Participatory instructional redesign by students and teachers in secondary education: effects on perceptions of instruction

Könings, K. D., Brand-Gruwel, S., & Van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2011). Participatory instructional redesign by students and teachers in secondary education: effects on perceptions of instruction. Instructional Science, 39(5), 737–762.Students’ perceptions of instruction are important because they direct the learning of students. The fact that teachers have only limited knowledge of these perceptions is likely to threaten the effectiveness of learning, because congruence between interpretations of an instructional intervention is necesarry for its optimal use. This study examines participatory design as a strategy for taking student perceptions into account in instructional re/design. Participatory design meetings of groups of teachers and seven co-designing students in a secondary education setting identified changes to improve the regular education process. The results on changes in student perceptions, perceived-desired discrepancy, and teacher-student disagreement showed some improvement for the co-designers but, unexpectedly, limited or even negative effects for the non-co-designing students. Possible causes are discussed. Participatory design seems to have potential for improving education, but further research is needed

Disease-specific comparison of the registered morbidity in four morbidity registrations in general practice: an analysis for Public Health Status and Forecast 1993

In de Volksgezondheid Toekomst Verkenning (VTV) wordt voor het beschrijven van het voorkomen van ziekten en aandoeningen onder andere gebruik gemaakt van gegevens van huisartsgeneeskundige registraties. Een probleem voor VTV is dat de registraties in Nederland, om geheel plausibele redenen, van elkaar verschillen in de doelstelling waarvoor zij zijn opgezet. De consequentie daarvan is dat gebruikte classificatiesystemen, codeerregels en rekenwijzen nogal van elkaar kunnen verschillen en dat gemeten morbiditeit niet op voorhand vergelijkbaar is. Daarom is een vergelijkende analyse tussen de vier belangrijkste huisartsenregistraties gemaakt, zodat een beter inzicht in de betekenis van cijfers uit deze huisartsenregistraties verkregen kon worden. Deze analyse bestond uit drie onderdelen. Ten eerste is een algemene beschrijving van de registratiekenmerken van de vier huisartsenregistraties gemaakt, met speciale aandacht voor prevalentie- en incidentiebepalingen ten behoeve van VTV. Een tweede onderdeel betrof het samenstellen van een tabellarisch overzicht van de empirisch aangetroffen prevalenties en incidenties. Een derde onderdeel betrof de inhoudelijke vergelijking van de registraties per ziekte. Voor de meeste ziekten kon meer inzicht verkregen worden in de betekenis van de cijfers en voor sommige ziekten konden de aangetroffen verschillen in prevalentie en incidentie min of meer verklaard worden. Soms bleken verschillen echter onverklaarbaar groot te zijn. Beschreven zijn enkele alternatieve mogelijkheden voor het presenteren van cijfers uit huisartsenregistraties in VTV. Omdat de bestaande situatie voor VTV verre van optimaal is, wordt ten slotte gepleid voor het verkennen van de mogelijkheden om ten behoeve van VTV-2001 en volgende VTV's tot een beter passende oplossing te komen.To describe the occurrence of diseases (incidence and prevalence rates) in the Public Health Status and Forecast (PHSF) report, data of morbidity registrations in general practice are used. A problem for using these in the PHSF report is that the registrations differ from each other in the aim, the design, the operationalisation of the different concepts and the classification system. The consequence is that the morbidity figures are not at once comparable. That's why an analysis of the four most important morbidity systems was made, so we can get a better understanding of the incidence and prevalence rates. This analysis consisted of three parts. First, a general description was made of the characteristics of the four morbidity registrations, with special attention for the calculation of the incidence and prevalence rates on behalf of the PHSF project. Secondly, a large table was made in which incidence and prevalence rates of the morbidity systems were brought together. Thirdly a disease-specific comparison was made. In general terms it appeared not possible to typify one of the considered registrations as the best for the aims of the PHSF project. For most of the diseases more insight was obtained about the meaning of the figures. Sometimes differences in the figures could be explained more of less. Nevertheless for a number of diseases the differences appeared to be unaccountable large. We described some alternative possibilities for presenting figures from morbidity registrations in general practice in the PHSF report. Because the existing situation in the morbidity registration in general practice is far from ideal, it is recommended to explore the possibilities for coming to a better solution for PHSF-2001 and other PHSFs.VW

Ethics of implicit persuasion in pharmaceutical advertising

Direct to Consumer Advertising of Prescription Pharmaceuticals (DTCA) is a controversial practice permitted only in the United States and New Zealand. Central to why all other nations ban DTCA is concern about its capacity to impart complete, balanced, and accurate information that guides effective consumer decisions. Yet the debate has, thus far, paid scant attention to how implicit or unconscious persuasion in DTCA might influence consumer attitudes toward advertised drugs. In this chapter, one means of implicit persuasion, evaluative conditioning, is argued to have deleterious effects on the autonomous agency that DTCA viewers bring to medicine choices and on the wider doctor-patient relationship. These effects suggest implicit persuasion should be given much greater consideration in the development of public policy on the marketing of pharmaceuticals.21 page(s