The need for positive pedagogy in multi-disciplinary STEM courses in higher education: an opinion piece

In the context of market demands and expectations from STEM graduates, we are moving from an era of specialization to super-specialization to multi-specialization courses. In coming future, a significant proportion of the next generation of STEM graduates will come from multidisciplinary courses (e.g. Personalised Medicine) involving interdisciplinary (e.g. Bioinformatics) and crossdisciplinary subjects (e.g. Computer Science). These courses are very challenging to learn for the basic reasons of their diverse nature, the aptitude required for learning and the number of subjects involved in these courses. This challenge is compounded by the expectation that students will learn not only all of them with equal knowledge and skills but will also be able to integrate and apply them. Essentially, we want to create “super-graduates” who know everything (as many STEM subjects as possible) and can do anything (e.g. conduct lab-based experimental work, write computer programs, perform data analysis, etc.). Considering that most of these multi-disciplinary courses are new, most of the time they lack appropriately tailored teaching methods. This leads to a significant portion of this challenge (of learning those diverse subjects) being delegated directly to the students, causing huge stress and anxiety among them. Therefore, there is an urgent need for research in the field of Positive Pedagogy for multi-disciplinary STEM courses in higher education. This opinion piece will reflect on an ongoing AdvanceHE funded project which authors are conducting, draw facts and figures on the current state of multi-disciplinary STEM courses in HE, and the pedagogic research available for the same

Multi-dimensional relationships among dementia, depression and prescribed drugs in England and Wales hospitals

Additional file 5. Standardised features

The impact of hearing impairment and hearing aid use on progression to mild cognitive impairment in cognitively healthy adults: An observational cohort study

INTRODUCTION: We assessed the association of self‐reported hearing impairment and hearing aid use with cognitive decline and progression to mild cognitive impairment (MCI). METHODS: We used a large referral‐based cohort of 4358 participants obtained from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center. The standard covariate‐adjusted Cox proportional hazards model, the marginal structural Cox model with inverse probability weighting, standardized Kaplan‐Meier curves, and linear mixed‐effects models were applied to test the hypotheses. RESULTS: Hearing impairment was associated with increased risk of MCI (standardized hazard ratio [HR] 2.58, 95% confidence interval [CI: 1.73 to 3.84], P = .004) and an accelerated rate of cognitive decline (P < .001). Hearing aid users were less likely to develop MCI than hearing‐impaired individuals who did not use a hearing aid (HR 0.47, 95% CI [0.29 to 0.74], P = .001). No difference in risk of MCI was observed between individuals with normal hearing and hearing‐impaired adults using hearing aids (HR 0.86, 95% CI [0.56 to 1.34], P = .51). DISCUSSION: Use of hearing aids may help mitigate cognitive decline associated with hearing loss