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This study examines the impact of the Learning Strategies Curriculum (LSC), an adolescent reading intervention program, on 6th- and 9th-grade students' reading comprehension and strategy use. Using a randomized treatment-control group design, the study compared student outcomes for these constructs for 365 students who received daily instruction in 6 LSC strategies and 290 students who did not receive intervention instruction. After 1 school year, 6th-grade students who received intervention instruction significantly outperformed students in the control group on a standardized measure of reading comprehension and reported using problem-solving strategies in reading to a greater extent than students in the control group. There were no significant differences between 9th grade intervention and control groups in reading comprehension or strategy use. (Contains 16 tables.)

Two universities in the United Kingdom made systematic attempts to increase the number of student dietitians' research projects that are supervised by university faculty members in conjunction with external collaborators (collaborative projects), rather than by faculty alone (faculty-only projects). A questionnaire survey was used to evaluate the experiences of student dietitians (n=110), university faculty members (n=38), and collaborators (n=31) involved in a student research project, comparing those involved in a faculty-only project with those involved in a collaborative project. Students undertaking collaborative projects reported greater involvement in most areas of the research process and greater skill development in obtaining research ethics approval (P=0.005), data collection (P=0.05), and statistical analysis (P=0.004) than students undertaking faculty-only projects. In addition, collaborative projects were more frequently considered to produce results that would change dietetics practice than faculty-only projects by both student dietitians (60% vs 30%, P=0.01) and university faculty members (62% vs 19%, P<0.001). The collaborators also considered that in the majority of instances (61%) their involvement helped them to organize their own time to do research. The type of project did not appear to influence student's expectations of future involvement in research and audit. In general, both types of projects resulted in positive experiences for student dietitians, university faculty members, and collaborators. We recommend that those involved in dietetics education, practice, and management consider the potential value of senior-level student dietitian involvement in collaborative research projects.

Objective: To evaluate the nutrient quality of breads and breakfast cereals identified using the wholegrain definition of ≤10:1 carbohydrate:fibre ratio.Design: Following a cross-sectional study design, nutritional information was systematically gathered from food labels of breads and breakfast cereals that met the ≤10:1 carbohydrate:fibre criterion. The median nutrient content was compared with the UK Food Standards Agency's nutrient profiling standards and the associations between carbohydrate:fibre ratio and other nutrients were analysed. Subgroup analyses were undertaken for products with and without fruit, nuts and/or seeds.Setting: Products from four major supermarket stores in the UK.Subjects: Breads (n 162) and breakfast cereals (n 266).Results: Breads which met the ≤10:1 criterion typically contained medium fat, low saturated fat, low sugar and medium Na. Breakfast cereals typically contained medium fat, low saturated fat, high sugar and low Na. In both groups, as the carbohydrate:fibre ratio decreased, fat content increased (bread: P=0·029, r=-0·171; breakfast cereal: P=0·033, r=-0·131) and, in breakfast cereals, as the ratio increased, sugar content increased (P<0·0005, r=0·381). Breakfast cereals with fruit, nuts and/or seeds contained, per 100 g, more energy (P=0·002), fat, saturated fat and sugar (all P<0·0005), while seeded breads had more energy, fat and saturated fat (all P<0·0005).Conclusions: Overall, breads and breakfast cereals meeting the ≤10:1 criterion have good nutritional quality, suggesting that the criterion could be useful in public health and/or food labelling. The utility of applying the ≤10:1 criterion to products containing fruit, nuts and/or seeds is less clear and requires further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical communication and clinical supervision of junior healthcare professionals are identified as the two most common preventable factors to reduce medical errors. While multiple strategies have been implemented to improve clinical communication, clinical supervision has not attracted as much attention. This is in part due to the lack of understanding of clinical supervision. Furthermore, there is a lack of exploration of information communication technology (ICT) in assisting the delivery of clinical supervision from the perspective of users (i.e. junior clinicians). This paper presents a study to understand clinical supervision from the perspective of medical and pharmacy interns. The important elements of good clinical supervisors and good clinical supervision have been presented in this paper based on our study. More importantly, our results suggest a distinction between good supervisors and good supervisions. Both these factors impact on patient safety. Through discussion of user requirements of good supervision by users (interns), this paper then explores and presents a conceptual framework to assist in the discussion and design of ICT by healthcare organisations to improve clinical supervision of interns and therefore improve patient safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]