In-person learning during the pandemic: Student take-up and school-level effects of remote and hybrid instruction on student outcomes.

While studies have examined the effects of schools offering in-person learning during the pandemic, this study provides analysis of student enrollment decisions (remote versus in-person) in response to schools providing in-person learning opportunities. In Connecticut during the 2020-21 school year, we find that student take-up of in-person learning opportunities was low with students on average enrolled in-person for only half of the days offered, and take-up was even lower in schools with larger shares of disadvantaged students. The provision of in-person learning opportunities has been previously shown to mitigate pandemic learning losses. By exploiting data on actual enrollment, we show that the protective benefits of in-person learning are twice as large as previously estimated once we account for the low rates of student take-up. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that a key mechanism behind the benefits of in-person learning is alleviating the burden faced by schools and teachers in delivering remote education. First, we show that the benefits to individual students of their in-person learning are substantially smaller than the overall benefits a student receives from their school average level of in-person enrollment. Second, we show that a combination of remote and in-person learning (hybrid) with a full-time on-line presence of students when at home was worse than hybrid learning with students never or only partially online. This second finding is consistent with qualitative evidence showing that teachers found hybrid learning especially challenging when having to manage both in-person and remote students for the entire class period.

The efficacy of the TEACH e-Learning course at improving early childhood educators' physical activity and sedentary behaviour self-efficacy, knowledge, intentions, and perceived behavioural control: a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Early childhood educators play a critical role in promoting physical activity and reducing sedentary time in childcare centres. However, early childhood educators receive limited specialised pre- and in-service learning opportunities relating to these behaviours and may lack the capacity to effectively engage children in healthy movement behaviours. This study aimed to examine the efficacy of an e-Learning course on increasing early childhood educators' physical activity and sedentary behaviour-related capacities. METHODS: A two-group parallel randomized controlled trial was conducted with early childhood educators in Canada (Mage = 41.78, 97% female). Participants randomized to the intervention group were asked to complete a physical activity and sedentary behaviour e-Learning course within a 4-week period. Participants randomized to the waitlist control condition were assigned to a waitlist to receive the intervention after the testing period. Participants reported on their self-efficacy, knowledge, intentions, and perceived behavioural control relating to physical activity and sedentary behaviours at baseline, post-intervention, and 3 months follow-up. Linear mixed effects models were estimated to determine difference in changes in outcomes from baseline to post-intervention, and follow-up. RESULTS: A total of 209 early childhood educators participated in the study (intervention n = 98; control n = 111). The TEACH e-Learning course was found to be efficacious at improving all of the examined outcomes, with standardized effect sizes ranging from d = 0.58 to d = 0.65 for self-efficacy outcomes, d = 0.66 to d = 1.20 for knowledge outcomes, d = 0.50 to d = 0.65 for intention outcomes, and d = 0.33 to d = 0.69 for perceived behavioural control outcomes post-intervention. The intervention effects were sustained at follow-up for all outcomes apart from perceived behavioural control to limit screen time. Additionally, the magnitude of the effect for knowledge outcomes decreased at follow-up, with standardized effect sizes ranging from d = 0.49 to d = 0.67. CONCLUSIONS: The e-Learning course was highly successful at improving early childhood educators' capacity pertaining to physical activity and sedentary behaviours. Providing training content through e-Learning may be an efficacious approach to providing continual professional learning opportunities relating to physical activity and sedentary time to early childhood educators on a large scale.

Evaluating Medical Students' Perceptions of Patient-Led Transplant Surgery Education 1-2 Years Later.

INTRODUCTION: Medical students value the opportunity to learn from patients as a supplement to traditional faculty-led education; however, long-term follow-up to understand the educational impact of these experiences is lacking. We surveyed medical students who conducted non-medical virtual encounters with transplant recipients or living donors to understand the impact on students' patient care approach after 1-2 y. METHODS: Students who completed their surgery clerkship from July 2020 to September 2021 were surveyed about this nonmedical patient encounter in January 2023. Quantitative and qualitative survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inductive thematic analysis, respectively. RESULTS: Of the 27 respondents (46% response rate), 44.4% completed the experience 1 y ago and 55.6% completed the experience 2 y ago. Nearly all respondents (96.3%) agreed that this experience was an effective way to learn about organ donation and transplantation and that learning from patients was beneficial to their development as a doctor. Over 50% felt this experience changed how they provide care to patients. Qualitatively, students reported that this activity cultivated their empathy for patients, provided unique insight into patients' illness experiences, and enhanced their understanding of the longitudinal patient-surgeon relationship. CONCLUSIONS: Utilizing patients as teachers in transplant surgery not only taught medical students more about organ donation and transplantation but also built empathy and highlighted unique, non-clinical aspects of the patient experience that persisted over time. This is one of the first studies to evaluate patient-led teaching of this type over a year later and assess its unique influence on medical student development.

Brain tumour classification using MRI images based on lenet with golden teacher learning optimization.

Brain tumour (BT) is a dangerous neurological disorder produced by abnormal cell growth within the skull or brain. Nowadays, the death rate of people with BT is linearly growing. The finding of tumours at an early stage is crucial for giving treatment to patients, which improves the survival rate of patients. Hence, the BT classification (BTC) is done in this research using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images. In this research, the input MRI image is pre-processed using a non-local means (NLM) filter that denoises the input image. For attaining the effective classified result, the tumour area from the MRI image is segmented by the SegNet model. Furthermore, the BTC is accomplished by the LeNet model whose weight is optimized by the Golden Teacher Learning Optimization Algorithm (GTLO) such that the classified output produced by the LeNet model is Gliomas, Meningiomas, and Pituitary tumours. The experimental outcome displays that the GTLO-LeNet achieved an Accuracy of 0.896, Negative Predictive value (NPV) of 0.907, Positive Predictive value (PPV) of 0.821, True Negative Rate (TNR) of 0.880, and True Positive Rate (TPR) of 0.888.

Teacher perspectives on the socio-ecological barriers and enablers to food and nutrition education in primary schools: a scoping review.

OBJECTIVE: Schools are identified as a setting for food and nutrition education (FNE) in childhood. FNE is a key strategy to optimise child growth and development and impart life-long food skills. There is limited synthesis of the literature to understand the socio-ecological determinants of teachers and schools engaging in FNE. DESIGN: For this scoping review, five databases (APA PsycInfo, ERIC, Medline, CINAHL and Scopus) were searched using the terms (and synonyms for) primary school teacher, self-efficacy and food and nutrition. A quality assessment using relevant Johanna Briggs tools was carried out for the included papers. Data were extracted using a modified socio-ecological model, and narrative themes were identified. SETTING: Primary (elementary) schools in high-income countries. PARTICIPANTS: Primary-school teachers. RESULTS: Forty-one papers were included in this review from ten countries (predominantly the USA). The narrative synthesis identified five themes that interact with teacher delivery of FNE. These were (i) perceived food and nutrition responsibilities of teachers, (ii) teacher beliefs and self-efficacy, (iii) opportunities to build teacher nutrition knowledge and self-efficacy, (iv) interpersonal contributors and (v) broader environmental, structural and policy contributors. CONCLUSIONS: Multiple strategies are needed to build the capacity of teachers to undertake FNE within primary school settings. These strategies include a focus on learner-centred education that will build teacher agency, school leadership, ensuring the health and well-being of teachers and providing initial teacher education as well as innovative professional development for cross-curriculum integration. Strategies drawing from each level of the socio-ecological framework will increase opportunities for capacity building.

Teaching through their eyes: effects on optometry teachers' adaptivity and students' learning when teachers see students' gaze.

Adaptive teacher support fosters effective learning in one-to-one teaching sessions, which are a common way of learning complex visual tasks in the health sciences. Adaptive support is tailored to student needs, and this is difficult in complex visual tasks as visual problem-solving processes are covert and thus cannot be directly observed by the teacher. Eye-tracking apparatus can measure covert processes and make them visible in gaze displays: visualizations of where a student looks while executing a task. We investigate whether live dynamic gaze displays help teachers in being more adaptive to students' needs when teaching optical coherence tomography interpretation in one-to-one teaching sessions and whether this fosters learning. Forty-nine students and 10 teachers participated in a one-to-one teaching session in clinical optometry. In the control condition, teachers saw the learning task of the student and could discuss it with them, whereas in the gaze-display condition, teachers could additionally see where the student looked. After the 15-minute teaching session, a test was administered to examine achievement. Furthermore, students filled in the 'questionnaire on teacher support adaptivity', and teachers rated how adaptive their support was. Bayesian analyses provide some initial evidence that students did not experience support to be more adaptive in the gaze-display condition versus the control condition, nor were their post-test scores higher. Teachers rated their provided support as being more adaptive in the gaze-display versus the control condition. Further research could investigate if live dynamic gaze displays impact adaptive teaching when used over longer periods or with more teacher training.

From constructive to critical and everywhere in between: education leaders' decision-making related to harsh feedback from learners about their teachers.

Feedback from learners is important to support faculty development, but negative feedback can harm teachers' motivation, engagement, and retention. Leaders of educational programs, therefore, need to balance enabling students' voices to be heard with maintaining teachers' enthusiasm and commitment to teaching. Given the paucity of research to explain or guide this struggle, we explored why and how education leaders grapple with negative learner feedback received about their teachers. Using an Interpretive Description methodology, 11 education leaders participated in semi-structured interviews. Discussion was stimulated by showing participants learner narratives they had previously asked to be deleted because they perceived the narrative to be overly critical. Transcripts were iteratively analyzed as codes were developed, refined, and combined into themes. Education leaders interpreted the scope, framing, and focus of the feedback to decide whether it was overly critical. Such determinations were combined with contextual considerations such as the teacher's personal circumstances, the learning environment and how the teacher might react to think through what potential damage the feedback might do to the teacher. Throughout the process, leaders struggled with whether protecting teachers risked not protecting learners and remained unsure about the ethics of censoring student voices. Our study offers direction regarding how to optimize feedback to teachers while minimizing risks inherent in sharing negative feedback with them. Implications include that there is value in: (1) extending feedback interpretation support to teachers, education leaders and learners; (2) situating upward feedback in a coaching dialogue; and, (3) applying the same principles recommended for the provision of feedback to learners, to teachers.

Knowing what they know: Preschool teachers' knowledge of math skills and its relation to instruction.

Math experiences during the preschool years play an important role in children's later math learning. Preschool teachers exhibit considerable variability in the amount and types of mathematics activities they engage in with their students; one potentially important source of these individual differences is adults' knowledge of early math development. The current study aimed to describe preschool teachers' knowledge of numeracy, patterning, and spatial/geometric skills developed in preschool and its relation to their reported mathematics instruction. Participants (N = 83) completed a survey in which they judged whether particular early math skills could be observed in typically developing 4-year-olds in the United States and reported their frequency of engaging in different math instructional activities. Pre- and in-service preschool teachers' knowledge varied across the different domains (i.e., numeracy, patterning, and spatial/geometric) of mathematical thinking, but their reported frequency of instruction did not. Teachers who were found to be more accurate in their knowledge of early math development were more likely to report higher frequency of math instruction; looking specifically at the domains, the strength of association between knowledge and instruction was the strongest for numeracy. Such findings highlight the possibility that supporting preschool teachers' knowledge of the range of math skills their students can be developing may be one component of improving early math teaching and learning.

Preparation of the pre-service teacher to deliver comprehensive sexuality education: teaching content and evaluation of provision.

BACKGROUND: Despite the extensive benefits associated with the provision of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) within a school context, many initial teacher training programs inadequately prepare pre-service teachers to deliver this content. Programs that do provide such instruction do not routinely share details of their curriculum, syllabi, or evaluation data. METHODS: This paper outlines the structure of an Australian undergraduate course for pre-service teachers that focuses on instruction in CSE. This course spans twelve teaching weeks, aligns with evidence-based principles for sexuality education, prioritises experiential learning and requires students to complete authentic, practical assessment tasks. Formative, process, and short-term impact evaluation data, based upon five years of delivery, are described. RESULTS: Students completing this course reported statistically significant improvements in attitudes associated with CSE and comfort in facilitating all domains of learning (knowledge, attitudes, skills). CONCLUSIONS: Positive process and short-term impact data provide strong evidence for the provision of CSE to pre-service teachers, regardless of future teaching speciality. Proposed amendments include the creation of a fully online tuition pattern and an expansion of content to incorporate other audiences, such as community-based educators.

Teachers as first responders: classroom experiences and mental health training needs of Australian schoolteachers.

BACKGROUND: Schoolteachers are often the first to respond when a student presents with a mental health issue in the classroom. This places a burden on schools that impacts school staff, healthcare workers and teachers. More broadly, it places a responsibility on the education system to address students' mental health. This study examines Australian teachers' classroom experiences and the training areas identified by teachers as necessary to manage these issues. METHOD: Interviews were undertaken with 18 in-service teachers between 2020 and 2021 from Catholic, Independent and Public schools. Data were gathered via multiple interviews and analysed using thematic content analysis. RESULTS: The major mental health issues identified by teachers related to mental disorders, depression, anxiety, and a complex range of negative emotional states. Teachers requested training in child and adolescent mental health, counselling skills, early detection and intervention, and training skills to manage the complex relationship with parents and external health and community personnel. Teachers also reported the need to access mental health resources, support and training, which were differentially accessed along socioeconomic status and postcodes. CONCLUSION: The data show that teachers are often placed as first responders when a student has a mental health issue but feel inadequately trained to manage these issues in the classroom. We identified mental health issues presenting in Australian classrooms and documented critical features of mental-health training asked for by teachers in order to address those issues. Given the increasing demands on teachers to address the mental health of children and adolescents, we argue that an urgent review of mental health training for teachers is needed.

Mental issues, internet addiction and quality of life predict burnout among Hungarian teachers: a machine learning analysis.

BACKGROUND: Burnout is usually defined as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that affects people in various professions (e.g. physicians, nurses, teachers). The consequences of burnout involve decreased motivation, productivity, and overall diminished well-being. The machine learning-based prediction of burnout has therefore become the focus of recent research. In this study, the aim was to detect burnout using machine learning and to identify its most important predictors in a sample of Hungarian high-school teachers. METHODS: The final sample consisted of 1,576 high-school teachers (522 male), who completed a survey including various sociodemographic and health-related questions and psychological questionnaires. Specifically, depression, insomnia, internet habits (e.g. when and why one uses the internet) and problematic internet usage were among the most important predictors tested in this study. Supervised classification algorithms were trained to detect burnout assessed by two well-known burnout questionnaires. Feature selection was conducted using recursive feature elimination. Hyperparameters were tuned via grid search with 10-fold cross-validation. Due to class imbalance, class weights (i.e. cost-sensitive learning), downsampling and a hybrid method (SMOTE-ENN) were applied in separate analyses. The final model evaluation was carried out on a previously unseen holdout test sample. RESULTS: Burnout was detected in 19.7% of the teachers included in the final dataset. The best predictive performance on the holdout test sample was achieved by random forest with class weigths (AUC = 0.811; balanced accuracy = 0.745, sensitivity = 0.765; specificity = 0.726). The best predictors of burnout were Beck's Depression Inventory scores, Athen's Insomnia Scale scores, subscales of the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire and self-reported current health status. CONCLUSIONS: The performances of the algorithms were comparable with previous studies; however, it is important to note that we tested our models on previously unseen holdout samples suggesting higher levels of generalizability. Another remarkable finding is that besides depression and insomnia, other variables such as problematic internet use and time spent online also turned out to be important predictors of burnout.

Improving knowledge, attitude and practice on norovirus infection diarrhea among staff of kindergartens and schools: a before-after study.

BACKGROUND: Norovirus gastroenteritis outbreaks were common in schools and kindergartens and were more related to faculty knowledge, attitude, and practice level. Gastroenteritis outbreaks caused by norovirus in educational institutions were the prominent cause of Public Health Emergency Events in China. This study aimed to explore the transformation in the contribution of KAP items related to outbreak prevention before and after intervention and the impact of demography factors on the intervention. METHODS: This study sampled 1095 kindergarten and 1028 school staff in Shenzhen, China. We created a questionnaire consisting of 35 items in 4 parts, and each item was rated on a scale of 1-5 according to the accuracy. Univariate analysis of non-parametric tests and binary logistic regression were used to estimate the score difference on demographic characteristics, each item and KAP. The odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence and intervals (CI) for the association between statistical indicators were mainly used to explain the effects before and after intervention. RESULTS: Overall, 98.72% and 74.9% of the kindergarten and school participants were female, and all respondents had the highest scores difference of practice. Following intervention, univariate analysis indicated that primary school and female respondents achieved higher knowledge scores. Staff age beyond 35 (OR = 0.56, CI:0.34-0.92; OR = 0.67, CI:0.50-0.90) and with more than ten years of service (OR = 0.58, CI:0.36-0.91; OR = 0.38, CI:0.17-0.84) demonstrated a significantly lower post-intervention score for attitude and practice in both kindergartens and schools. The staff members exhibited a general lack of familiarity with the transmission of aerosols and the seasonal patterns of NoVs diarrhea pandemics. Item analysis revealed that kindergarten staff aged 26 and above demonstrated superior performance in terms of the efficacy of medical alcohol for inactivation (OR = 1.93, CI:1.13-3.31) and management strategies for unexplained vomiting among students (OR = 1.97, CI:1.21-3.18). Private school personnel displayed more significant improvement in their practices following educational interventions. School administrators' negative attitudes were primarily evident in their perspectives on morning inspections (OR = 0.11, CI:0.05-0.84). CONCLUSIONS: The potential negative impact of faculty age on NoVs-related knowledge can be mitigated by the positive attitudes fostered through seniority. Furthermore, it is imperative to urgently address the lack of knowledge among administrators, and the identification and treatment of vomiting symptoms should be emphasized as crucial aspects of school prevention strategies. Therefore, education authorities should implement comprehensive public health interventions in the future.

Evaluation of a school-based health education program on hepatitis B virus infection prevention practice in rural South-Western, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection prevention is most effective early in childhood with vaccination programme. However, where this is missed, primary prevention modes of intervention become an alternative recommendation to be considered before the occurrence of risk exposure to the virus. This study sought to evaluate outcomes of a theory-based HBV infection prevention educational intervention among students from four selected secondary schools in Ogun state, Nigeria. METHODOLOGY: A quasi-experimental design enrolling 256 consenting secondary school students from four schools in Ogun state randomized into three intervention schools consisting teacher-instructed (E1), peer-directed (E2) and combination of the two (E3) respectively with a control group ( C) was implemented. The theory-based educational intervention was for six weeks with follow-up period of 8 weeks. A 66-item validated instrument was used to collect data at three reference points and response items for variables in the study were transformed into weighted-aggregate scores of mean and standard deviation of HBV infection prevention practice of participants. Statistical analysis of ANOVA, paired-sample t-test and Cohen's D Effect Size (ES) was used to quantify the changes produced by the intervention on the outcome variable at 5% level of significance. RESULTS: At baseline, there was no significant difference (p > 0.05) in the mean HBV infection prevention practice scores between the four groups E1 (17.21 ± 3.03), E2 (15.57 ± 1.90), E3 (17.90 ± 3.10), and C (15.20 ± 2.44). However, at 14th week follow up, there was observed significant differences in mean scores of HBV infection prevention practices between all four groups E1 (23.09 ± 2.4), E2 (22.6 ± 3.6), E3 (23.82 ± 2.3), and C (15.25 ± 2.4). Paired-sample t-test conducted demonstrated significant differences between baseline and 14th week follow up for E1 (17.21 ± 3.07 and 23.18 ± 2.9; p = 0.001), E2(15.57 ± 1.90 and 23.53 ± 3.12; p = 0.001), E3(17.90 ± 3.10 and 25.1 ± 2.6; p < 0.001), but not for C (15.20 ± 2.44 and 15.25 ± 2.4; p = 0.92), with most significant impact (ES(95%CI) on HBV infection prevention practices observed for E2(3.106 95%CI: [2.66 to 3.55; p = 0.001]). Importantly, the participants in E2 showed more improvement in prevention practices than their counterparts from E1, E3, and control. Therefore, the intervention demonstrated proof-of-concept in facilitating behavior modification expected. Peer education can be utilized as a strategy to promote Hepatitis B infection prevention practices among adolescents.

Acceptability and perceived feasibility of the KaziKidz health promotion intervention among educators and caregivers in schools from South Africa: a qualitative descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: Despite the uncontested benefits of physical activity, its promotion lags behind in the public health agenda of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). School-based interventions are promising strategies to foster health during childhood, but evidence of their effectiveness is limited and inconclusive for LMICs. Thus, further investigation is needed on contextual factors associated with intervention implementation in low-resource settings. We studied the acceptability and feasibility of the KaziKidz health promotion intervention and its implementation and make recommendations to improve future adoption and sustainability. METHODS: KaziKidz was implemented in four primary schools from low-income communities in South Africa in 2019. Semi-structured interviews with four school principals, three focus group interviews with 16 educators, and another three with 16 caregivers were conducted between October and November 2021. Participants were purposively recruited. Interview transcripts were analyzed via thematic analysis using a deductive and reflexive approach. RESULTS: Three main themes influencing intervention implementation and adoption were identified: (1) prioritizing teachers' needs (2), integrating the program into the school structure, and (3) creating opportunities in the community. Supporting recommendations included: (theme 1) adopting intervention approaches that are inclusive of educators' health and providing them with capacity development and external support; (theme 2) fostering a feeling of ownership and belonging among school stakeholders to adapt interventions to specific resources and needs; and (theme 3) raising community awareness to encourage individuals to claim power over and actively engage with the program. CONCLUSIONS: Comprehensive interventions comprising health support, adequate training, and ongoing assistance for educators combined with school-wide and community outreach actions seeking to strengthen program ownership, accountability, and engagement can enhance uptake of school-based interventions and long-term maintenance. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN15648510, registered on 17/04/2020.

School-based prevention of teacher and parental violence against children: Study protocol of a cluster-randomized controlled trial in Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Violence against children at home and at school is particularly prevalent in Africa and is associated with adverse and persistent health effects on children. The violence prevention intervention Interaction Competencies with Children - for Teachers (ICC-T) is an effective tool to reduce violence against children by fostering teachers' non-violent communication and interaction skills. To enhance these effects, in the present study, ICC-T will be extended to parents (ICC-P) aiming to increase children's experience of consistent behavior and application of non-violent discipline strategies between teachers and parents. METHODS: To investigate the effectiveness of the school-based combined implementation of ICC-T and ICC-P, a cluster-randomized controlled trial with 16 primary schools in the urban district of Morogoro in Eastern Tanzania will be conducted. Both quantitative (structured interviews) and qualitative (focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, evaluation forms) methods will be used to investigate the effects on teachers' and parents' violence against children in home and school settings. The intervention implementation will be accompanied by a comprehensive process evaluation to assess the implementation quality of and participants' engagement with ICC-T and ICC-P. Potential downstream effects of violence reduction will be investigated by assessing the children's mental health and well-being. DISCUSSION: The present study aims to provide evidence for the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of the school-based combined implementation of ICC-T and ICC-P to reduce teacher and parental violence against children and contribute to children's well-being in home and school settings. TRAIL REGISTRATION: The clinical trial was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (ClinicalTrials.gov, 2024) under the identifier NCT06369025 (Hecker, Preventing Physical and Emotional Violence by Parents and Teachers in Public Schools in Tanzania (ICC-T/ICC-P_Tanz) (PreVio), 2024) on April 17, 2024.

Which aspects of education are health protective? a life course examination of early education and adulthood cardiometabolic health in the 30-year study of early child care and Youth Development (SECCYD).

BACKGROUND: Past research describes robust associations between education and health, yet findings have generally been limited to the examination of education as the number of years of education or educational attainment. Little is known about the specific features or processes underpinning education that are health protective. The objective of the current study was to address this gap by examining specific aspects of early education pertaining to student characteristics and experiences, as well as features of the classroom environment, in predicting cardiometabolic health in adulthood. METHODS: Subjects were 1364 participants in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD, 1991-2009) and recent SECCYD 30-year follow-up, the Study of Health in Early and Adult Life (SHINE, 2018-2022). Models examined individual education indicators (student social skills, student-teacher relationship quality, and classroom emotional and instructional quality in the period of elementary school and student academic performance between ages 54 months and 15 years) in relation to a composite of cardiometabolic risk in adulthood (ages 26-31), reflecting central adiposity, blood pressure, insulin resistance, inflammation, and dyslipidemia. Models were adjusted for key explanatory factors including socio-demographics, infant characteristics, parental socioeconomic status (SES), and child health status. Follow-up analyses were performed to test potential mediators of early education effects on adult health, including adult SES (educational attainment, household income) and health behaviors (diet quality, activity level, sleep duration, smoking). RESULTS: In adjusted models, results showed greater student social skills, indexed by a mean of annual teacher ratings between kindergarten and 6th grade, predicted lower cardiometabolic risk in adulthood (ß=-0.009, p <.05). In follow-up analyses, results showed the protective effect of student social skills on cardiometabolic risk may be mediated by adult income (ß=-0.0014, p <.05) and diet quality (ß=-0.0031, p <.05). Effects of the other early education indicators were non-significant (ps > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Findings point to the potential significance of early student social competence as a link to long-term health, possibly via the acquisition of resources needed for the maintenance of health, as well as through engagement in health behaviors supporting healthy eating. However, more research is needed to replicate these findings and to elaborate on the role of early student social competence and the pathways explaining its effects on cardiometabolic health in adulthood.

Technical adequacy of measuring teachers' knowledge of dyslexia.

Given the rapid growth in educational policies targeting educators' knowledge of dyslexia, this study explored the technical adequacy of a common instrument for measuring that knowledge. The responses of 1141 preservice teachers were scored in three ways: polytomously with the original 4-point Likert scale, dichotomously as true-false, and dichotomously as though the options were multiple choice. An exploratory factor analysis suggested at least one-third of the items needed to be removed. Confirmatory factor analyses suggested a one-factor model with polytomous scoring had the best fit to the data, but only six items loaded. All models demonstrated unacceptable internal consistency reliability (<0.70). Because no technically adequate version of the measure was identified, questions remain about basing policy on scores from these instruments. However, the findings indicated ways this type of measure might be improved.

The ESSENCE-Q: Can specialist supervision improve scoring agreement across specialist and public health nurses/nursery teachers?

AIM: This study aimed to explore whether the supervision of community public health nurses (PHNs) and nursery school teachers (NSTs) by a specialist, familiar with Early Symptomatic Syndromes Eliciting Neurodevelopmental Clinical Examinations (ESSENCE), improved the agreement of ESSENCE-Questionnaire (ESSENCE-Q) scoring, across raters. METHODS: A PHN, two NSTs, and a speech-language pathologist (SLP), familiar with ESSENCE, independently assessed 32 children. The ESSENCE-Q results were divided into the first (child 1-18) and second groups (the 19th child and the following children). Changes in score discrepancies were analysed for ESSENCE-Q cutoff scores and total ESSENCE-Q scores across raters. The SLP scores were used as a reference to evaluate sensitivity and specificity. RESULTS: The total ESSENCE-Q scores of the PHN and NSTs showed higher concordance in the second group (p < 0.05). Comparisons of the differences between the PHN/NSTs and SLP in total ESSENCE-Q scores showed a significantly smaller difference in the NSTs' scores in the second group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that specialist supervision may lead to a better agreement between PHN and NSTs regarding ESSENCE-Q scores.

Infant embodied requests and teacher-practitioner offers during early childhood education mealtimes.

The importance of building healthy relationships with food in children's early years is of paramount importance. Building on prior work exploring the social and linguistic practices in infant eating interaction experiences, this research uses a multimodal conversation analysis approach to explore how mealtime interactions are managed as a co-constructed activity between infants (0-2 years) and early childhood teacher-practitioners. Here we will explore video data recorded during mealtimes in an early childhood setting in Mid-Wales, where infants orient to recruitments for assistance and teachers provide offers of help with food items throughout the data. Analysis demonstrates 1) infant recruitment of help through embodied 'showing' an item causing a problem in multimodal ways, initiating joint attention that mobilises an offer from an adult in the shape of 'do you want me to X' and 2) adult initiation of an offer of help in the shape of 'would you like me to X' that are not prompted by infants 'showing' an item. Such practices demonstrate infant social competence in recruiting assistance through multimodal resources, and adult's noticings that help is required and their initiation of provision of assistance. The detailed exploration into the ways in which mealtimes are a collaboratively achieved experience reveals how infants effectively contribute in resourceful ways, and how teacher-practitioner responses frame mealtimes as co-produced activities.

Research on disease diagnosis based on teacher-student network and Raman spectroscopy.

Diabetic nephropathy is a serious complication of diabetes, and primary Sjögren's syndrome is a disease that poses a major threat to women's health. Therefore, studying these two diseases is of practical significance. In the field of spectral analysis, although common Raman spectral feature selection models can effectively extract features, they have the problem of changing the characteristics of the original data. The teacher-student network combined with Raman spectroscopy can perform feature selection while retaining the original features, and transfer the performance of the complex deep neural network structure to another lightweight network structure model. This study selects five flow learning models as the teacher network, builds a neural network as the student network, uses multi-layer perceptron for classification, and selects the optimal features based on the evaluation indicators accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. After five-fold cross-validation, the research results show that in the diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy, the optimal accuracy rate can reach 98.3%, which is 14.02% higher than the existing research; in the diagnosis of primary Sjögren's syndrome, the optimal accuracy rate can be reached 100%, which is 10.48% higher than the existing research. This study proved the feasibility of Raman spectroscopy combined with teacher-student network in the field of disease diagnosis by producing good experimental results in the diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy and primary Sjögren's syndrome.