Decision-Making Processes Among Potential Dropouts in Vocational Education and Training and Adult Learning

Context: Aiming at gaining knowledge about students' thoughts and actions in deciding to stay in or drop out of an educational programme, an empirical study was conducted on dropout among 18-24-year-old students in VET and basic general adult learning. Approach: In order to pursue this aim, the study combined two sets of data: weekly student surveys and interviews with these same students. While the surveys provide a weekly snapshot of the students' thoughts regarding the probability of them continuing in the programme, their satisfaction with the educational programme as a whole, the specific lessons they attend, and the atmosphere at the school, the interviews contribute with detailed descriptions of the students' thoughts on the same matters. Findings: Based on the students' answers over an eight-week period, it was possible to trace a graph illustrating changes in the students' attitudes. These graphs can be placed within four categories of development: the stable, the positive, the unstable, and the negative. The latter can furthermore be differentiated as reflecting a stable decline, a fluctuating decline, or a sudden decline. In the interviews, the aim was to elicit the individual students' thoughts and actions at the points when their graphs took a turn. Conclusions: The findings show that the students' thoughts and actions concern matters both inside and outside the school. Furthermore, seemingly trivial matters in the students' lives are shown to have a potentially decisive influence on the students' thoughts about staying in or dropping out of a programme. These findings confirm the importance of focusing on students' decision-making processes in research on dropout. However, further research is needed to increase understanding of processes leading to decisions to drop out of education, including the qualification of methods to capture these processes

Decision-making processes among potential dropouts in vocational education and training and adult learning

Context: Aiming at gaining knowledge about students\u27 thoughts and actions in deciding to stay in or drop out of an educational programme, an empirical study was conducted on dropout among 18-24-year-old students in VET and basic general adult learning. Approach: In order to pursue this aim, the study combined two sets of data: weekly student surveys and interviews with these same students. While the surveys provide a weekly snapshot of the students\u27 thoughts regarding the probability of them continuing in the programme, their satisfaction with the educational programme as a whole, the specific lessons they attend, and the atmosphere at the school, the interviews contribute with detailed descriptions of the students\u27 thoughts on the same matters. Findings: Based on the students\u27 answers over an eight-week period, it was possible to trace a graph illustrating changes in the students\u27 attitudes. These graphs can be placed within four categories of development: the stable, the positive, the unstable, and the negative. The latter can furthermore be differentiated as reflecting a stable decline, a fluctuating decline, or a sudden decline. In the interviews, the aim was to elicit the individual students\u27 thoughts and actions at the points when their graphs took a turn. Conclusions: The findings show that the students\u27 thoughts and actions concern matters both inside and outside the school. Furthermore, seemingly trivial matters in the students\u27 lives are shown to have a potentially decisive influence on the students\u27 thoughts about staying in or dropping out of a programme. These findings confirm the importance of focusing on students\u27 decision-making processes in research on dropout. However, further research is needed to increase understanding of processes leading to decisions to drop out of education, including the qualification of methods to capture these processes. (DIPF/Orig.

Unge voksnes beslutningsprocesser i relation til frafald: En empirisk undersøgelse blandt unge voksne i erhvervs- og almen voksenuddannelse

Dropout is a substantial and permanent problem in educational policy. As a consequence, dropout is a recurrent theme in educational research projects including a current Danish research project about dropout among young adults in vocational education and training and basic general learning for adults. Research into dropout mostly focuses on reasons for dropping out and only to a small degree on the students' considerations and decision-making processes in relation to dropout, the latter being the focus in this research project. Focusing on the student decision-making processes, the article presents the results of an empirical study based on interviews with 35 students who were considered to be at risk of dropping out. Four categories of decision-making process were derived from the empirical data: the stable course and the unstable courses which include three types of development: the positive development, the turbulent development, and the negative development. The decision-making process is guided by several factors. However, students' goal-orientation seem to be crucial in order to understand the structure and direction of the decision-making process. The types of development are discussed, concluding in implications for further research as well as for practice

Can Hyperpolarized 13C-Urea Be Used to Assess Glomerular Filtration Rate? A Retrospective Study

This study investigated a simple method for calculating the single-kidney glomerular filtration rate (GFR) using dynamic hyperpolarized 13C-urea magnetic resonance (MR) renography. A retrospective data analysis was applied to renal hyperpolarized 13C-urea MR data acquired from control rats, prediabetic nephropathy rats, and rats in which 1 kidney was subjected to ischemia-reperfusion. Renal blood flow was determined by the model-free bolus differentiation method, GFR was determined using the Baumann–Rudin model method. Reference single-kidney and total GFRs were measured by plasma creatinine content and compared to 1H dynamic contrast-enhanced estimated GFR and fluorescein isothiocyanate-inulin clearance GFR estimation. In healthy and prediabetic nephropathy rats, single-kidney hyperpolarized 13C-urea GFR was estimated to be 2.5 ± 0.7 mL/min in good agreement with both gold-standard inulin clearance GFR (2.7 ± 1.2 ml/min) and 1H dynamic contrast-enhanced estimated GFR (1.8 ± 0.8 mL/min), as well as plasma creatinine measurements and literature findings. Following ischemia-reperfusion, hyperpolarized 13C-urea revealed a significant reduction in single-kidney GFR of 57% compared with the contralateral kidney. Hyperpolarized 13C MR could be a promising tool for accurate determination of GFR. The model-free renal blood flow and arterial input function-insensitive GFR estimations are simple to implement and warrant further translational adaptation

Renal Energy Metabolism Following Acute Dichloroacetate and 2,4-Dinitrophenol Administration: Assessing the Cumulative Action with Hyperpolarized [1-13C]Pyruvate MRI

Numerous patient groups receive >1 medication and as such represent a potential point of improvement in today\u27s healthcare setup, as the combined or cumulative effects are difficult to monitor in an individual patient. Here we show the ability to monitor the pharmacological effect of 2 classes of medications sequentially, namely, 2,4-dinitrophenol, a mitochondrial uncoupler, and dichloroacetate, a pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase inhibitor, both targeting the oxygen-dependent energy metabolism. We show that although the 2 drugs target 2 different metabolic pathways connected ultimately to oxygen metabolism, we could distinguish the 2 in vivo by using hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate magnetic resonance imaging. A statistically significantly different pyruvate dehydrogenase flux was observed by reversing the treatment order of 2,4-dinitrophenol and dichloroacetate. The significance of this study is the demonstration of the ability to monitor the metabolic cumulative effects of 2 distinct therapeutics on an in vivo organ level using hyperpolarized magnetic resonance imaging

Sex Differences in Kidney Function and Metabolism Assessed Using Hyperpolarized [1-13C]Pyruvate Interleaved Spectroscopy and Nonspecific Imaging

Metabolic sex differences have recently been shown to be particularly important in tailoring treatment strategies. Sex has a major effect on fat turnover rates and plasma lipid delivery in the body. Differences in kidney structure and transporters between male and female animals have been found. Here we investigated sex-specific renal pyruvate metabolic flux and whole-kidney functional status in age-matched healthy Wistar rats. Blood oxygenation level–dependent and dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were used to assess functional status. Hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate was used to assess the metabolic differences between male and female rats. Female rats had a 41% ± 3% and 41% ± 5% lower absolute body and kidney weight, respectively, than age-matched male rats. No difference was seen between age-matched male and female rats in the kidney-to-body weight ratio. A 56% ± 11% lower lactate production per mL/100 mL/min was found in female rats than in age-matched male rats measured by hyperpolarized magnetic resonance and DCE MRI. Female rats had a 33% ± 11% higher glomerular filtration rate than age-matched male rats measured by DCE MRI. A similar renal oxygen tension (T2*) was found between age-matched male and female rats as shown by blood oxygenation level–dependent MRI. The results were largely independent of the pyruvate volume and the difference in body weight. This study shows an existing metabolic difference between kidneys in age-matched male and female rats, which indicates that sex differences need to be considered when performing animal experiments

Hyperpolarized 13C Magnetic Resonance Imaging Can Detect Metabolic Changes Characteristic of Penumbra in Ischemic Stroke

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is increasingly the method of choice for rapid stroke assessment in patients and for guiding patient selection in clinical trials. The underlying metabolic status during stroke and following treatment is recognized as an important prognostic factor; thus, new methods are required to monitor local biochemistry following cerebral infarction, rapidly and in vivo. Hyperpolarized MRI with the tracer [1-13C]pyruvate enables rapid detection of localized [1-13C]lactate production, which has recently been shown in patients, supporting its translation to assess clinical stroke. Here we show the ability of hyperpolarized 13C MRI to detect the metabolic alterations characteristic of endothelin-1-induced ischemic stroke in rodents. In the region of penumbra, determined via T2-weighted 1H MRI, both [1-13C]pyruvate delivery and [1-13C]pyruvate cellular uptake independently increased. Furthermore, we observed a 33% increase in absolute [1-13C]lactate signal in the penumbra, and we determined that half of this increase was due to increased intracellular [1-13C]pyruvate supply and half was mediated by enhanced lactate dehydrogenase-mediated [1-13C]lactate production. Future work to characterize the kinetics of delivery, uptake, and enzymatic conversions of hyperpolarized tracers following ischemic stroke could position hyperpolarized 13C MRI as an ideal technology for rapid assessment of the penumbra during the critical time window following ischemic stroke in patients