Progression of apprentices to higher education

This report presents the findings of research undertaken for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) into the progression to higher education of advanced level apprentices over the past seven years. This is part of a longitudinal study whose first results were published in 2011 (Joslin & Smith, 2011)

How patients contribute to an online psychoeducation forum for bipolar disorder: a virtual participant observation study

Background: In a recent exploratory randomized controlled trial, an online psychoeducation intervention for bipolar disorder has been found to be feasible and acceptable to patients and may positively impact on their self-management behaviors and quality of life. Objective: The objective of the study was to investigate how these patients contribute to an online forum for bipolar disorder and the issues relevant for them. Methods: Participants in the intervention arm of the Bipolar Interactive PsychoEDucation (“BIPED”) trial were invited to contribute to the Beating Bipolar forum alongside receiving interactive online psychoeducation modules. Within this virtual participant observation study, forum posts were analyzed using thematic analysis, incorporating aspects of discourse analysis. Results: The key themes which arose from the forum posts included: medication, employment, stigma, social support, coping strategies, insight and acceptance, the life chart, and negative experiences of health care. Participants frequently provided personal narratives relating to their history of bipolar disorder, life experiences, and backgrounds, which often contained emotive language and humor. They regularly sought and offered advice, and expressed encouragement and empathy. The forum would have benefitted from more users to offer a greater support network with more diverse views and experiences. Conclusions: Online forums are inexpensive to provide and may offer peer support and the opportunity for patients to share their experiences and explore issues related to their illness anonymously. Future research should focus on how to enhance patient engagement with online health care forums

Patients’ perspectives of the feasibility, acceptability and impact of a group-based psychoeducation programme for bipolar disorder: a qualitative analysis

Background: Although there is some quantitative evidence to suggest the benefits of group psychoeducation for people with bipolar disorder, patients’ perspectives and experiences of group psychoeducation require in-depth exploration to enable us to better understand the feasibility, acceptability and impact of these interventions, the potential facilitators and barriers to engagement, and how to improve these interventions in the future. Methods: In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 participants of a psychoeducation programme for bipolar disorder in Wales, following their involvement in the programme. The data were recorded and transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Findings demonstrate that group psychoeducation may impact on participants’ perceived social support, knowledge and acceptance of bipolar disorder, personal insights, attitude towards medication and access to services. Key recommendations for improvement included: allowing more time for group discussions, offering group sessions to family members and avoiding use of hospital or university venues for the groups. Conclusions: This is the first qualitative study of patients’ perspectives of a UK-based group psychoeducation programme for people with bipolar disorder, and findings present an in-depth account of how group psychoeducation may be experienced by patients. The recommendations for improving the content and delivery of group psychoeducation for bipolar disorder may enhance engagement and widen access to such programmes. Future research into psychoeducation for bipolar disorder should explore how to target and engage people of diverse ethnic backgrounds and those in lower socioeconomic groups who are less likely to access healthcare services

Investigating the role of the land surface in explaining the interannual variation of the net radiation balance over the Western Sahara and sub-Sahara

The status of the data sets is discussed. Progress was made in both data analysis and modeling areas. The atmospheric and land surface contributions to the net radiation budget over the Sahara-Sahel region is being decoupled. The interannual variability of these two processes was investigated and this variability related to seasonal rainfall fluctuations. A modified Barnes objective analysis scheme was developed which uses an eliptic scan pattern and a 3-pass iteration of the difference fields

Juba’s “Black Face” / Lady Delacour’s “Mask”: Plotting Domesticity in Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda

In Belinda (1801), Maria Edgeworth forges parallel subplots between Juba, a former African slave residing in England, and Lady Delacour, a wealthy and dissipated London socialite, both of whom undergo a process of domestication during the course of the novel. The connection Edgeworth creates between these characters allows her to explore a version of womanhood that promotes domesticity by negotiating the boundary between domestic and public life; at the same time, however, it reveals the anxieties surrounding this understanding of womanhood. Edgeworth’s novel configures Lady Delacour as a plotting woman who bridges the public/private divide, revealing domesticity to be as much a public construct as a private reality. The public representation of domesticity that Lady Delacour constructs at the end of the novel functions as a stimulant to and a channel for domestic sympathies and, in doing so, shapes private interactions in a positive way. In this way, Edgeworth acknowledges the positive potential inherent in the power Lady Delacour claims. However, by connecting Lady Delacour with the figure of the colonized other, whose domestication was frequently read as a performance that hid threatening, rebellious impulses, Edgeworth also identifies this power as a source of anxiety. In Belinda, Juba functions not as a distinct character, but as the racialized reflection of Lady Delacour’s public/private hybridity and the embodiment of the disruptive impulses that drive her considerable, though never total, resistance to the domesticating influence exerted by Belinda, the novel’s heroine. Even more than the process of assimilation, which the novel ultimately rejects as impossible and undesirable, it is this troubling configuration of character that threatens to bring about Juba’s erasure from the text

Defoe’s The Complete English Tradesman and the Prostitute Narrative: Minding the Shop in Mrs. Elizabeth Wisebourn, Sally Salisbury, and Roxana

Written in the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble collapse of 1720, Daniel Defoe’s The Complete English Tradesman (1726) associates economic survival with the concept of mastery, or “minding the shop.” This concept had been explored in prostitute narratives published earlier in the decade, including Anodyne Tanner’s The Life of the Late Celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Wisebourn (1721), Charles Walker’s Authentick Memoirs of the Life, Intrigues, and Adventures of the Celebrated Sally Salisbury (1723), and Defoe’s Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724). When one reads The Complete English Tradesman in relation to these narratives, the figure of the female sex worker emerges as a model for Defoe’s middle-class masculine ideal. Much like Defoe’s tradesman, the protagonists of post-Bubble prostitute narratives represent an endangered masculinity that strives for mastery within a precarious economic environment. The “ femaleness” of these protagonists—and consequently Defoe’s tradesman—cannot be disregarded, however. Though the prostitute narratives discussed here are male-authored representations of masculine experience, they are also reflections of one of eighteenth-century England’s most fascinating and powerful female figures, a figure associated, albeit loosely, with actual female sex workers. Defoe’s tradesman clearly serves as a masculine ideal, but one that cannot escape its notorious feminine literary past

EATING ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTION OF PEER SOCIAL MEDIA

There is evidence that social factors influence eating-disordered behaviors through social modeling and social comparison. One way that researchers examine social comparison and perceptions of individuals with disordered eating behaviors is through vignette studies, but these studies may lack the nuance of how these behaviors are displayed outside of the lab, and therefore lack external validity. The current study examined how individuals who score high and low on the EAT-26 (a measure of eating behavior) perceive the eating behaviors of a fictional peer and possible social comparison target, presented in the form of a social media profile. Participants with higher scores on the EAT-26 found statuses that displayed potentially eating-disordered behaviors as more acceptable and were more likely to think it “might not be bad” to be like the woman in the profile, but did not find the statuses any more healthy, less concerning, or the profile as a whole as less distressing. Approximately half of the sample identified the woman in the profile as having an eating disorder, and EAT-26 scores had no predictive value in making this determination

Ten Years of Research on Corrective Reading Programs: A Review of the Literature

The purpose of this paper is to survey the research of the past ten years on corrective or remedial reading programs. In the literature, various definitions are given to corrective reading and remedial reading programs, but in this paper no distinction will be made between the two terms. Both terms refer to a plan of corrective instruction and treatment for the disabled reader, generally outside of the regular classroom setting