reviewe

Responding to pupil led tangential thinking: a case study of teaching romantic poetry in a post-16 setting

This paper considers alternative ways of teaching Romantic poetry to post-sixteen English Literature pupils in England. It explores how practitioners can value tangents developed by pupils’ independent thinking when pupils are given the freedom to develop their own ideas. It reflects on a lesson planned to respond to a tangent developed by the class in a previous session; that William Blake’s “The Tyger”, to a contemporary reader, explores the 21st century preoccupation of climate change. The lesson outlined in this report built upon these ideas further, valuing the pupils’ tangential thinking. Approaches like these are particularly important now as the performativity agenda in schools, promoted by league tables as a measure of effectiveness, can result in some schools teaching to the test, at the exclusion of encouraging personal and creative responses to texts

Optimising medication data collection in a large-scale clinical trial

© 2019 Lockery et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Objective: Pharmaceuticals play an important role in clinical care. However, in community-based research, medication data are commonly collected as unstructured free-text, which is prohibitively expensive to code for large-scale studies. The ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) study developed a two-pronged framework to collect structured medication data for 19,114 individuals. ASPREE provides an opportunity to determine whether medication data can be cost-effectively collected and coded, en masse from the community using this framework. Methods: The ASPREE framework of type-to-search box with automated coding and linked free text entry was compared to traditional method of free-text only collection and post hoc coding. Reported medications were classified according to their method of collection and analysed by Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) group. Relative cost of collecting medications was determined by calculating the time required for database set up and medication coding. Results Overall, 122,910 participant structured medication reports were entered using the type-tosearch box and 5,983 were entered as free-text. Free-text data contributed 211 unique medications not present in the type-to-search box. Spelling errors and unnecessary provision of additional information were among the top reasons why medications were reported as freetext. The cost per medication using the ASPREE method was approximately USD $0.03 compared with USD$0.20 per medication for the traditional method. Conclusion Implementation of this two-pronged framework is a cost-effective alternative to free-text only data collection in community-based research. Higher initial set-up costs of this combined method are justified by long term cost effectiveness and the scientific potential for analysis and discovery gained through collection of detailed, structured medication data