Student nurses' experiences of incivility and the impact on learning and emotional wellbeing

Background: Incivility is the display of intimidating, rude, disruptive or undesirable behaviours. Incivility in nursing has the potential to impact on the learning environment, student wellbeing and patient outcomes. Although it is a globally recognised phenomenon, relatively little is known about it in the context of nurse education in the United Kingdom, where the students’ time is divided equally between theory and practice and a nurse mentor is allocated to each student when on clinical placement. Methods: A phenomenological qualitative design was used to explore the experiences of ten student nurses studying on a three year degree level pre-registration (pre-licensure) nursing programme. Data was collected by in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews which were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was conducted using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a framework. Results: Student nurses can experience incivility in both classroom and clinical settings with negative consequences in terms of learning and personal wellbeing. Four superordinate (main) themes (Knowing-Not Knowing/Positioning/The Invisible Student/Distraction) were identified along with a further fifteen subordinate themes which included misuse, being nameless and feeling a burden. Conclusions: These findings add further to our understanding of incivility in nursing education and specifically the potential for incivility to impact on learning and students’ emotional wellbeing. Incivilities related to ‘the Invisible Student’ and ‘Knowing-Not Knowing’ are particularly worthy of further exploration as they reveal a hitherto unappreciated dimension of this complex, globally recognised phenomena.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The Long March or Bold Strokes : Comparing Strategies for Adopting EVS Learning Technology at a UK University

In recent years there has been much encouragement to investigate the use of classroom technologies to enhance the student learning experience especially in the STEM subjects but now extending across other subject areas as well. A typical classroom technology is electronic voting system (EVS) handsets which allow a lecturer to invite students to vote for their choice from a selection of given answers. Recently, a medium-size UK University has purchased over 9000 EVS handsets for use across the academic Schools as an innovative means for supporting formative and summative testing. Numerous training and support sessions have been provided to staff with the intention of supporting new and experienced users and increasing the take up by academics. As noted in earlier research reported at ECEL 2013, the student feedback was very positive for the use of EVS for formative activities, and less so, for its use in summative assessment. A recent review of the trends of EVS adoption at the University has been undertaken to inform decision-making and future use and support for the technology. One aspect of this review has considered the effectiveness of the strategies adopted by different academic Schools. EVS adoption and use across the University has been compared and placed within Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovation. This paper further considers a set of six different strategies adopted for EVS use by academic Schools. They have been categorised according to several variables, including their choice of speed of uptake and the number of handsets in use. The inherent strengths and possible weaknesses of the approaches adopted are considered. Among the questions raised were, does a strategy of large-scale technology adoption over a short time period indicate a greater likelihood of long term engagement and ultimate adoption of the technology? Or, does a longer elapsed time taken for a gradual purchase and adoption of EVS technology suggest a greater inclination for the embedding of technology for enhancing learning? What other success factors should be considered alongside the training and support provided for technology adoption to enhance the likelihood of long term adoption of classroom technologies? The discussion provides a comparison of six different strategies identified across the university and the rationale behind them and then proposes a set of strategy choices which can lead to a greater likelihood of successful adoption of classroom technology

Bibliografia bàsica sobre les TIC per al desenvolupament humà

La mayoría de las fuentes bibliográficas se refieren a manuales, libros y documentos de trabajo que sólo se han difundido por la web. Con el fin de agrupar y ordenar el material disponible, en los últimos cinco años se han llevado a cabo varias iniciativas, entre las destacan bibliotecas virtuales como la de la Fundación Digital Dividend (http://www.digitaldividend.org) y bases de datos en las que se pueden encontrar casos de estudio y buenas prácticas. Por otra parte, se puede contar con referencias bibliográficas en línea. La mayoría de estos documentos hace referencia a investigaciones que grupos de evaluación y supervisión en línea llevan a cabo, como es el caso del grupo de evaluación Bellanet ( http://www.bellanet.org/leap/).La majoria de les fonts bibliogràfiques es refereixen a manuals, llibres i documents de treball que només s'han difós per la web. A fi d'agrupar i ordenar el material disponible, en els últims cinc anys s'han dut a terme diverses iniciatives per a preservar i difondre l'experiència d'investigació acumulada. Entre elles destaquen biblioteques virtuals com la de la Fundació Digital Dividendhttp://www.digitaldividend.org i bases de dades en què es poden trobar casos d'estudi i bones pràctiques. D'altra banda, es pot comptar amb referències bibliogràfiques en línia, és a dir, material que no es pot descarregar i consultar off line. Dit això, la majoria d'aquests documents fa referència a investigacions que grups d'avaluació i supervisió en línia duen a terme, com és el cas del grup d'avaluació Bellanet ( http://www.bellanet.org/leap/)Peer Reviewe

Promoting Sleep Health Through Identification and Management of Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Background: There is a high prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea in the United States, which left untreated can lead to increased cardiovascular risk. The current practice standard is to use a questionnaire to evaluate a patients’ sleep health, but this is not done regularly in every clinical setting. This DNP project aimed to bridge the gap in practice by implementing regular screening of obstructive sleep apnea in an urgent care center in Massachusetts. Methods: This DNP project was conducted by having adult patients complete the Epworth Sleepiness Scale to determine the presence of a sleep health issue. The patients then completed an additional survey to determine if they have been screened in the past, and their attitudes toward the screening. The urgent care manager provided the screening tool to patients based on the inclusion criteria of being 18 years or older and the ability to read/speak English. Results: Data was collected from 54 patients 18 years or older over a three-month period. Eleven were excluded because they had sleep apnea, were already being treated, or did not answer all questions of the survey. A total of 18 patients screen positive for sleep apnea with 88% of participants reporting not having been screened for sleep health issues prior to this screening and 72% of participants reporting the tool was beneficial and easy to complete. Conclusion: Most people with sleep health issues in this urgent care clinic were not aware of their risk and had not been screened prior indicating a need for regular screening in Urgent Care practice settings. At this time the urgent care center will not be implementing a change in practice, but they are interested in the possibility and will consider implementing routine screening in the future. Keywords: Sleep, screening, cardiovascular, healt

Defendre els drets humans en la societat de la informació

Peer Reviewe

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS’ COMMUNICATION

What’s the role of institutional communication in fostering diversity and inclusion in European higher institutions? Universities, research centres and similar institutions should be responsible not only for the education or future generations, but also for giving them the right tools and skills to better understand society and be responsible citizens. Communication plays a pivotal role in the shared narrative of how our world is made, influencing people’s lives and rights and the future. Society is changing, the new generation is challenging the older one to change the paradigm through which they see reality. Higher education institutions need to adapt their way of communicating to embrace a more connected and diverse world. Universities and other higher educational institutions in Europe benefited from EU policies on exchange programs for students, mobility for researchers between countries and on research funding. However, they also have to deal with the complexities arising from this increased mobility if they want to stay competitive in the international arena. Diversity and inclusion issues and opportunities have been studied for more than 80 years by corporations as they came to understand all the possible advantages of a high level of diversity in the workplace. Compared to the private sector, European institutions of higher education are lagging far behind. Even though there are clear European recommendations and guidelines on what the country members are expected to do to guarantee equality in higher education, every country, and even every institution in the same country, have chosen a different way to implement this. And sometimes they decided not to deal with it at all. In our study we decided to explore the issue of diversity and inclusion in European higher institutions’ communication practices, focusing on the LGBTQ+ community. In literature there are papers on institutional communication, LGBTQ+ issues and diversity and inclusion, but there are no systematic studies examining all these three areas together. Therefore, we adopted a twofold approach in our studies. We used a mixed research method, using a preliminary series of qualitative interviews to build a questionnaire which we then used to collect quantitative data. Both surveys focused on how institutional communication supports and makes sure that institutional policies on equality and inclusion became known. From our research two things are clear. Institutions of higher education in different European countries are all trying to somehow deal with the urgent issue of inclusion. And also that this process is being accelerated by European mobility policies for students and researchers. However, there is a lot of disparity among European countries on how successfully their higher education institutions are addressing this issue and for how long. We can put those European countries for which we have more data into three groups: those which have already spent years trying to find the best way to tackle discrimination and inequality, those which have more recently started this process and those which have only recently realised that they should do something about it. People in these institutions expect the institution’s policy announcements to be followed by swift action. They also ask for clear communication guidelines and for diversity training courses. People should also be strongly encouraged to participate in these courses. We identified some best practices and good initiatives that can be replicated by other institutions in other countries. We think that there should be more comparative studies on how the issue of diversity and inclusion is handled by different institutions in different European countries. This is because higher education institutions can learn from each other and because a minimum standard in common policies should be guaranteed across Europe to ensure real equality in higher education

Incivility in Pre-Registration Nursing Education: a Phenomenological Exploration of the Experiences of Student Nurses, Nurse Tutors and Nurse Mentors in a UK Higher Education Institution

This study provides a unique insight into incivility in pre-registration nursing education through a phenomenological exploration of the experiences of student nurses, nurse tutors and nurse mentors. Incivility is the display of intimidating, rude, disruptive or undesirable behaviours which, in the context of nursing education and practice, has the potential to impact negatively on student learning and patient outcomes. However, despite the potential consequences and the fact that it is a globally recognised phenomenon, very little is known about incivility in nursing education in the United Kingdom. A phenomenological qualitative design was used to explore the experiences of students, mentors and nurse tutors who were assessing, teaching or studying, on a three-year degree level pre-registration nursing programme. Data was collected by conducting twenty-five in-depth, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews which were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim and the framework for analysis was informed by the work of J. A. Smith, Flowers, & Larkin (2009) and Miles, Huberman, & Saldana (2014). Overall, four major themes emerged (Distraction; Power; Impact on Learning; and Invisibility) along with five minor themes (Emotional Impact, Knowing and Not-knowing; Verbal and Non-verbal Incivilities; Lack of Interest; and Lack of Respect). There were also minor themes specific to the individual participant groups such as Being Nameless (students) and Lateness (mentors). The findings demonstrate the links between incivility, learning and emotion, and bring to the fore previously unseen dimensions such as Invisibility and Knowing and Not-knowing. They also identify a wide range of potential contributory factors. Of particular importance is the explication of learning impact as this aspect has hitherto been little explored and yet is of great significance to student learning outcomes and therefore ultimately, to patient care. Consequently, the recommendations have policy and resource implications for the providers of nurse education. The research was conducted in a higher education institution in the south east of England where the researcher, a registered nurse teacher, works in an academic leadership role. It appears to be the first phenomenological exploration of incivility in the context of nursing education in the UK, and as such it provides a rich and contextualised exploration that others working in similar settings can learn from. It also adds a UK perspective to a phenomenon that is reported by nurse educators around the world, and so makes an original knowledge contribution to the global nursing community

Concentration fluctuations of large Stokes number particles in a one-dimensional random velocity field

We analyze the behavior of an ensemble of inertial particles in a one-dimensional smooth Gaussian velocity field, in the limit of large inertia, but considering a finite correlation time for the random field. We derive in this limit a perturbative scheme for the calculation of the concentration correlation and of the particle relative velocity distribution, providing analytical expressions for the concentration fluctuation amplitude, its correlation length, and the modification in the particle pair relative velocity variance. The amplitude of the concentration fluctuations is characterized by slow decay at large inertia and a much larger correlation length than that of the random field. The fluctuation structure in velocity space is very different from predictions from short-time correlated random velocity fields, with only few particle pairs crossing at sufficiently small relative velocity to produce correlations. Concentration fluctuations are associated with depletion of the relative velocity variance of colliding particles.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, revtex

Optimal Exploitation of the Sentinel-2 Spectral Capabilities for Crop Leaf Area Index Mapping

The continuously increasing demand of accurate quantitative high quality information on land surface properties will be faced by a new generation of environmental Earth observation (EO) missions. One current example, associated with a high potential to contribute to those demands, is the multi-spectral ESA Sentinel-2 (S2) system. The present study focuses on the evaluation of spectral information content needed for crop leaf area index (LAI) mapping in view of the future sensors. Data from a field campaign were used to determine the optimal spectral sampling from available S2 bands applying inversion of a radiative transfer model (PROSAIL) with look-up table (LUT) and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches. Overall LAI estimation performance of the proposed LUT approach (LUTN₅₀) was comparable in terms of retrieval performances with a tested and approved ANN method. Employing seven- and eight-band combinations, the LUTN₅₀ approach obtained LAI RMSE of 0.53 and normalized LAI RMSE of 0.12, which was comparable to the results of the ANN. However, the LUTN50 method showed a higher robustness and insensitivity to different band settings. Most frequently selected wavebands were located in near infrared and red edge spectral regions. In conclusion, our results emphasize the potential benefits of the Sentinel-2 mission for agricultural applications

The programs of cash transfers conditioned in Latin America and the prospects of basic income or income citizen : un analysis on the basis of programans «Bag of Family» of Brazil and «Universal Allocation by Son» of Argentina

En América Latina se han diseminado numerosos programas de «Transferencias Monetarias Condicionadas» [Conditional Cash Transfer Programs] dirigidos a las personas económicamente dependientes (niñas, niños y adolescentes, como también personas en edad laboralmente pasiva). Para algunos, estas transferencias representan un primer paso en dirección a la renta básica. Sin embargo, hay muchos elementos para poner en duda esta expectativa. Por ejemplo: ¿se puede llegar a políticas universales e incondicionales a partir de programas focalizados y condicionados?; Aquí se discute estos y otros interrogantes a la luz de la experiencia del Programa Bolsa Família de Brasil y el beneficio de Asignación Universal por Hijo de Argentina.Numerous Conditional Cash Transfer Programs for economically dependent people (children and elderly) are been disseminated In Latin America. For some scholars, these programs should be considered as a first step towards basic income. However, many elements raise doubts about this trend and expectations. For instance, could be reached a universal and unconditional policy coming from conditional targeted programs? Here he Latin American road to BI is here discussed considering mainly two programs: the Brazilian Bolsa Família and the Asignación Universal por Hijo recently approved in Argentina