Exploring factors influencing pre-service and in-service teachers´ perception of digital competencies in the Chinese region of Anhui.

The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the wave of digital social transformation worldwide and pushed the "Accelerator Key" for the digital transformation of education in 2020. This transformation has also impacted in an all-around way in China. Taking Anhui province as a case study, this research explores socio-demographic factors influencing the digital competence level of pre- and in-service teachers of primary and secondary education in China. The quantitative methodological approach emphasizes the study subjects' perception of their digital competencies in three factors: basic technology literacy, technical support learning, and technical support teaching. The study involved 250 pre-service teachers and 248 in-service teachers. The main findings are: (1) participants have good consciousness and attitudes towards using ICT in daily work, but their educational practice is weak; (2) in-service teachers have a digital competence level generally higher than pre-service teachers', which might be their professional practice promote them to reflect on perceptions and attitudes regarding technological education; (3) for in-service teachers, there are significant differences between their digital competence level and age, years of teaching experience, educational background; (4) current ICT courses have no influencing on in-service teachers' digital competence level, implying that current ICT training system may have problems. The study provides insights to improve pre-service teachers' digital competence education in universities and develop well-designed in-service teachers' ICT training courses.

[Validation of RUDAS: A screening tool for dementia in Primary Health Care settings]. / Validación del RUDAS como instrumento de cribado de población con demencia en atención primaria.

OBJECTIVE: To validate Rowland Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS), as an instrument for the screening of people with dementia and cognitive impairment in Primary Health Care (PHC). RUDAS is a brief cognitive test, appropriate for people with minimum completed level of education and easily adaptable to multicultural contexts. For these reason it could be a good instrument for dementia screening in PHC. DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive epidemiological study with a five-year follow up. LOCATION: O Grove PHC centre, Galicia, Spain (covering a population of 10,650 individuals). OUTCOME MEASURES: RUDAS; Mini Mental State Examination; Clinical Dementia Rating; Katz, Barthel and Lawton Indexes; MMSE and Yesavage Geriatric Depression Scale. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 150 older adults (mean age 76.35±7.12years) randomly selected, from a low sociocultural and economical background and mainly rural and semirural origin. INTERVENTION: RUDAS viability in PHC was checked, and its psychometric properties assessed: reliability, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values. RESULTS: RUDAS application was brief (7.58±2.10min) and well accepted. RUDAS area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for the detection of dementia was 0.983 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.97-1.00) for an optimal cut-off point of 22.5, with sensitivity of 89.3%, and a specificity of 100%. Area under ROC curve for discriminating dementia from mild cognitive impairment was 0.965 (95%CI: 0.91-1.00). CONCLUSIONS: RUDAS test is fit for dementia screening in PHC and it is especially sensitive to discriminate PWD from people with MCI.

Usability study and pilot validation of a computer-based emotion recognition test for older adults with Alzheimer's disease and amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to carry out a pilot validation of Affect-GRADIOR, a computer-based emotion recognition test, with older adults. The study evaluated its usability, reliability and validity for the screening of people with Alzheimer´s disease (AD) and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). METHODS: The test was administered to 212 participants (76.37 ± 6.20 years) classified into three groups (healthy controls, n = 69; AD, n = 84; and aMCI, n = 59) on the basis of detailed neurological, neuropsychological, laboratory and neuro-imaging evidence. Data on usability were collected by means of a questionnaire and automated evaluation. RESULTS: The validated test comprised 53 stimuli and 7 practice items (one per emotion). Participants reported that Affect-GRADIOR was accessible and user-friendly. It had high internal consistency (ordinal Cronbach's α = 0.96). Test-retest reliability correlations were significant and robust (r = 0.840, p < 0.001). Exploratory factor analysis supported a seven-factor model of the emotions assessed (neutral expression, happiness, surprise, disgust, sadness, anger and fear). Receiver operating characteristic curve analyses suggested that the test discriminated healthy older adults from AD and aMCI cases. Correct answer score improved MMSE predictive power from 0.547 to 0.560 (Cox & Snell R2, p = 0.012), and Affect-GRADIOR speed of processing score improved MMSE predictive power from 0.547 to 0.563 (Cox & Snell R2, p = 0.010). CONCLUSIONS: Affect-GRADIOR is a valid instrument for the assessment of the facial recognition of emotions in older adults with and without cognitive impairment.

Professional Development among Secondary Teachers in Spain: Key Associated Factors as of PISA 2018.

Professional development for teachers is fundamental in the configuration and functioning of smart schools. This paper aims to characterize professional development with the participation of compulsory secondary teachers in Spain and to detect key factors in the functioning and organization of schools associated with higher levels of ongoing teacher training. A cross-cutting non-experimental design was used to conduct a secondary analysis of data from PISA 2018 tests, including over 20,000 teachers and more than 1000 schools in Spain. Descriptive results show great variability in teachers' commitment to their professional development; this variability is not associated with the grouping of teachers by school. The decision tree model completed with data mining tools shows that intensive professional teacher development in schools is associated with a better school climate and higher levels of innovation, cooperation, taking on shared goals and responsibilities, and leadership distributed among the education community. The conclusions highlight the importance of ongoing teacher training and how this improves educational quality in schools.

The Effectiveness of GRADIOR: A Neuropsychological Rehabilitation Program for People with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Mild Dementia. Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial After 4 and 12 Months of Treatment.

BACKGROUND: Computer-based cognitive training programs have been developed with promising results on the maintenance/improvement of cognitive performance in people with dementia. OBJECTIVE: The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of the cognitive rehabilitation program "GRADIOR" in people with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia. METHOD: This study was a single-blind multicenter randomized clinical trial. Participants were recruited from hospitals/day centers. The experimental group (EG) and control group (CG) received computer-based cognitive training (CCT) and routine daily care, respectively. Outcome measures at T0: baseline, T1: at 4 months, T2: at 12 months were compared within and between-groups. RESULTS: Significant differences or important effect sizes were detected at the intragroup and intergroup level for most variables, observing a trend of improvement and/or maintenance at 4 months by Visual Reasoning of Cambridge Cognitive Examination (CAMCOG), Digit and Arithmetic of WAIS-III, Semantic Verbal Fluency, Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), Trail Making Test (TMT)-A-Mistakes and at 12 months by Visual Reasoning of CAMCOG, Digit Symbol of WAIS-III, TMT-B-mistakes, Visual Memory of Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test, Lexical Verbal Fluency-P, Yesavage's Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), TMT-A-time scales whose objective was to evaluate some executive functions and/or the memory. The CG presented a worsening trend for most of the measures towards 12 months. There was also a significant interaction between "time and group" for MMSE (F = 8.971; p = 0.03; η2 = 0.019) and the GDS (F = 3.414; p = 0.04; η2 = 0.041), as well as small effect sizes for TMT-A-time (F = 1.641; p = 0.21; η2 = 0.021) and TMT-A-mistakes (F = 0.908; p = 0.41; η2 = 0.019). CONCLUSION: CCT with GRADIOR has been proved to benefit cognitive functions (ISRCTN:15742788).

Determinants of Adherence to a "GRADIOR" Computer-Based Cognitive Training Program in People with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Mild Dementia.

BACKGROUND: Computer-based programs have been implemented from a psychosocial approach for the care of people with dementia (PwD). However, several factors may determine adherence of older PwD to this type of treatment. The aim of this paper was to identify the sociodemographic, cognitive, psychological, and physical-health determinants that helped predict adherence or not to a "GRADIOR" computerized cognitive training (CCT) program in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild dementia. METHOD: This study was part of a randomized clinical trial (RCT) (ISRCTN: 15742788). However, this study will only focus on the experimental group (n = 43) included in the RCT. This group was divided into adherent people (compliance: ≥60% of the sessions and persistence in treatment up to 4 months) and non-adherent. The participants were 60-90 age and diagnosed with MCI and mild dementia. We selected from the evaluation protocol for the RCT, tests that evaluated cognitive aspects (memory and executive functioning), psychological and physical health. The CCT with GRADIOR consisted of attending 2-3 weekly sessions for 4 months with a duration of 30 min Data analysis: Phi and Biserial-point correlations, a multiple logical regression analysis was obtained to find the adherence model and U Mann-Whitney was used. RESULTS: The adherence model was made up of the Digit Symbol and Arithmetic of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III) and Lexical Verbal Fluency (LVF) -R tests. This model had 90% sensitivity, 50% specificity and 75% precision. The goodness-of-fit p-value of the model was 0.02. CONCLUSIONS: good executive functioning in attention, working memory (WM), phonological verbal fluency and cognitive flexibility predicted a greater probability that a person would be adherent.

An Exploration of Factors Linked to Academic Performance in PISA 2018 Through Data Mining Techniques.

International large-scale assessments, such as PISA, provide structured and static data. However, due to its extensive databases, several researchers place it as a reference in Big Data in Education. With the goal of exploring which factors at country, school and student level have a higher relevance in predicting student performance, this paper proposes an Educational Data Mining approach to detect and analyze factors linked to academic performance. To this end, we conducted a secondary data analysis and built decision trees (C4.5 algorithm) to obtain a predictive model of school performance. Specifically, we selected as predictor variables a set of socioeconomic, process and outcome variables from PISA 2018 and other sources (World Bank, 2020). Since the unit of analysis were schools from all the countries included in PISA 2018 (n = 21,903), student and teacher predictor variables were imputed to the school database. Based on the available student performance scores in Reading, Math, and Science, we applied k-means clustering to obtain a categorized (three categories) target variable of global school performance. Results show the existence of two main branches in the decision tree, split according to the schools' mean socioeconomic status (SES). While performance in high-SES schools is influenced by educational factors such as metacognitive strategies or achievement motivation, performance in low-SES schools is affected in greater measure by country-level socioeconomic indicators such as GDP, and individual educational indicators are relegated to a secondary level. Since these evidences are in line and delve into previous research, this work concludes by analyzing its potential contribution to support the decision making processes regarding educational policies.

Identification of Factors Associated With School Effectiveness With Data Mining Techniques: Testing a New Approach.

The study of school effectiveness and the identification of factors associated with it are growing fields of research in the education sciences. Moreover, from the perspective of data mining, great progress has been made in the development of algorithms for the modeling and identification of non-trivial information from massive databases. This work, which falls within this context, proposes an innovative approach for the identification and characterization of educational and organizational factors associated with high school effectiveness. Under a perspective of basic research, our aim is to study the suitability of decision trees, techniques inherent to data mining, to establish predictive models for school effectiveness. Based on the available Spanish sample of the PISA 2015 assessment, an indicator of the school effectiveness was obtained from the application of multilevel models with predictor variables of a contextual nature. After selecting high- and low-effectiveness schools in this first phase, the second phase of the study was carried out and consisted of the application of decision trees to identify school, teacher, and student factors associated with high and low effectiveness. The C4.5 algorithm was calculated and, as a result, we obtained 120 different decision trees based on five determining factors (database used; stratification in the initial selection of schools; significance of the predictor variables of the models; use of items and/or scales; and use of the training or validated samples). The results show that the use of this kind of technique could be appropriate if mainly used with correctly pre-processed data that include the combined information available from all educational agents. This study represents a major breakthrough in the study of the factors associated with school effectiveness from a quantitative approach, since it proposes and provides a simple and appropriate procedure for modeling and establishing patterns. In doing so, it contributes to the development of knowledge in the field of school effectiveness that can help in educational decision-making.

Design of a perceived quality scale in orthopaedic surgery education.

OBJECTIVES: The experience of students contributes to proactively identifying the changes necessary in training approaches and activities. The main objective of the Institutional Evaluation Programme was to design and validate a tool that permits discerning the experience of students from traumatology teaching. METHODS: Lecturers from the Orthopaedic Surgery Teaching Unit and experts in quality evaluation methodology, prepared the initial items. In this study, a descriptive analysis was carried out first, followed by an analysis of internal consistency and reliability, construction validity, and predictive validity. RESULTS: The results (Cronbach's alpha=0.58, Inter-Item Correlations >0.5, Eigenvalues >0.6, factor loadings, and the Student t-test values) confirmed its reliability and validity. CONCLUSIONS: The developed scale is reliable and valid to assess the experience of students. The use of a tool with these characteristics systematically contributes to improve teaching quality.

The effectiveness of ICT-based neurocognitive and psychosocial rehabilitation programmes in people with mild dementia and mild cognitive impairment using GRADIOR and ehcoBUTLER: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Cognitive rehabilitation is a highly individualised, non-pharmacological intervention for people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, which in recent years has also been developed for various IT platforms. METHODS: In this study, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of the cognitive rehabilitation software GRADIOR in a multi-centre, single-blinded randomised controlled trial with people with MCI and mild dementia. A total of 400 people with MCI and mild dementia will be randomly allocated to one of four groups. This trial will compare the cognitive rehabilitation treatment using the GRADIOR programme with a psychosocial stimulation intervention (PSS) using the ehcoBUTLER platform, with a combined treatment consisting of GRADIOR and ehcoBUTLER, and with a group receiving treatment as usual during a period of 1 year. DISCUSSION: The outcomes of this clinical trial will be to determine any relevant changes in cognition, mood, quality of life, activities of daily living and quality of patient-carer relationship after 4 months and 1 year of intervention in a cross-sectional group comparison. Participants will be followed-up for 1 year to investigate potential long-term effects of the conducted treatments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN, ID: 15742788 . Registered on 12 June 2017.

Validación del RUDAS como instrumento de cribado de población con demencia en atención primaria / Validation of RUDAS: A screening tool for dementia in Primary Health Care settings

Objetivo: Validar la escala Rowland Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS) como instrumento de cribado de deterioro cognitivo y demencia en atención primaria (AP). Es un test breve, válido para población con bajo nivel educativo formal y fácilmente traducible en entornos multiculturales. Diseño: Se realizó un estudio epidemiológico descriptivo, de corte transversal, con seguimiento a los 5años. Emplazamiento: Centro de salud de atención primaria de O Grove, que atiende a una población de 10.650 habitantes en Pontevedra. Participantes: Ciento cincuenta personas aleatoriamente seleccionadas, con una edad media de 76,35±7,12años, bajo nivel educativo, origen predominantemente rural y semirrural y nivel socioeconómico bajo. Intervención: Se analizó la viabilidad, la aceptabilidad, la validez y la fiabilidad de la escala. Mediciones principales: RUDAS, Mini Mental State Examination, Clinical Dementia Rating, Índice de Katz, Índice de Barthel, Índice de Lawton y Escala de Depresión Geriátrica de Yesavage. Resultados: El test fue bien acogido por los pacientes y rápido de aplicar (7,58±2,10min). El área bajo la curva COR para el diagnóstico de demencia fue 0,983 (IC95%: 0,97-1,00). Para un punto de corte óptimo de 22,5 presentó una sensibilidad del 89,3% y una especificidad del 100%. El área bajo la curva COR para discriminar personas con DCL de personas con demencia fue 0,965 (IC95%: 0,91-1,00). Conclusiones: El RUDAS ha demostrado ser un instrumento viable y eficiente para cribar demencias en AP, libre de influencias educativas y socioculturales. Es especialmente sensible para discriminar población con deterioro cognitivo leve de población con demencia.(AU)

Objective: To validate Rowland Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS), as an instrument for the screening of people with dementia and cognitive impairment in Primary Health Care (PHC). RUDAS is a brief cognitive test, appropriate for people with minimum completed level of education and easily adaptable to multicultural contexts. For these reason it could be a good instrument for dementia screening in PHC. Design: Cross-sectional descriptive epidemiological study with a five-year follow up. Location: O Grove PHC centre, Galicia, Spain (covering a population of 10,650 individuals). Outcome measures: RUDAS; Mini Mental State Examination; Clinical Dementia Rating; Katz, Barthel and Lawton Indexes; MMSE and Yesavage Geriatric Depression Scale. Participants: A total of 150 older adults (mean age 76.35±7.12years) randomly selected, from a low sociocultural and economical background and mainly rural and semirural origin. Intervention: RUDAS viability in PHC was checked, and its psychometric properties assessed: reliability, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values. Results: RUDAS application was brief (7.58±2.10min) and well accepted. RUDAS area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for the detection of dementia was 0.983 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.97-1.00) for an optimal cut-off point of 22.5, with sensitivity of 89.3%, and a specificity of 100%. Area under ROC curve for discriminating dementia from mild cognitive impairment was 0.965 (95%CI: 0.91-1.00). Conclusions: RUDAS test is fit for dementia screening in PHC and it is especially sensitive to discriminate PWD from people with MCI.(AU)