567 research outputs found
‘Visions’ for children’s health and wellbeing: exploring the complex and arbitrary processes of putting theory into practice
It could be claimed that the priority of any Government should be to look after the interests of the public it serves. Much of this role includes attempting to actively develop and implement policies and programmes that best contribute to or enhance general standards of living. Within the context of sport and physical activity for children the messages tend to be about the positive effects of increased exercise and are generally motivated by concerns about patterns of physical health and the prevention of disease in later life. While these are also considered important by parents and teachers, they are not necessarily their prime concerns. Consequently, there is a much more complicated process where adults construct visions of what childhood health and physical activity 'should look like'. Debates about the effectiveness of putting such ‘visions’ into practice invariably focus upon subjective/objective interpretations of wellbeing or the mechanisms for measuring impact of the intervention. To further add to the confusion, academics from the social sciences contribute to the debate by offering more critical explanations, often through theories that attempt to reveal the arbitrariness and unpredictability of measuring the impact of such ethereal constructs.
For the purposes of this paper, we apply a Foucauldian reading of our recent experiences conducting research for Government agencies introducing national physical literacy programmes in England and Wales. In doing so, we highlight the more sophisticated relationships of power operating in the formulation of an intervention as well as our attempts to understand the will to truth operating in relation to children’s ‘wellbeing’
Change4Life Sports Clubs research 2016 - part one report
Change4Life Sports Clubs are funded by the Department of Health and managed by the Youth Sport Trust (YST). The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through the provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. The success of the clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities (priority areas) to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards.
In 2015, spear produced a Lifetime Impact Evaluation of the Change4Life Sports Clubs (2011-2015). The evaluation incorporated a controlled experimental evaluation at the forefront of research in the social sciences and NESTA rated 4-5. Data from over 7,500 children in more than 500 clubs showed that Change4Life Sports Clubs have a significant, positive impact on the activity levels, health behaviours and wellbeing of participating children. The Lifetime Evaluation Report included a number of recommendations for enhancing and building upon the evidence base for the programme. These recommendations included assessing the effectiveness of programme infrastructure in the sustainability of the clubs, assessing programme alignment with public health priorities and exploring the possibility of an economic assessment of the impact of the programme.
The Change4Life Sports Clubs Research 2016 has three key objectives:
1. Demonstrate the wider impact of the Change4Life Sports Clubs
2. Assess the value for money and return on investment of the
Change4Life Sports Clubs
3. Capture good practice for embedding and sustaining the
programme (locally and nationally)
This Part 1 Report examines the evidence of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs (objective 1), explored and presented in 5 main sections:
1.Evaluation of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs
on healthy lifestyles
2.Evaluation of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs
on behaviour and engagement
3.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs are being
embedded and sustained in schools
4.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs programme
supports whole school agenda
5.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs programme
supports public health priorities
The final section of this report presents 6 area profiles to provide a geographical context to the wider impact of the Change4Life Sports Clubs
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Developing Digital and Information Literacies in LSE Undergraduate Students
This presentation reports on work undertaken at London School of Economics and Political Science to enhance the information and digital literacy support for undergraduate students. Illustrating good practice, the session should be of interest to practitioners embedding information and digital literacy within their institution. In 2012 a team from LSE Library and Centre for Learning Technology reviewed undergraduate support in information and digital literacy across central services and academic departments. Using the ANCIL (A New Curriculum for Information Literacy) framework (Secker & Coonan, 2012), the team mapped existing support at LSE to the ten strands of ANCIL. ANCIL defines information literacy broadly, influenced by the UNESCO declaration (UNESCO, 2005), as the skills, behaviour and attitudes that make up the informed scholar and the judicious citizen. The review in Summer 2012 revealed pockets of good practice and gaps in provision at LSE. The findings and recommendations (Bell, Moon & Secker, 2012) were endorsed by LSE's Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee in February 2013. The team is consequently developing a digital and information literacy framework to ensure consistency across the institution. They are also undertaking pilot projects to embed information and digital literacy into undergraduate programmes in several academic departments. Using an action research approach, valuable for evaluating the impact of IL, (Vezzosi, 2006) the pilots will investigate the benefits to students, time required in the curriculum and resource implications of the embedded model. The team has been influenced by research undertaken at York St John University to build academic partnerships (McCluskey, 2011).
The report recommends LSE enhance the staff development programme to ensure that academics understand the importance of digital and information literacies to use the framework for embedding this into teaching. The framework makes explicit the roles and responsibilities for information and digital literacy encouraging support services and academic departments to work collaboratively. Progress on this work will be discussed. Finally information literacy teaching delivered by Academic Librarians is also been reviewed. Working with the learning technologists, the team has developed a portfolio of teaching which can be customized and embedded into undergraduate courses either face to face or online. Bell (2011) suggests that a proactive approach of open dialogue between stakeholders can support change, build trust and foster a greater understanding of issues. This project provides a clear vision of digital and information literacy support but also allows dialogue between academic and support staff about teaching and learning in the digital age. LSE as a research-led university, has a taken a traditional approach to teaching, assessment and skills support. Recognising the need for information literacy has therefore been challenging and the authors will share their observations. Arguably, the framework and the pilots are changing teachers’ attitudes about the need to embed digital and information literacy into the curriculum. Only by working in partnership with academic and other support staff will LSE graduates be equipped with a broad range of survival skills for the digital age
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Copyright? Why Would I Need to Worry About That? The Challenges of Providing Copyright Support for Staff
This article by Jane Secker and Maria Bell presents an overview of the challenges of providing copyright training for staff at LSE. The institution does not employ a dedicated copyright officer, but uses a range of tactics to ensure academic, administrative and Library staff are made aware of copyright issues. Several training sessions are run throughout the year. LSE have also developed an online course and produce a range of online and printed guides to brief staff. Advice and queries are also dealt with by a number of individuals who have specialist knowledge in areas such as copyright and the internet and copying archival materials
Value for money & return on Investment of Change4Life Sports Clubs – part 2
Headlines
Unit Outcome and Unit Cost Analyses
• Change4Life Sports Clubs have a cost of £305 for every new child meeting CMO physical activity guidelines, for which cost an additional
0.2 children were lifted out of inactivity and a further 2.2 children were lifted out of low activity, with each of these children experiencing an
average increase in reported wellbeing and individual development outcomes of 71%.
• In comparison to the control condition counterfactual, Change4Life Sports Clubs delivered the following NET outcomes per £1,000 of
expenditure:
• 41 participants
• 0.8 sustained clubs
• 3.9 Young Leaders
• 2.8 new children meeting CMO physical activity guidelines
• 8.4 children lifted out of low activity
• 1.3 children lifted out of inactivity
• 0.1 children newly eating 5-a-day
• 0.6 children reporting increased wellbeing and individual development outcomes
• 5.1 children starting with low activity levels reporting increased wellbeing and individual development outcomes.
Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) Analysis
• The cost per QALY generated for the GROSS outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs is £3,385 (range:£3,036 to £3,806).
• In comparison to the control condition counterfactual, the cost per QALY generated for the NET outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs is
£3,791 (range: £3,413 to £4,245).
• The cost per QALY generated for Change4Life Sports Clubs is significantly below NICE’s threshold for value for money per QALY of
£20,000.
• The cost per QALY generated for the GROSS outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs compares favourably to GROSS outcomes
estimated for walking buses (£4,008 per QALY), dance classes (£27,570 per QALY), free swimming (£40,462 per QALY) and community
sports (£71,456 per QALY).
• The cost per QALY generated by the NET outcomes of exercise referral interventions in adulthood is approximately five and a half times
greater than that of Change4Life Sports Clubs.
Analysis of Future Health at Ages 13-15
• The Change4Life Sports Clubs cohort are predicted to do around an hour more physical activity per week at ages 13-15 than that
predicted for the control condition counterfactual, and than today’s 13-15 year olds.
• The estimated additional physical activity of the Change4Life Sports Clubs cohort up to ages 13-15 will generate one additional QALY for
every five children that took part in Change4Life Sports Clubs.
• In comparison to the control counterfactual, the cost per QALY generated by the estimated future NET outcomes of Change4Life Sports
Clubs up to ages 13-15 is £120.
• Across the Health Survey for England, the Millennium Cohort Study and the Understanding Society Survey, no data is available to support
a robust estimation of likely health and wellbeing status associated with physical activity levels at ages 13
Lifetime evaluation of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Club Programme
ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
The Change4Life Primary School Sports Club programme is funded by the Department of Health and managed by the Youth Sport Trust. The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through the provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. SPEAR’s evaluations of the primary programme have consistently demonstrated that Change4Life Clubs can be effective mechanisms for increasing physical activity levels among less active primary children. Through provision of a safe space to learn and play, the opportunity to contribute to club delivery and encouragement of small steps toward increasing activity levels, the clubs have helped less active children build the competencies, confidence and resilience they need to be healthy and active throughout the lifecourse. The success of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities (priority areas) to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards.
ABOUT THE EVALUATION
SPEAR was commissioned from October 2013 to March 2015 to conduct a third, successive evaluation of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Club programme. In October 2014, SPEAR produced an Interim Report including impact and delivery insights and progress and planning for the primary evaluation. SPEAR also recommended inclusion of a lifetime impact assessment to provide additional value to the Final Report findings and the project end date was subsequently extended to May 2015. This Final Report both supplements and supersedes the Interim Report. SPEAR’s current evaluation of the Change4Life Clubs reflects both the changing context and priorities of the primary programme and, through a systematic, controlled experimental evaluation, provides the robust evidence base necessary to support and further the programme as it develops into the future. The 2015 Final Report presents a lifetime evaluation of the programme to date. Drawing together extant data from SPEAR’s 2011/12 and 2012/13 (2011-20133 ) evaluations with new data collated across 2013/14 and early 2014/154 (2013-20155 ), this report focuses on the lifetime impact of the clubs in key areas, namely physical activity, health behaviours and wellbeing. The report shows how delivery has evolved to address programme aims, discusses challenges faced embedding clubs as a sustainable part of schools’ healthy lifestyle offer and considers preliminary evidence of the impact of the new support framework in priority areas. Data informing this report is drawn from the survey returns of over 7,500 children participating in more than 500 Change4Life Clubs and from just under 500 children in 15 control schools. Survey completions from over 2,000 club deliverers and SGOs, telephone interviews with 39 stakeholders and data from 20 site visits complements and triangulates the experimental data allowing the experiences and perspectives of a broad range of stakeholders to be presented. Key messages are summarised at the start of each section (and in the Headlines section on pages 2-5). The report is divided into three substantive sections: Who participated? What worked? and What did the clubs look like? The Influence of the Change4Life Brand is addressed and Recommendations for the programme are presented
Embedding and sustaining Change4Life Sports Clubs: regional case studies – part three
Change4Life Sports Clubs are funded by the Department of Health (DoH) and managed by the Youth Sport Trust (YST). The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. The success of the clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards. In 2015, spear produced a Lifetime Impact Evaluation of the Change4Life Sports Clubs, drawing on data from over 7,500 children in more than 500 clubs. The Change4Life Sports Clubs 2016 research builds upon the Lifetime Evaluation with new data from children, schools and public health directorates to address three key objectives: 1) Demonstrate the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs; 2) Assess the value for money and return on investment of Change4Life Sports Clubs and; 3) Capture good practice for embedding and sustaining the programme. Part Three presents Area Case Studies for six geographical regions in England to provide insight into how the Change4Life Sports Clubs have been embedded and sustained in schools across each area: East, East Midlands, London, North East, North West and South East. Each case study is informed by (re)analysis of club deliverer and School Games Organiser (SGO) survey data, site visit case studies, and interviews conducted with Public Health Teams, senior school staff, Change4Life Sports Club Leads and SGOs. The final section of Part Three presents recommendations for embedding and sustaining the Change4Life Sports Clubs
Scattering hypervolume for ultracold bosons from weak to strong interactions
The elastic scattering properties of three bosons at low energy enter the
many-body description of ultracold Bose gases via the three-body scattering
hypervolume . We study this quantity for identical bosons that interact via
a pairwise finite-range potential. Our calculations cover the regime from
strongly repulsive potentials towards attractive potentials supporting multiple
two-body bound states and are consistent with the few existing predictions for
. We present the first numerical confirmation of the universal predictions
for in the strongly interacting regime, where Efimov physics dominates, for
a local nonzero-range potential. Our findings highlight how is influenced
by three-body quasibound states with strong -wave or -wave
characteristics in the weakly interacting regime.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
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TeenTech: getting young people engaged with information literacy
Rebecca Jones, Maggie Philbin and Jane Secker talk about TeenTech’s Research and Information Literacy Award, sponsored by ILG, which aims to show how information literacy underpins the acquisition of digital skills
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