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The development of efficient and reliable online assessments has become increasingly important in the digital era. We developed a 10-min online word reading assessment of global English based on the existing paper-and-pencil version of our English silent word reading test. The test includes two parts, namely, random word recognition and contextual word reading. A total of 889 participants (437 children and 392 adults; 62.7% female) took part in the study. They were from various regions including mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Poland, the United States, and the Philippines. Reliability and validity analyses on various demographics samples (by age and country/region of origin) demonstrated that the WordSword Test is highly reliable and valid (e.g., the correlation of this test with other English reading measures were above.80). Education level was positively correlated with test performance, while the correlations between age and test performance were not consistent. Ninety-seven children participants also took the paper-and-pencil version of the WordSword Test. The correlation between performances on the online and paper-and-pencil versions of the test was.879, one year apart. With more children and adults taking the WordSword Test, we ultimately hope to establish norms by area, grade level, and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argumentation is a fundamental communicative ability that children develop over time through formal schooling and daily practice with peers and family members. Literature on children's argumentation appears to have focused on their social interactions out of school, clinical environment, or informal pedagogic contexts. Even though there are research inquiries into children's argumentation in formal academic learning, many have been focused on argumentative writing in math or science classes. Much less is known about teacher-led argumentation and the youngest children's emerging argumentation in language art classes, where argumentation is formally and systematically introduced and learned. This paper reports a year-long ethnographic study on argumentation in a first-grade English language art classroom in the United States. Ethnographic discourse analysis was conducted to analyze two key literacy events from the daily reader's and writer's workshop. It is supplemented with qualitative analysis of the researchers' field notes and the students' artifacts. Our findings highlight the inherent intertextual nature of children's argumentation and a critical role the teacher played in eliciting and steering the children's argumentation construction through strategic instructional conversations (especially accountable talk). Our findings also revealed teacher-led children's intertextual argumentation as a powerful heuristic process and tool to enrich students' learning. The paper concludes some classroom argumentation teaching practices based on the research findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Community college transfer pathways are critical for advancing gender equity in STEM. Yet, community college students are often ignored within studies of women's participation in undergraduate computing. In a first effort to address this gap in the literature, this paper explores the composition of transfer-intending computing students over time (Study One) and gender differences in the characteristics and experiences of transfer-intending computing students (Study Two). Methods: This descriptive paper uses Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE) survey data. Study One relies on a sample of nearly 30,000 transfer aspirants in computing across the United States between 2011 and 2019, allowing us to explore trends over time. Study Two examines a subset of over 9,000 students from the most recent survey cohort, providing a more nuanced snapshot of transfer-intending computing students. Descriptive statistics were used to examine how student experiences differ by gender and race/ethnicity. Results: Study One findings show that women's representation among transfer-intending computing students has declined over time. Study Two results reveal that, relative to men, women spend more time caregiving, commuting, studying, in student groups, and utilizing advising services, pointing to unique demands on women's time. We also identify significant differences in how Black and Indigenous women financed their college, relative to other women. Conclusions: While women are underrepresented among transfer-intending computing students, they represent a diverse group to support. We point to recommendations for policy and practice to support transfer-intending women in STEM and future research that considers intersectional identities among this diverse group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We sought to understand the relative impact of fielding mode on response rate among public health alumni. Methods: As part of the 2021 Career Trends Survey of alumni from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, we designed a fielding mode experiment to ascertain whether a paper survey, a postcard with a custom survey link ("postcard push-to-web"), a mobile telephone call or text (mobile), or an email invitation would garner the highest response rates. Invitations were randomly assigned from available contact information. Results: Of 8531 alumni invited, 1671 alumni (19.6%) completed the survey. Among the initial fielding modes, the paper survey had the highest response rate (28%), followed by mobile (19%), email (10%), and postcard push-to-web (10%). More robust recent engagement with alumni relations, paper survey invitation or mode switch, and recent graduation were all significantly associated with a higher likelihood of response. Conclusions: Paper and mobile invitations had the highest response rates to our survey among public health alumni. Findings from this fielding mode experiment are relevant to schools and programs of public health seeking to capture similar information among their alumni, especially given current trends in investment in the public health workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Choice is a key part of the culture of the United States. Americans believe deeply in the personal and social usefulness of being able to make many choices. Hence, all sorts of efforts have been made to increase students' options, whether by creating many different kinds of schools and colleges, offering a great array of majors and degree programs, or allowing multiple modes of attending higher education. However, this proliferation of choices reproduces social inequality in two crucial ways. First, the provision of many options produces social inequality: people often make choices that do not serve their interests as well as they might wish, particularly if they are faced with many options and do not have adequate information. Second, the provision of many choices legitimates social inequality: the more one thinks in terms of choices in the context of a highly individualistic culture such as that of the United States, the easier it is for dominant groups to blame nondominants as creating their own troubles through feckless choices. Purpose: This paper focuses on one particularly important realm of choice—higher education—because it has come to play a central role in the transmission and legitimation of social inequality. Four higher education choices are of particular interest: whether to enter higher education, which college to attend, what major to choose, and what modality to attend college (for example, part time versus full time or in person versus online). Analyzing this choice-making process, the paper focuses on the impact of inequitable access to high-quality information. Beyond analyzing how choice proliferation and information inequity join to produce and legitimate educational inequality, the paper lays out detailed recommendations for what can be done to reduce this inegalitarian impact. Research Design: The paper draws on a wide variety of social science literatures including sociology of education, critical race theory, behavioral economics, and cognitive and social psychology. More particularly, the paper synthesizes sociology of education research inspired by Pierre Bourdieu and work drawing on critical race theory. Although there are major tensions between these two bodies of work, they can be fruitfully combined to both illuminate and overcome the ways information inequity produces and legitimates educational inequality. Recommendations: To reduce the role of information inequity in producing and legitimating educational inequality, the paper recommends four strands of change. One strand involves providing high-quality information more equitably through restructured and much more pervasive school counseling and other forms of information provision during middle school, high school, and higher education. A crucial component of this more equitable information provision is drawing on the community cultural wealth of nondominant communities. Second, it is important to design an "architecture of choice" that simplifies choice making and nudges students toward better choices by such means as simplifying the financial aid process, improving credit articulation for community college transfer students, and building guided pathways through college. A third strand involves reducing the harms of suboptimal choices by creating the means to monitor student progress and intervene when students might or actually do go off course. Finally, because suboptimal choices will still occur, it is important to enlighten student choosers and their observers about how choice making under conditions of information inequity produces and legitimates social inequality and to empower them to combat that stratified and stratifying process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative schooling has been staunchly advocated for by groups disillusioned by government-sponsored public schooling that want to take personal control of their children's education. There are concerns, however, about nontraditional schooling options that do not meet standards that apply to public schools. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) specifies children's fundamental educational rights. In the United States, this includes mastering basic English literacy and numerical abilities, as well as exposure to some scientific and historical knowledge needed to negotiate mainstream society. This paper focuses on how certain homeschooling and religious schooling practices run the risk of denying adolescents the right to the education necessary to work in the modern economy and achieve their potential. We argue that the United States should allow alternative schooling options but ensure that they conform to specific standards set by the state in order to meet the CRC goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mosquito-borne diseases are a public health concern. Pharmacists are often a patient's first stop for health information and may be asked questions regarding transmission, symptoms, and treatment of mosquito borne viruses (MBVs). The objective of this paper is to review transmission, geographic location, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of MBVs. We discuss the following viruses with cases in the US in recent years: Dengue, West Nile, Chikungunya, LaCrosse Encephalitis, Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus, and Zika. Prevention, including vaccines, and the impact of climate change are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Times of national and international crisis are often unifying events which lower levels of division within the public and between political elites. Yet, COVID-19 pandemic responses in the United States have been viewed as markedly polarized. Using a comprehensive dataset of over four million social media posts sent by local, state, and federal level political officials between January 2020 and September 2022, this paper explores the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic was a rhetorically unifying or divisive event, and whether rhetorical responses differed across levels of government. The results show that federal level officials were less likely to message about COVID-19 and were more likely to do so in a polarizing fashion compared to state and local officials. Temporally, in the early stages of the pandemic there was indeed a collective rhetorical de-polarization across all levels of government. However, as the pandemic progressed, COVID-related messaging became more polarizing, especially among Republicans. Evidence also emerges of dynamic responsiveness from elected officials, with relativeness attentiveness to COVID increasing and polarizing rhetoric decreasing during time periods when local case counts were relatively high. These findings suggest that rhetorical unity is still possible, even in times of high political polarization, but that this unity is also short-lived and tempered by political and electoral considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) carries the potential for unprecedented disruption in radiology, with possible positive and negative consequences. The integration of AI in radiology holds the potential to revolutionize healthcare practices by advancing diagnosis, quantification, and management of multiple medical conditions. Nevertheless, the ever‑growing availability of AI tools in radiology highlights an increasing need to critically evaluate claims for its utility and to differentiate safe product offerings from potentially harmful, or fundamentally unhelpful ones. This multi‑society paper, presenting the views of Radiology Societies in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, defines the potential practical problems and ethical issues surrounding the incorporation of AI into radiological practice. In addition to delineating the main points of concern that developers, regulators, and purchasers of AI tools should consider prior to their introduction into clinical practice, this statement also suggests methods to monitor their stability and safety in clinical use, and their suitability for possible autonomous function. This statement is intended to serve as a useful summary of the practical issues which should be considered by all parties involved in the development of radiology AI resources, and their implementation as clinical tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how individual-level partisanship and state-level factors affect perceptions of electoral integrity in the United States. We find that evaluations of the integrity of the 2020 US presidential election national outcome were only modestly conditioned by the quality of election administration in a person's state. Perceptions of electoral legitimacy were much more substantially conditioned by motivated reasoning associated with a person's partisanship, the partisan context Republicans resided in, and Republican partisans' residence in a swing-state where final results from 2020 were delayed due to late-counted ballots. Overall, estimated effects of the quality of election administration on confidence in elections are null or modest. Partisan factors associated with Donald Trump's "Big Lie" about the 2020 US presidential election were the strongest forces predicting lack of confidence in US elections and perceptions that election officials were altering results. These factors were not evident in 2016. We discuss how these findings may reflect a fundamental alteration of attitudes among Republican voters and elites about the legitimacy of democratic elections in the US, rather than reflecting cyclical variation in partisan confidence associated with which party won the past election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The school nurse has a crucial role in the United States and the United Kingdom and has their own expertise dedicated to school assistance for children, families, school staff, and the community. This study aims to identify the role and skills of the school nurse and understand the effects of COVID-19 on nursing skills in the following countries: The United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy. A Scoping Review was conducted following the JBI methodology for scoping reviews, following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Three databases were consulted: PubMed, Cinahl, and Scopus. In all, 58 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included. 93.1% of the studies were carried out in the United States, 5.2% in the United Kingdom, and 1.7% in Italy. 34.5% of the articles were published in 2020, 15.5% in 2021, 31% in 2022, and 19% in 2023. 22.4% of the studies included in the review concerned health promotion and education. Regarding the methodology of the studies, 41.5% of the studies were commentary papers, 15.5% were observational studies, and 12% were cross-sectional studies. Considering the effects of the school nurse in the United States and the United Kingdom, it is possible to reflect on how the systematic presence of a nurse could also have benefits in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated incidences of domestic violence (DV). The framing of DV within media sources contributes to the public's understanding of DV. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper explores representations of safety within newspapers' reporting of DV during the pandemic. The sample included newspaper articles (n = 31) from U.S. newspapers. The analysis involved multiple rounds of coding and employing "structured questions." These articles depicted limited courses of action for DV survivors and represented safety as unattainable. Safety was constructed in four ways: homes are unsafe, social services are overburdened, government failures, and the elusiveness of safety. These discursive formations provide insight regarding "idealized" social responses to DV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper presents a re-analysis of the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) data presented by Briggs et al. (2022). Methods: We review five components of that article: The aims, variables, analytic strategy, analysis, and conclusions. Results: We conclude that several of the NCANDS variables used are invalid at the national level, and that this is sufficient to call the research into question. We find concerning issues in analytic strategy and analysis as well, many stemming from a failure to account for the serious underreporting of services in NCANDS, and the wide variability in data quality and consistency across states. We also found what we consider to be issues with their statistical analysis. Discussion: The reanalysis presented in this article shows no pattern of disparate within Child Protective Services (CPS) outcomes by race and, therefore, no support for the Briggs et al. claim of pervasive anti-Black racism within the CPS system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the lived experience of the dyad following a fetal death and the impact on relationships. The purpose of this paper is to explore the dyadic relationship between partners, with health care providers, and with the baby's memory after birth. This qualitative study utilized hermeneutic phenomenology. The sample included 10 heterosexual dyads from the United States and Canada. All experienced a fetal death between 6 months and 7 years prior to their interviews. The data revealed three themes: (a) The Dyad Relationship: Moving Through the Experience Together; (b) Keeping the Memory Alive: Memorializing the Baby; and (c) Relationships With Health Care Providers: A Spectrum of Caring. The findings from this study provide the beginning knowledge needed to improve the care of dyads who have experienced a fetal death and for future studies to improve care delivery for dyads as their relationships change after fetal death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While bystander intervention education has demonstrated promise as a strategy to reduce dating and sexual violence (DSV) on campus, little is known about whether survivors on whose behalf the interventions take place find these helpful. This paper uses qualitative, in-depth interviews with 33 DSV survivors to explore their perspectives on bystander intervention. Results indicate that while some interventions were identified as helpful, especially those that provided support to the survivor, many were not helpful enough or even harmful. Further work is needed to understand the consequences of bystander action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This review provides guidance and ideas for researchers through a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the present state, trends, and hotspots in the pediatric fracture literature over the past 6 years. Methods: We used Citespace 6.1.R6 software to explore the country/region distribution, institutions, journals, keyword analysis, and co-cited references of the literature from Web of Science core database. Results: There are 6472 pieces of pediatric fracture–related literature, including 2962 from 2017 to 2019 and 3510 from 2020 to 2022. The country with the most papers is the United States, and US institutions and journals also have a pivotal position in this field. Research hotspots for pediatric fractures in 2017–2019: The topic with the most attention is bone mineral density leading to related bone diseases. Treatment for pediatric fractures, including supracondylar humeral fractures, Monteggia fractures, forearm fractures, knee fractures, and ankle fractures in children, is another topic of greater interest. Brain injuries and dental injuries in children due to abuse and trauma are also concerning issues. Research hotspots for pediatric fractures in 2020–2022: comparison with 2017–2019 revealed a relative decrease regarding ankle-related epiphyseal injuries, but there is a higher focus on the epidemiology of fractures in children, risk factors, and reasons for childhood trauma. We have confirmed through literature co-citations that the literature of high interest is also in these aspects. Conclusion: Researchers and clinicians can quickly learn about topics of interest through authoritative journals and highly cited literature and rapidly master the current status and frontiers of the field through study, providing ideas for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes three labor documentaries released from 1989 to 1991, which depict the United States' assumed transition from a Fordist to post-Fordist economy. Feminist textual analysis focuses on the depiction of workplaces and gender roles in Roger and Me, American Dream, and Fast Food Women. The analysis demonstrated that discourses of epochal change in the context only held true if one looked at a slice of the U.S. labor market largely dominated by White men. Focusing on feminine sex-typed labor demonstrated the worst elements of industrial Fordism remained in post-Fordist workplaces. Long-standing sexual divisions of labor were unambiguously repeated in post-Fordist work and intensified in a discussion of the family wage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 profoundly shaped how service providers in the antiviolence sector interact with clients, coworkers, and community stakeholders. In addition to stressors inherent in antiviolence work, service providers negotiated new, challenging social distancing and remote communication strategies. In this paper, we analyze interviews with 23 antiviolence workers in the US Great Plains region, focusing on participants' descriptions of workplace boundaries and intimacy. We demonstrate how COVID-19 both expanded and contracted public/private boundaries and formal/informal connections in antiviolence workers' daily experiences. Pandemic conditions revealed the pressing need for frontline workers to exercise discretion over levels of intimate engagement with coworkers and clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]