A scoping review of constructs measured following intervention for school refusal: are we measuring up?

Reviews of the effectiveness of interventions for school refusal (SR) rely upon well-conducted primary studies. Currently there are no guidelines for those conducting primary studies about the measurement of outcome following intervention for SR. Most people would agree that it is important to measure school attendance as an outcome but there has been little discussion about other constructs that warrant measurement. To facilitate this discussion and support the development of guidelines, we conducted a scoping review of constructs measured in studies evaluating intervention for SR. We screened the title and abstract of 3,213 publications found in peer-reviewed journals between 1980 and 2019. After full text review of 271 publications, 50 publications describing 51 studies were included. Results address the frequency with which constructs were measured, along with instruments used, informants, and time-points for measurement. Based on the results, we offer guidelines for choosing constructs to measure following intervention for SR and considerations for how to measure the constructs. Guidelines can increase consistency across primary studies, with benefits for future meta-analyses and international comparisons. They also provide support for practitioners contemplating routine evaluation of their interventions for SR. Ultimately, a core outcome set for SR can be developed.Pathways through Adolescenc

Understanding first-year students’ curiosity and interest about physics : Lessons learned from the HOPE project

This paper focuses on results of an interview based survey of first-year university physics students, carried out within the EU Horizons in Physics Education (HOPE) project (http://hopenetwork.eu/). 94 interviews conducted in 13 universities have been analyzed to investigate the factors that inspire young people to study physics. In particular, the main motivational factor, which was proven to consist of personal interest and curiosity, was unfolded into different categories and detailed interest profiles were produced. The results are arguably useful to help academic curriculum developers and teaching personnel in physics departments to provide guidance to students in developing and focusing their interest towards specific sub-fields and/or to design targeted recruitment and outreach initiatives.Peer reviewe

Obesity, stigma, and responsibility in health care: A synthesis of qualitative studies

Objective: To synthesize research findings on experiences and attitudes about obesity and stigma in health care. Methods: We compiled qualitative studies and applied Noblitt & Hare's meta ethnography to identify, translate, and summarize across studies. Thirteen qualitative studies on experiences and attitudes about obesity and stigma in health care settings were identified and included. Results: The study reveals how stigmatizing attitudes are enacted by health care providers and perceived by patients with obesity. Second-order analysis demonstrated that apparently appropriate advice can be perceived as patronizing by patients with obesity. Furthermore, health care providers indicate that abnormal bodies cannot be incorporated in the medical systems—exclusion of patients with obesity consequently happens. Finally, customary standards for interpersonal respect are legitimately surpassed, and patients with obesity experience contempt as if deserved. Third-order analysis revealed conflicting views between providers and patients with obesity on responsibility, whereas internalized stigma made patients vulnerable for accepting a negative attribution. A theoretical elaboration relates the issues of stigma with those of responsibility. Conclusion: Contradictory views on patients’ responsibility, efforts, knowledge, and motivation merge to internalization of stigma, thereby obstructing healthy coping and collaboration and creating negative contexts for empowerment, self-efficacy, and weight management. Professionals need to develop their awareness for potentially stigmatizing attitudes towards vulnerable patient populations

Research on Teaching and Learning Mathematics at the Tertiary Level:State-of-the-art and Looking Ahead

This topical survey focuses on research in tertiary mathematics education, a field that has experienced considerable growth over the last 10 years. Drawing on the most recent journal publication as well as the latest advances from recent high quality conference proceedings, our review culls out the following five emergent areas of interest: mathematics teaching at the tertiary level; the role of mathematics in other disciplines; textbooks, assessment and students’ studying practices; transition to the tertiary level; and theoretical-methodological advances. We conclude the survey with a discussion of some potential ways forward for future research in this new and rapidly developing domain of inquiry

Damage localization by statistical evaluation of signal-processed mode shapes

Due to their inherent ability to provide structural information on a local level, mode shapes and their derivatives are utilized extensively for structural damage identification. Typically, more or less advanced mathematical methods are implemented to identify damage-induced discontinuities in the spatial mode shape signals, hereby potentially facilitating damage detection and/or localization. However, by being based on distinguishing damage-induced discontinuities from other signal irregularities, an intrinsic deficiency in these methods is the high sensitivity towards measurement noise. The present article introduces a damage localization method which, compared to the conventional mode shape-based methods, has greatly enhanced robustness towards measurement noise. The method is based on signal processing of spatial mode shapes by means of continuous wavelet transformation (CWT) and subsequent application of a generalized discrete Teager-Kaiser energy operator (GDTKEO) to identify damage-induced mode shape discontinuities. In order to evaluate whether the identified discontinuities are in fact damage-induced, outlier analysis of principal components of the signal-processed mode shapes is conducted on the basis of T2-statistics. The proposed method is demonstrated in the context of analytical work with a free-vibrating Euler-Bernoulli beam under noisy conditions