Locating Tests and Measurement Instruments for Assessment

Extension educators, staff, and specialists need to use surveys and other measurement instruments to assess their programming and conduct other research. Challenges in locating tests and measurement tools, however, include lack of time and lack of familiarity with techniques that can be used to find them. This article discusses library resources Extension staff can use for locating assessments along with search techniques and tips

Positive Perceptions of Access to Online Library Resources Correlates with Quality and Quantity of Scholarly Publications among Finnish Academics. A Review of: Vakkari, Pertti. “Perceived Influence of the Use of Electronic Information Resources on Scholarly Work and Publication Productivity.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 59.4 (Feb. 15, 2008): 602-12.

<b>Objective</b> – To investigate the relationship between academics’ use of library electronic resources and their opinions regarding how these resources have impacted their work, and to investigate the association between this perceived influence and publication productivity during the previous two years.<br><b>Design</b> – Two specific questions added to an annual online user-survey questionnaire; additional data mined from survey<br><b>Setting</b> – Twenty-two Finnish Universities served by FinELib, the Finnish Electronic Library.<br><b>Subjects</b> – Seven hundred and sixty seven academic staff and full-time doctoral students.<br><b>Methods</b> – A questionnaire was posted in April 2007 on FinELib’s homepage and advertised on each university library’s mainpage, and focused on respondents’ experience in the previous two years. Participants selected answers either from a list of category choices, or, when measuring perceptions, by rating agreement with statements along a four-point scale. Controlled variables measured were the respondents’ academic position, their discipline, membership in a research group, whether their literature use was discipline-specific or interdisciplinary, and their perception of the availability online of the relevant core literature. The independent variable measured was the scholars’ perception of the impact of the use of electronic library resources on their work. The dependent variable measured was the scholars’ self-reported publications in the two years preceding the survey.<br><b>Main Results</b> – Participants reported a positive impact on the efficiency of their work, most strongly in areas of ease of access, with lesser impacts in the range of materials available to them and the ease with which they can keep up-to-date in their field. To a lesser extent, the scholars perceived a positive impact on the quality of their work. Upon analysis, the study found that access to online library resources improved scholars’ work by the interconnected mechanisms of the ease of access and breadth of resources available positively impacting their ability to keep abreast of new developments and inspiring new ideas. The study found mixed results between perceived improved access and number of publications. Although representation in national publications was not significantly impacted, there was a positive correlation with the number of international publications. There were interesting differences among disciplines and academic status, with a decreased impact among scholars in the humanities, and greater impact among lower-status or novice academics.<br><b>Conclusion</b> – There are positive perceptions of the accessibility of online information and of its impact on the quality of work, and a correlation between these perceptions and the number of international publications, thus validating the investment in providing access to digital information resources to Finnish academics

Search strategies for Mental health targets in primary and secondary maltreatment prevention: A systematic review of randomized trials

Database search strategies for Ovid Medline, Ovid Embase, Ovid PsycInfo, Social Care Online, and Scopus, designed and executed by Scott Marsalis for systematic review authored by Jeffrey Waid, Minhae Cho and Scott Marsalis, Mental health targets in primary and secondary maltreatment prevention: A systematic review of randomized trial

Search Strategies for Psychological intervention and prevention programs for exposure to community violence: A systematic review

Detailed search strategies supporting systematic review conducted by Neveen Ali-Saleh Darawshy, Abigail H. Gewirtz, and Scott Marsali

Building a RefWorks Database of Faculty Publications as a Liaison and Collection Development Tool

Published in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Summer 2004, http://www.istl.org/04-summer/article3.htmlUsing RefWorks, a web-based citation manager, we constructed databases containing the publications of the faculty members for four departments on the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota. The goals were to learn more about the research interests in the departments and to have a tool to help inform us when trying to make decisions about book purchases and journal cancellations. A few unexpected challenges were encountered and a number of unexpected benefits emerged

Mental health targets in child maltreatment prevention programs: A systematic review of randomized trials

Mental health is an important contributor to child and family well-being. Conversely, mental illness is a well-recognized risk factor for child maltreatment and repeated involvement with child welfare systems. Presently little is known about how primary and secondary maltreatment prevention programs conceptualize mental health, or if changes to mental health are observed across maltreatment prevention studies. To address this gap in knowledge the current study systematically reviewed twenty years of research to identify and describe the mental health outcomes of caregivers and children who were enrolled in primary or secondary maltreatment prevention outcome studies. Studies were eligible for inclusion if the prevention focused on the general population or families exhibiting early risk factors for maltreatment, employed a randomized controlled trial design, included at least one measure of mental health, contained at least one prospective outcome measure of child maltreatment, and was published in English-language in or after the year 2000. A systematic search of MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Campbell Library of Systematic Reviews, California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC), Child Welfare Information Gateway, and Social Care Online identified 931 studies, thirty-three of which met the inclusion criteria. Fourteen dimensions of mental health were identified across included studies. Measures of mental illness (n = 95) appeared roughly seven times more often than measures of mental well-being (n = 13). Studies reported treatment group improvements to mental health and maltreatment prevention (n = 10), improvements to mental health but not maltreatment prevention (n = 8), improvements to maltreatment prevention but not mental health (n = 5), or neither improvements to mental health nor maltreatment prevention (n = 10). Across programs reporting changes to mental health, the most commonly reported improvements were to child behavior (n = 8) and parenting stress (n = 6). Results indicate primary and secondary prevention programs more often improve mental health than prevent child maltreatment. Future studies aimed at strengthening the efficacy of child maltreatment prevention in community settings should consider targeting additional indicators of mental health that are commonly encountered in community settings, and strengthen measures of child maltreatment to more frequently include multiple indicators and multiple sources. Future studies should also examine the interaction of socioeconomic and structural contributors to mental health and child maltreatment prevention

Science Boot Camp: Supporting Interdisciplinary Research

Neeser, Amy; Kocher, Megan; Lafferty, Meghan; Marsalis, Scott. (2014). Science Boot Camp: Supporting Interdisciplinary Research. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/167706