Developing Conviction in Women Leaders: The Role of Unique Work and Life Experiences

The past 20 years has seen a proliferation of studies identifying the barriers women often face in leadership. Two potent obstacles women face are gender bias and stereotype threat, which manifest in both management selection and performance ratings. One option some women use to combat negative stereotypes is to adapt themselves to their environments, an approach that may lead to a decrease in self-regulation, goal clarity, and authenticity. Demonstrating conviction is a powerful strategy used by leaders to maintain a consistent sense of direction and connection to what is most important to them, even under the most pressing situations. This strategy may be especially useful for enabling women leaders to hold on to what is most important to them amid the pressures they face to adapt to stereotypes. The goal of this study was to determine whether certain career and life experiences affect women’s ability to demonstrate conviction. After accounting for missing data and outliers, the sample consisted of 563 male and female leaders enrolled in an online leadership development tool. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 92, with 323 participants identifying as female and 240 as male. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test the primary hypotheses and exploratory research questions. All analyses resulted in statistically significant results. Specifically, Calling and People Experiences positively predict conviction development. Calling Experiences resulted in the strongest unique predictor of conviction development in women. Exploratory analyses identified Leadership and People Experiences as being critical for male leaders’ conviction development. These result reveal that novel and unique experiences have a direct impact on women leaders’ self-knowledge and create opportunities for learning

Games in Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Education

Educational games provide learners with team-based, experiential, and problem-centered learning opportunities. Therefore, educational games are recommended to encourage learner success in an increasingly complex and collaborative world. Research exploring interventions to increase teacher affinity toward games is needed to inform expansion of games within classrooms. The current study leveraged the input, environment, and outcomes model to analyze perceptions of games held by school-based agriculture, food, and natural resources (AFNR) educators before and after a professional development experience focused on educational games. Results indicate teachers held a favorable perception of games before engaging in the professional development. Engagement in the professional development was related to only minimal increases in the perceptions held by teachers regarding educational games. Importantly, individual items within the construct illuminate an expanded view of educational games and their utility within AFNR classrooms as a result of the professional development experience. Specifically, respondents saw educational games as being valuable to engage learners in new content, not just as a review tool. Findings suggest a professional development experience related to games may help expand teacher conceptualizations of educational game utility. Specific recommendations are included to expand teacher understanding and use of educational games

Aphid biology: Expressed genes from alate Toxoptera citricida, the brown citrus aphid

The brown citrus aphid, Toxoptera citricida (Kirkaldy), is considered the primary vector of citrus tristeza virus, a severe pathogen which causes losses to citrus industries worldwide. The alate (winged) form of this aphid can readily fly long distances with the wind, thus spreading citrus tristeza virus in citrus growing regions. To better understand the biology of the brown citrus aphid and the emergence of genes expressed during wing development, we undertook a large-scale 5′ end sequencing project of cDNA clones from alate aphids. Similar large-scale expressed sequence tag (EST) sequencing projects from other insects have provided a vehicle for answering biological questions relating to development and physiology. Although there is a growing database in GenBank of ESTs from insects, most are from Drosophila melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae, with relatively few specifically derived from aphids. However, important morphogenetic processes are exclusively associated with piercing-sucking insect development and sap feeding insect metabolism. In this paper, we describe the first public data set of ESTs from the brown citrus aphid, T. citricida. The cDNA library was derived from alate adults due to their significance in spreading viruses (e.g., citrus tristeza virus). Over 5180 cDNA clones were sequenced, resulting in 4263 high-quality ESTs. Contig alignment of these ESTs resulted in 2124 total assembled sequences, including both contiguous sequences and singlets. Approximately 33% of the ESTs currently have no significant match in either the non-redundant protein or nucleic acid databases. Sequences returning matches with an E-value of ≤ −10 using BLASTX, BLASTN, or TBLASTX were annotated based on their putative molecular function and biological process using the Gene Ontology classification system. These data will aid research efforts in the identification of important genes within insects, specifically aphids and other sap feeding insects within the Order Hemiptera. The sequence data described in this paper have been submitted to Genbank's dbEST under the following accession numbers.: CB814527-CB814982, CB832665-CB833296, CB854878-CB855147, CB909714-CB910020, CB936196-CB936346, CD449954-CD450759. Abbreviation: / EST: expressed sequence ta

Interprofessional training for final year healthcare students: a mixed methods evaluation of the impact on ward staff and students of a two-week placement and of factors affecting sustainability

BACKGROUND: Multiple care failings in hospitals have led to calls for increased interprofessional training in medical education to improve multi-disciplinary teamwork. Providing practical interprofessional training has many challenges and remains uncommon in medical schools in the UK. Unlike most previous research, this evaluation of an interprofessional training placement takes a multi-faceted approach focusing not only on the impact on students, but also on clinical staff delivering the training and on outcomes for patients. METHODS: We used mixed methods to examine the impact of a two-week interprofessional training placement undertaken on a medical rehabilitation ward by three cohorts of final year medical, nursing and therapy students. We determined the effects on staff, ward functioning and participating students. Impact on staff was evaluated using the Questionnaire for Psychological and Social factors at work (QPSNordic) and focus groups. Ward functioning was inferred from standard measures of care including length of stay, complaints, and adverse events. Impact on students was evaluated using the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Survey (RIPLS) among all students plus a placement survey among medical students. RESULTS: Between 2007 and 2010, 362 medical students and 26 nursing and therapy students completed placements working alongside the ward staff to deliver patient care. Staff identified benefits including skills recognition and expertise sharing. Ward functioning was stable. Students showed significant improvements in the RIPLS measures of Teamwork, Professional Identity and Patient-Centred Care. Despite small numbers of students from other professions, medical students’ rated the placement highly. Increasing student numbers and budgetary constraints led to the cessation of the placement after three years. CONCLUSIONS: Interprofessional training placements can be delivered in a clinical setting without detriment to care and with benefits for all participants. While financial support is a necessity, it appears that having students from multiple professions is not critical for a valuable training experience; staff from different professions and students from a single profession can work successfully together. Difficulty in aligning the schedules of different student professions is commonly cited as a barrier to interprofessional training. Our experience challenges this and should encourage provision of authentic interprofessional training experience

Influence of beef genotypes on animal performance, carcass traits, meat quality, and sensory characteristics in grazing or feedlot-finished steers

A 2-yr study was conducted to evaluate the effects of beef genotypes and feeding systems on performance, carcass traits, meat quality, and sensory attributes. A 2×2 factorial experiment was used to randomly allocate 60 steers in year 1 (YR1) and 44 steers in year 2 (YR2). The two beef genotypes evaluated were Red Angus (RA), and RA x Akaushi (AK) crossbreed. The steers were allotted to two finishing feeding systems: grazing, a multi-species forage mixture (GRASS) and feedlot finishing, conventional total mixed ration (GRAIN). All steers were slaughtered on the same day, at 26 and 18 mo of age (GRASS and GRAIN, respectively), and carcass data were collected 48 h postmortem. Growth and slaughter characteristics were significantly impacted by the finishing system (P 0.10) between the two genotypes, except that steaks from AK tended to be juicier than RA (P = 0.06). Thawing loss and color variables were impacted by the finishing system (P < 0.01). L* (lightness) and hue angle presented greater values while a* (redness), b* (yellowness), and chroma presented lower values in GRAIN compared to GRASS. Sensory attributes were scored better in GRAIN than GRASS beef (P < 0.01). There was a genotype by system interaction for flavor (P = 0.02), where beef from RA had a lower flavor rating in GRASS than in GRAIN, and no difference was observed for AK. Within each system, no difference was observed for flavor between RA and AK. Beef from steers in GRASS had greater (P < 0.01) WBSF than those from GRAIN. These results indicate that steers from GRAIN had superior performance and carcass merit and that AK enhanced these traits to a greater degree compared to RA. Furthermore, the beef finishing system had a marked impact on the steaks’ sensory attributes and consumer acceptability. The favorable results for texture and juiciness in GRAIN, which likely impacted overall acceptability, may be related to high marbling

Academic performance of undergraduate dental students with learning disabilities

© 2017 British Dental Association. All rights reserved.Aims To compare the academic performance of undergraduate dental students with known learning disabilities (LDs) to their peers.Methods This study analysed the results of students in applied dental knowledge (ADK) progress tests across four cohorts of dental students. A mixed model analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to compare the performance of students with known disability to their peers. ADK test sitting was treated as a repeated measures variable, and the outcome variable of interest was percentage score on the ADK.Results Students' performance data on five ADK test sittings (ADK15, ADK16, ADK17, ADK18, and ADK19) by disability showed a significant main effect of test but no significant effect of disability or any interaction between disability and test.Conclusions This is the first study that explores the academic performance of dental students with a diagnosis of disability. The findings give reassurance to all stakeholders that, within the study population, students with LDs are not disadvantaged in knowledge-based assessments, demonstrating compliance with the legal obligations. Further research is required to explore how generalisable these findings are, as well as assess academic, clinical, and behavioural attributes of students with learning disabilities

Internet-based medical education: a realist review of what works, for whom and in what circumstances

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