Yoxas/statistical_literacy huggingface dataset:
This study explores the impact of four-day school weeks on early elementary achievement. Using covariate adjusted regression analyses and data on all students who entered kindergarten in Oregon, USA between 2014 and 2016, we examine differences in 3rd grade math and English Language Arts test scores (i.e., achievement) for students enrolled in a four-day school week versus a five-day school week at kindergarten entry. On average, we find minimal differences between 3rd grade test scores of four-day and five-day students, but there are notable differential effects across the spectrum of these students' kindergarten readiness scores and educational program participation. We find that above median performers on kindergarten assessments, White students, general education students, and gifted students - student groups that make up more than half our sample - are the most negatively impacted by the four-day school week during the early elementary period. We generally find no statistically significant evidence of detrimental four-day school week achievement impacts for students who were below median performers on kindergarten assessments, minority students, economically disadvantaged students, special education participants, and English as a second language students.
This study explores the impact of guided inquiry-based learning (IBL) on student engagement and performance in a dental hygiene program. The research was conducted with 36 dental hygiene students, focusing on enhancing student engagement using a guided IBL methodology that could ultimately lead to improved student performance and confidence. Delivered through two interventions, pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests evaluated student performance and confidence, while the ASPECT survey assessed student engagement. The interventions included a lecture (intervention #1) and a group-based IBL worksheet activity (intervention #2). Statistical analyses using analysis of variance (ANOVA) tested the impact of these interventions on student performance and confidence-adjusted scores. Results showed significant improvements in student performance and confidence following both interventions, with notably higher gains after the IBL activity. Analysis of ASPECT survey data revealed positive perceptions of engagement, emphasizing the importance of group dynamics, instructor roles, and the activity's value. Students reported enhanced understanding and engagement through group interactions and individual study. The study also highlighted the critical role of the instructor in facilitating and guiding the IBL activity. In conclusion, the study demonstrates that guided IBL strategies can significantly enhance student confidence and performance, suggesting a sustainable impact on learning outcomes. These findings underscore the importance of active, engaged learning methodologies in healthcare education, particularly in enhancing long-term retention and understanding of complex topics. The study advocates for integrating such strategies into academic curricula to foster deeper student engagement and improved educational experiences.
This study explores the impacts of the Council on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics (COMSEP) Journal Club, a unique means of providing monthly professional development for a large international community of pediatric undergraduate medical educators. In particular, we sought to establish member engagement with the Journal Club, identify factors impacting member contributions to the Journal Club, and determine perceived benefits of and barriers to participation as a Journal Club reviewer. Using an established Annual Survey as a study instrument, six survey questions were distributed to members of COMSEP. Items were pilot tested prior to inclusion. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi-square analysis.. Of 125 respondents who completed the survey, 38% reported reading the Journal Club most months or always. Level of engagement varied. Reasons for reading included a topic of interest, keeping up to date on medical education literature, gaining practical tips for teaching and implementing new curricula. Motivators for writing a review included keeping up to date, contributing to a professional organization, and developing skill in analyzing medical education literature, with a minority citing reasons of enhancing their educational portfolio or academic promotion. The most commonly cited barriers were lack of time and lack of confidence or training in ability to analyze medical education literature. As a strategy to disseminate the latest evidence in medical education to its membership, the COMSEP Journal Club is effective. Its format is ideally suited for busy educators and may help in members' professional development and in the development of a community of practice.
This study explores the intricate relationship between unemployment rates and emotional responses among Chinese university graduates, analyzing how these factors correlate with specific linguistic features on the popular social media platform Sina Weibo. The goal is to uncover patterns that elucidate the psychological and emotional dimensions of unemployment challenges among this demographic. The analysis utilized a dataset of 30,540 Sina Weibo posts containing specific keywords related to unemployment and anxiety, collected from January 2019 to June 2023. The posts were pre-processed to eliminate noise and refine the data quality. Linear regression and textual analyses were employed to identify correlations between unemployment rates for individuals aged 16-24 and the linguistic characteristics of the posts. The study found significant fluctuations in urban youth unemployment rates, peaking at 21.3% in June 2023. A corresponding increase in anxiety-related expressions was noted in the social media posts, with peak expressions aligning with high unemployment rates. Linguistic analysis revealed that the category of "Affect" showed a strong positive correlation with unemployment rates, indicating increased emotional expression alongside rising unemployment. Other categories such as "Negative emotion" and "Sadness" also showed significant correlations, highlighting a robust relationship between economic challenges and emotional distress. The findings underscore the profound impact of unemployment on the emotional well-being of university students, suggesting that economic hardships are closely linked to psychological stress and heightened negative emotions. This study contributes to a holistic understanding of the socio-economic challenges faced by young adults, advocating for comprehensive support systems that address both the economic and psychological facets of unemployment.
This study forecasts the income and expenditures of the long-term care insurance fund, provides a basis for formulating the raising standard of the long-term care insurance fund, and explores the measures to improve the pilot work of long-term care insurance. By using the exponential smoothing and ARIMA models to forecast the income and expenditure of the old-age care insurance fund in 2022, the problems existing in the operation of the long-term care insurance fund are discussed. In 2022, the income of the old-age insurance fund was 28.8934 million yuan, and the fund compensation expenditure was 28.4070 million yuan, with a slight balance of the fund. The highest relative errors of income and expenditure forecast models are -2.03% and - 2.76%, respectively. According to the results of fund expenditure, the annual financing standard should be 132.93 yuan/person, and the individual financing standard should be 66.47 yuan/person. Through the integration of personal payment, welfare, sports lottery public welfare income, social donations, and other ways, we can gradually establish a multi-channel risk-sharing financing. We will appropriately raise the standard for individual financing and the annual contribution standard for individuals from 50 yuan to 66.47 yuan. This will promote sustainable development of long-term insurance system.
This study identified food deserts and swamps, investigating their associations with socioeconomic and demographic conditions. This ecological study was conducted using data from urban census tracts in the city of Recife, which were considered the unit of analysis. Information on food retail was obtained from government sources in 2019. Census tracts below the 25th percentile in the density of healthy food retail (i.e., those that predominantly sell natural or minimally processed foods, mixed businesses, and super- and hypermarkets) were classified as food deserts. Census tracts above the 25th percentile in the density of unhealthy food retail (i.e., those selling primarily ultra-processed foods) were considered food swamps. The socioeconomic and demographic conditions of the census tracts were evaluated using variables from the 2010 census (per capita income, average income, race, literacy of the head of household, and the availability of essential services) and the Health Vulnerability Index. Census tracts considered food deserts (28.5%) were more vulnerable, characterized by lower income and access to essential services, more illiterate residents and more minorities (Black/Indigenous/mixed race). Food swamps (73.47%) were more prevalent in less vulnerable neighbourhoods characterized by higher percentages of literate residents and Whites, greater purchasing power, and better basic sanitation. The characteristics of Recife's food deserts and swamps demonstrate social inequalities in the food environment. Public facilities could play a vital role in promoting healthy eating within food deserts. Additionally, future implementation of taxes on ultra-processed foods and the provision of tax subsidies to natural or minimally processed food sellers might contribute to fostering healthier dietary choices.
This study identified latent subtypes of mental health literacy (MHL) for Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and explored their characteristics and differences in various factors in adolescents. This study analyzed secondary data from the 2019 Youth Smart Digital Media Survey and included data from 1,936 middle and high school students (14-18 years old). Thirteen items of the MHL questionnaire were used for latent profile analysis. We compared the characteristics and predictors of the identified types using various statistical analyses, including one-way ANOVA, chi-square test, and multinomial logistic regression. We identified three subtypes of MHL for IGD in adolescents: "low perception-prefer informal resources," "moderate perception-preferred resources unclear," and "high perception-prefer professional resources." Subtypes showed significant differences in sex, age, family affluence, e-learning time during weekdays, mental health risks, level of problematic smartphone use, and IGD. All variables except IGD predicted one or more latent types. Practical interventions are required to improve IGD MHL, including customized prevention based on the differences between the three types.
This study identifies the most common recorded reason for attendance to primary care for children under 5 years old, including a breakdown via age, ethnicity, deprivation quintile and sex. Cross-sectional. 39 of 40 general practices in Lambeth, London, UK. 22 189 children under 5 years who had attended primary care between the 1 April 2017 and 31 March 2020 and had not opted out of anonymous data sharing within Lambeth DataNet. The primary objective was to identify the most frequently recorded complaint in general practice for children under 5 years old. The secondary objective was to understand how presenting complaint differs by age, ethnicity, sex and deprivation level. The third objective was to create a multivariate logistic regression with frequent attendance as the outcome variable. Nine conditions formed over 50% of all patient interactions: the most common reason was upper respiratory tract infections (14%), followed by eczema (8%) and cough (7%). While there was some variation by ethnicity and age, these nine conditions remained dominant. Children living in the most deprived area are more likely to be frequent attenders than children living in the least deprived area (adjusted OR (AOR) 1.27 (95% CI 1.14 to 1.41)). Children of Indian (AOR 1.47 (1.04 to 2.08)), Bangladeshi (AOR 2.70 (1.95 to 3.74)) and other white (AOR 1.18 (1.04 to 1.34)) ethnicities were more likely to be frequent attenders, compared with those of white British ethnicity. Most reasons for attendance for children under 5 years to primary care are for acute, self-limiting conditions. Some of these could potentially be managed by increasing access to community care services, such as pharmacies. By focusing on the influence of the broader determinants of health as to why particular groups are more likely to attend, health promotion efforts have the opportunity to reduce barriers to healthcare and improve outcomes.
This study integrates an intersectional framework with data on 15,000 U.S. ninth graders from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to investigate differences in ninth-grade math course placement at the intersection of adolescents' learning disability status, race, and socioeconomic status (SES). Descriptive results support an increased liability perspective, with the negative relationship between a learning disability and math course placement larger for adolescents more privileged in terms of their race and/or SES. Adjusted results suggest that the lower math course placements of youth with learning disabilities are due to cumulative disadvantage rather than disability-related inequities in the transition to high school for youth of diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition to demonstrating the importance of intersectional perspectives, this study provides a roadmap for future studies by introducing the new perspective of increased liability to be used in conjunction with the widely employed perspective of multiple marginalization.
This study investigated associations between kindergarten teachers' (N = 208) depressive symptoms and students' (Ghanaian nationals, N = 1490, Mage  = 5.8) school-readiness skills (early literacy, early numeracy, social-emotional skills, and executive function) across 208 schools in Ghana over one school year. Teachers' depressive symptoms in the fall negatively predicted students' overall school-readiness skills in the spring, controlling for school-readiness skills in the fall. These results were primarily driven by social-emotional skills (r = .1-.3). There was evidence of heterogeneity by students' fall skill levels; teacher depressive symptoms predicted more negative spring overall school readiness for children who had higher fall school-readiness skills. Findings underscore the importance of teachers' mental health in early childhood education globally, with implications for policy and practice.
This study investigated Chinese special education teachers' perceptions and practices of individualizing instruction for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Semistructured interviews were conducted with 31 teachers who taught elementary Chinese language arts and math in six public special education schools for students with IDD in Shanghai. In addition, lesson plans written by 19 of the 31 teachers were collected. Thematic analysis revealed that teachers recognized the necessity of adapting instruction. However, practices and beliefs associated with one-size-fits-all approaches to teaching were prevalent. Although all teachers described making efforts to address individual differences, these efforts appeared to be inadequate. Teachers perceived fully addressing the needs of individual students as difficult and described challenges in four areas.
This study investigated how the sudden shift in the system of learning during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the students, how the external environment impacted their performance, and the structural barriers encountered, which equally had significant impacts on students at junior secondary schools (JSS) in Orlu, Imo State, Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey research method. The simple random sampling method was adopted with a sample size of 650 students. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire, rated using a four-point Likert scale, and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, and means. 60.10, 58.80, 59.50, 59.00, and 59.50% of the respondents agreed to research questions respectively. Based on these results, it was concluded that the COVID-19-induced online teaching and learning impacted negatively on the students and on the process of teaching and learning due to inadequate prior preparation for such a system of teaching and learning at the JSS level within the study area. These have serious implications and remain significant for policy and practice in the education sector.
This study investigated if individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and frailty are more likely to have acute exacerbations of COPD or require hospitalization for exacerbation than those without frailty. Data on 135 outpatients with stable COPD were analyzed with the Cox proportional hazards model to assess the risk of future events. The Kihon Checklist was administered at baseline to classify the participants as robust, pre-frail, or frail. The follow-up period was a maximum of six and a half years. In all, 76 patients (56.3%) experienced an exacerbation and 46 (34.1%) were hospitalized due to it. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards analysis that accounted for FEV1 and sex showed that the frail group was more likely to face future risks of COPD exacerbations [Hazard ratio 1.762 (95% CI 1.011-3.070), p=0.046] and hospitalizations for exacerbation [2.238 (1.073-4.667), p=0.032] than the robust group. No significant differences were observed when comparing robust patients to those who were pre-frail or pre-frail to frail either in exacerbations or hospitalizations. When comparing the C-indices for frailty and FEV1, the former index (exacerbation 0.591 and hospitalization 0.663) did not exceed the latter (0.663 and 0.769) in either analysis. Frail COPD patients have a more unfavorable future risk of acute exacerbations of COPD and hospitalizations for exacerbation than robust patients. However, no significant differences were observed when comparing robust patients to those who were pre-frail or pre-frail to frail, suggesting that the future risk for COPD patients with frailty is only higher compared to those who are considered robust. Additionally, FEV1 was found to be a more reliable predictor of future events than measures of frailty.
This study investigated interactions among linguistics, social and political factors in a linguistically rich environment. For this purpose, two-hundred Iranian preschoolers (aged 5 to 6 years old) from four ethnic/linguistic groups (Arab, Kurd, Turk and Fars) were selected using multi-stage stratified sampling. All participants took part in an Elementary English language course and their exposure to foreground TV was recorded using media exposure portfolio. Maternal education and family income were considered as criteria for socio-economic status. Children's language proficiency was measured through Language Sample Analysis (LSA). The LSA components included total number of utterances produced, total number of words produced, total number of new words produced and mean length of utterances. Regression analysis, ANOVA and t-tests were used for data analyses. The results showed that bilingual children performed slightly better than multilingual children in LSA measures but this cannot be taken for granted. Moreover, socio-economic status and LSA measures were significantly related but TV exposure was not associated with the LSA measures. These results supported the arguments purported by minority language proponents on the importance of using children's mother tongue in educational curriculum.
This study investigated intraocular pressure (IOP) in Dutch belted rabbits using two different tonometers, rebound tonometry (TonoVet Plus; TVP) and a Tonopen (Tono-Pen AVIA Vet; TPA). Post-pubescent male Dutch belted rabbits aged 36 weeks (n = 10 animals) were used in the study. IOP measurements were conducted every 2 weeks for 22 weeks using TVP and TPA on both eyes of each rabbit. The average IOP measurements were compared by the paired Student's t-test. Pairwise Pearson's correlation coefficients and Bland-Altman statistics were used. The overall mean IOP measured with TPA was significantly higher than that with TVP (23.5 ± 4.9 vs. 21.8 ± 2.4 mmHg for the right eyes; P = 0.045, and 23.0 ± 4.7 vs. 21.5 ± 2.4 mmHg for the left eyes; P = 0.047). Both tonometers tended to show increased IOP readings with age, and positive correlations between IOP and age were observed with both TPA (r = 0.95, P < 0.001 for right eyes; r = 0.95, P < 0.001 for left eyes) and TVP (r = 0.91, P < 0.001 for right eyes; r = 0.64, P = 0.024 for left eyes). The average bias calculated by subtracting TPA from TVP was - 1.60 (95% confidence intervals - 1.927, - 1.281) mmHg. IOP in post-pubescent Dutch belted rabbits tended to increase with age throughout the 22 week study.
This study investigated IQ scores in pediatric concussion (ie, mild traumatic brain injury) versus orthopedic injury. Children (N = 866; aged 8-16.99 years) were recruited for 2 prospective cohort studies from emergency departments at children's hospitals (2 sites in the United States and 5 in Canada) ≤48 hours after sustaining a concussion or orthopedic injury. They completed IQ and performance validity testing postacutely (3-18 days postinjury; United States) or 3 months postinjury (Canada). Group differences in IQ scores were examined using 3 complementary statistical approaches (linear modeling, Bayesian, and multigroup factor analysis) in children performing above cutoffs on validity testing. Linear models showed small group differences in full-scale IQ (d [95% confidence interval] = 0.13 [0.00-0.26]) and matrix reasoning (0.16 [0.03-0.30]), but not in vocabulary scores. IQ scores were not related to previous concussion, acute clinical features, injury mechanism, a validated clinical risk score, pre- or postinjury symptom ratings, litigation, or symptomatic status at 1 month postinjury. Bayesian models provided moderate to very strong evidence against group differences in IQ scores (Bayes factor 0.02-0.23). Multigroup factor analysis further demonstrated strict measurement invariance, indicating group equivalence in factor structure of the IQ test and latent variable means. Across multisite, prospective study cohorts, 3 complementary statistical models provided no evidence of clinically meaningful differences in IQ scores after pediatric concussion. Instead, overall results provided strong evidence against reduced intelligence in the first few weeks to months after pediatric concussion.