Assessment practices and their impact on home economics education in Ireland

This study was prompted by an interest in the extent to which the aims of home economics education in Ireland are being served by the assessment carried out at a national level. This interest led to an empirical investigation of key stakeholders’ perceptions of the validity of home economics assessment and a critical evaluation of its impact on teaching and learning. The data collection primarily comprised interviews with a selection of teachers and other key people such as students, teacher educators and professional home economists; and a complementary analysis of curriculum and design of Junior and Leaving Certificate home economics assessments during the period 2005-2014. The analysis of interview data combined with the curriculum and assessment analyses revealed the compounding impact and washback effect of home economics assessments on student learning experience and outcomes. This impact was reflected in several areas of the findings including an evident satisfaction among the respondents with junior cycle assessment, due to the perceived appropriateness of the assessment design and operational arrangements, and dissatisfaction with curriculum and assessment arrangements at senior cycle as they were considered to be inappropriate and negatively impacting on the quality of learning achieved. The respondents candidly pointed to what they considered to be an acceptance by some teachers of unethical behaviour around the completion of journal tasks. The respondents indicated that summative assessment practices are commonly used in home economics classrooms and the findings strongly suggest that external examinations are influencing teaching methods by demanding a test-oriented pedagogy to enable students to achieve certificate points. The technical analysis of the Junior and Leaving Certificate examination questions confirmed that these external assessments predominantly promote lower-order learning and there are clear indications of a washback effect on the quality of learning achieved. There is a view that the subject's position in the curriculum is weakened due to a lack of coherence around practice, as well as a lack of advocacy and leadership in the field. There was little evidence of the impact of home economics education and many of the interviewees merely 'hoped' that home economics made a difference in the lives of students. The study also showed that there are profiling, identity and teacher agency issues impacting upon the home economics profession. While not immediately generalisable to all home economics teachers or settings in schools, this study nonetheless implies that if the views and practices of the respondents were to be replicated across the whole of the home economics education community, it would not be safe to view national assessment results as a valid indicator of learning and achievement standards in the subject. There are grounds in this work to argue that the subject's values and purposes are not supported by existing curriculum, pedagogy and assessment arrangements

Lesson Study Matters in Ireland

Lesson Study is an approach to improving classroom teaching that focuses on collaborative professional learning between teachers. This paper reports on Lesson Study developments in Ireland, its use in two schools, one in Northern Ireland and one in the Republic of Ireland, and in particular its use in Home Economics education. The aim of the project was to assess the potential for Lesson Study to improve classroom pedagogy in selected areas of the schools’ provision. The schools identified three challenging aspects for study: improvement of literacy levels, use of Assessment for learning-type pedagogy and use of innovative teaching methods to enhance learning in Home Economics. The teachers considered that the Lesson Study approach contributed to improved pedagogy and student outcomes in their chosen areas. This was accomplished through collaborative professional learning, meaningful dialogue between the teachers about pedagogy and student learning, deeper levels of reflection by the teachers and profound changes in the teachers’ understanding and learning about practice

Washback effects and cognitive demand analysis of homework practice in Home Economics

The focus of this paper is an examinatfon of the learning value of homework understood from the perspective of teachers in relation to their homework practice alongside a cognitive demand analysis of different types of assigned homework. A mixed method approach was used involving interviews with ten Home Economics teachers and content analyses of over 400 homework questions and tasks from Home Economics textbooks, examination papers and teachers' assigned homework. The results indicate that, in the main, Home Economics homework questions demand the recall and understanding of conceptual and factual knowledge, thus reducing the capacity for the development of higher order thinking skills. In addition, there is evidence of a 'washback' effect on pedagogy in which teachers tend to concentrate their teaching on supporting test-taking. Such a situation bodes ill for the quality of student learning and points to a clear need for teacher professional development in the area of assessment design

Fulvestrant-Induced Cell Death and Proteasomal Degradation of Estrogen Receptor α Protein in MCF-7 Cells Require the CSK c-Src Tyrosine Kinase

Fulvestrant is a representative pure antiestrogen and a Selective Estrogen Receptor Down-regulator (SERD). In contrast to the Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs) such as 4-hydroxytamoxifen that bind to estrogen receptor α (ERα) as antagonists or partial agonists, fulvestrant causes proteasomal degradation of ERα protein, shutting down the estrogen signaling to induce proliferation arrest and apoptosis of estrogen-dependent breast cancer cells. We performed genome-wide RNAi knockdown screenings for protein kinases required for fulvestrant-induced apoptosis of the MCF-7 estrogen-dependent human breast caner cells and identified the c-Src tyrosine kinase (CSK), a negative regulator of the oncoprotein c-Src and related protein tyrosine kinases, as one of the necessary molecules. Whereas RNAi knockdown of CSK in MCF-7 cells by shRNA-expressing lentiviruses strongly suppressed fulvestrant-induced cell death, CSK knockdown did not affect cytocidal actions of 4-hydroxytamoxifen or paclitaxel, a chemotherapeutic agent. In the absence of CSK, fulvestrant-induced proteasomal degradation of ERα protein was suppressed in both MCF-7 and T47D estrogen-dependent breast cancer cells whereas the TP53-mutated T47D cells were resistant to the cytocidal action of fulvestrant in the presence or absence of CSK. MCF-7 cell sensitivities to fulvestrant-induced cell death or ERα protein degradation was not affected by small-molecular-weight inhibitors of the tyrosine kinase activity of c-Src, suggesting possible involvement of other signaling molecules in CSK-dependent MCF-7 cell death induced by fulvestrant. Our observations suggest the importance of CSK in the determination of cellular sensitivity to the cytocidal action of fulvestrant

A study protocol to investigate the management of depression and challenging behaviors associated with dementia in aged care settings

Background:&nbsp;The high occurrence and under-treatment of clinical depression and behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) within aged care settings is concerning, yet training programs aimed at improving the detection and management of these problems have generally been ineffective. This article presents a study protocol to evaluate a training intervention for facility managers/registered nurses working in aged care facilities that focuses on organisational processes and culture as well as knowledge, skills and self-efficacy. Methods. A Randomised Control Trial (RCT) will be implemented across 18 aged care facilities (divided into three conditions). Participants will be senior registered nurses and personal care attendants employed in the aged care facility. The first condition will receive the training program (Staff as Change Agents - Enhancing and Sustaining Mental Health in Aged Care), the second condition will receive the training program and clinical support, and the third condition will receive no intervention. Results: Pre-, post-, 6-month and 12-month follow-up measures of staff and residents will be used to demonstrate how upskilling clinical leaders using our transformational training approach, as well as the use of a structured screening, referral and monitoring protocol, can address the mental health needs of older people in residential care. Conclusions: The expected outcome of this study is the validation of an evidence-based training program to improve the management of depression and BPSD among older people in residential care settings by establishing routine practices related to mental health. This relatively brief but highly focussed training package will be readily rolled out to a larger number of residential care facilities at a relatively low cost.</div

Improving the use of crop models for risk assessment and climate change adaptation

Crop models are used for an increasingly broad range of applications, with a commensurate proliferation of methods. Careful framing of research questions and development of targeted and appropriate methods are therefore increasingly important. In conjunction with the other authors in this special issue, we have developed a set of criteria for use of crop models in assessments of impacts, adaptation and risk. Our analysis drew on the other papers in this special issue, and on our experience in the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 and the MACSUR, AgMIP and ISIMIP projects. The criteria were used to assess how improvements could be made to the framing of climate change risks, and to outline the good practice and new developments that are needed to improve risk assessment. Key areas of good practice include: i. the development, running and documentation of crop models, with attention given to issues of spatial scale and complexity; ii. the methods used to form crop-climate ensembles, which can be based on model skill and/or spread; iii. the methods used to assess adaptation, which need broadening to account for technological development and to reflect the full range options available. The analysis highlights the limitations of focussing only on projections of future impacts and adaptation options using pre-determined time slices. Whilst this long-standing approach may remain an essential component of risk assessments, we identify three further key components: 1. Working with stakeholders to identify the timing of risks. What are the key vulnerabilities of food systems and what does crop-climate modelling tell us about when those systems are at risk? 2. Use of multiple methods that critically assess the use of climate model output and avoid any presumption that analyses should begin and end with gridded output. 3. Increasing transparency and inter-comparability in risk assessments. Whilst studies frequently produce ranges that quantify uncertainty, the assumptions underlying these ranges are not always clear. We suggest that the contingency of results upon assumptions is made explicit via a common uncertainty reporting format; and/or that studies are assessed against a set of criteria, such as those presented in this paper

A case control study of herds which fail the tuberculin test six months after being de-restricted for tuberculosis

Department of Agriculture, Food and the MarineTeagascDeposited by bulk impor

CSK is required for fulvestrant-induced ERα protein degradation in MCF-7 cells.

<p>(A, B) RNAi knockdown of CSK protein expression caused resistance of intracellular ERα protein to fulvestrant-induced degradation: Western blotting. Cells were infected with control (pLKO.1) or two CSK-knockdown shRNA lentivirus clones and subjected to exposure to fulvestrant. Expression of ERα protein was determined by Western blotting at varying time points of exposure (A). Intensities of ERα protein bands were determined by densitometry (B, mean±SEM of three independent experiments. Asterisk indicates statistical significance, p<0.05). (C) Similar experiments as shown in panels (A, B) were performed, but amounts of ERα protein in total cellular protein were determined by ELISA (mean±SEM of three independent experiments; *, p<0.05 to vehicle control; #, p<0.05 to pLKO.1-infected cells exposed to fulvestrant for the same period).</p

RNAi knockdown of CSK does not affect MCF-7 cell sensitivity to tamoxifen or paclitaxel.

<p>Cells were infected with empty lentivirus vector (pLKO.1) or two independent clones of lentiviruses expressing different shRNA species targeting CSK shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0060889#pone-0060889-g001" target="_blank">Figure 1</a> (CSK KD#1 and #2) and then exposed to 1 µM 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4-OHT) for 10 days (A) or 1–1000 nM paclitaxel for 2 days (B). Cell viability was determined by crystal violet staining (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0060889#pone.0060889.s003" target="_blank">Fig. S3</a>) and quantified by spectrophotometry (mean±SEM of three or more independent experiments).</p

Both fulvestrant and 17β-estradiol (E2) enhance proteasomal degradation of ERα protein in MCF-7 cells.

<p>(A–C) Fulvestrant (A) and E2 (B) caused time-dependent reduction in ERα protein expression: Western blotting. Intensities of ERα protein bands were determined by densitometry (C, mean±SEM of three independent experiments. Asterisks indicate statistical significance, p<0.05 to vehicle control). (D, E) E2 dose-dependent reduction in ERα protein expression. Cells were exposed to varying concentrations of E2 for 6 hours and subjected to Western blotting analysis of ERα protein (D). Intensities of ERα protein bands were determined by densitometry (E, mean±SEM of three independent experiments. Asterisk indicates t-test significance p<0.05 to vehicle control). (F–H), Pre-exposure to MG132 dose-dependently prevented reduction in ERα protein expression caused by fulvestrant (F) and E2 (G). Con, vehicle control (0.1% ethanol). Cells were exposed to varying concentrations of MG132 for 30 minutes and then exposed additionally to fulvestrant or E2 for 6 hours. Intensities of ERα protein bands were determined by densitometry (H, mean±SEM of three independent experiments. Asterisks indicate statistical significance, p<0.05).</p