Enterprise Education Competitions: A Theoretically Flawed Intervention?

The demand for including enterprise in the education system, at all levels and for all pupils is now a global phenomenon. Within this context, the use of competitions and competitive learning activities is presented as a popular and effective vehicle for learning. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how a realist method of enquiry – which utilises theory as the unit of analysis – can shed new light on the assumed and unintended outcomes of enterprise education competitions. The case developed here is that there are inherent flaws in assuming that competitions will ‘work’ in the ways set out in policy and guidance. Some of the most prevalent stated outcomes – that competitions will motivate and reward young people, that they will enable the development of entrepreneurial skills, and that learners will be inspired by their peers – are challenged by theory from psychology and education. The issue at stake is that the expansion of enterprise education policy into primary and secondary education increases the likelihood that more learners will be sheep dipped in competitions, and competitive activities, without a clear recognition of the potential unintended effects. In this chapter, we employ a realist-informed approach to critically evaluate the theoretical basis that underpins the use of competitions and competitive learning activities in school-based enterprise education. We believe that our findings and subsequent recommendations will provide those who promote and practice the use of competitions with a richer, more sophisticated picture of the potential flaws within such activities.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Creating change in government to address the social determinants of health: how can efforts be improved?

Background - The evidence base for the impact of social determinants of health has been strengthened considerably in the last decade. Increasingly, the public health field is using this as a foundation for arguments and actions to change government policies. The Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach, alongside recommendations from the 2010 Marmot Review into health inequalities in the UK (which we refer to as the ‘Fairness Agenda’), go beyond advocating for the redesign of individual policies, to shaping the government structures and processes that facilitate the implementation of these policies. In doing so, public health is drawing on recent trends in public policy towards ‘joined up government’, where greater integration is sought between government departments, agencies and actors outside of government. Methods - In this paper we provide a meta-synthesis of the empirical public policy research into joined up government, drawing out characteristics associated with successful joined up initiatives. - We use this thematic synthesis as a basis for comparing and contrasting emerging public health interventions concerned with joined-up action across government. Results - We find that HiAP and the Fairness Agenda exhibit some of the characteristics associated with successful joined up initiatives, however they also utilise ‘change instruments’ that have been found to be ineffective. Moreover, we find that – like many joined up initiatives – there is room for improvement in the alignment between the goals of the interventions and their design. Conclusion - Drawing on public policy studies, we recommend a number of strategies to increase the efficacy of current interventions. More broadly, we argue that up-stream interventions need to be ‘fit-for-purpose’, and cannot be easily replicated from one context to the next

Nurses' perceptions of aids and obstacles to the provision of optimal end of life care in ICU

Contains fulltext : 172380.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Study on Medical Student's Attitude Towards Research Activities between University College Cork and Universiti Sains Malaysia

AbstractResearch has been integrated as one of the important subjects in medical curriculum. In University College Cork (UCC), it is compulsory to complete a substantive research during final year while in Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), students are required to complete a community-based project in third year. So far there is no evaluation done to look at their attitude on the activity. Aim of the study is to compare the attitude of medical students on research in UCC and USM. A cross-sectional study using validated questionnaire involving fourth and final year students of both universities was carried out. Questions were primarily closed-ended and consisted of 5 Likert scales. Mann-Whitney test was used to determine statistical differences between the groups. A total of 269 questionnaires were completely returned. The UCC and USM contributed 47.6% and 52.4% respectively. Overall 43.3% students of UCC and 47.2% students of USM believe that research would be an aspect of their future care as a physician. Time, availability of research mentors, formal teaching of research methodology and the perception that the student would not receive appropriate acknowledgement for work put towards a research project appear to be barriers for students to become actively involved in research during medical school. Present study shows medical students had good attitudes towards research in both universities. There are some barriers that need to be evaluated to improve the involvement of students in research activities

Phase coexistence and magnetically tuneable polarization in cycloidal multiferroics

In some magnetic ferroelectrics the polarization P direction can be selected by a magnetic field H. Here we show that in a (Y1−xSmx)MnO3 single crystal, both the direction and the magnitude of P can be controlled solely by H. We argue that this remarkable dual control arises from both the phase coexistence of bc-cycloidal regions within an ab-cycloidal matrix and the annihilation of multiferroic domain walls by H cycling. We show that phase coexistence occurs even within the high-temperature spin-collinear phase and argue that this could be a general property arising from the strong frustration of magnetic interactions in these oxides

Materials identification using a small-scale pixellated x-ray diffraction system

A transmission x-ray diffraction system has been developed using a pixellated, energy-resolving detector (HEXITEC) and a small-scale, mains operated x-ray source (Amptek Mini-X). HEXITEC enables diffraction to be measured without the requirement of incident spectrum filtration, or collimation of the scatter from the sample, preserving a large proportion of the useful signal compared with other diffraction techniques. Due to this efficiency, sufficient molecular information for material identification can be obtained within 5 s despite the relatively low x-ray source power. Diffraction data are presented from caffeine, hexamine, paracetamol, plastic explosives and narcotics. The capability to determine molecular information from aspirin tablets inside their packaging is demonstrated. Material selectivity and the potential for a sample classification model is shown with principal component analysis, through which each different material can be clearly resolved