Digital Exposure of English Place-names (DEEP)

Place-names are a fundamental concept in all academic collections: everything happens somewhere. Contemporary place-names are comprehensively represented in digital gazetteer and geospatial web services such as GeoNames. However, despite millions of pounds of investment by JISC and other agencies in historical online resources in recent years, there is currently no equivalent for historic place-names. This project will digitize the entire 86 volume corpus of the Survey of English Place-Names (SEPN), the ultimate authority on historic place-names in England, and make its 4 million forms available.

Establishing the validity of English GP Patient Survey items evaluating out-of-hours care

Background A 2014 national audit used the English General Practice Patient Survey (GPPS) to compare service users’ experience of out-of-hours general practitioner (GP) services, yet there is no published evidence on the validity of these GPPS items. Objectives Establish the construct and concurrent validity of GPPS items evaluating service users’ experience of GP out-of-hours care. Methods Cross-sectional postal survey of service users (n=1396) of six English out-of-hours providers. Participants reported on four GPPS items evaluating out-of-hours care (three items modified following cognitive interviews with service users), and 14 evaluative items from the Out-of-hours Patient Questionnaire (OPQ). Construct validity was assessed through correlations between any reliable (Cochran's α>0.7) scales, as suggested by a principal component analysis of the modified GPPS items, with the ‘entry access’ (four items) and ‘consultation satisfaction’ (10 items) OPQ subscales. Concurrent validity was determined by investigating whether each modified GPPS item was associated with thematically related items from the OPQ using linear regressions. Results The modified GPPS item-set formed a single scale (α=0.77), which summarised the two-component structure of the OPQ moderately well; explaining 39.7% of variation in the ‘entry access’ scores (r=0.63) and 44.0% of variation in the ‘consultation satisfaction’ scores (r=0.66), demonstrating acceptable construct validity. Concurrent validity was verified as each modified GPPS item was highly associated with a distinct set of related items from the OPQ. Conclusions Minor modifications are required for the English GPPS items evaluating out-of-hours care to improve comprehension by service users. A modified question set was demonstrated to comprise a valid measure of service users’ overall satisfaction with out-of-hours care received. This demonstrates the potential for the use of as few as four items in benchmarking providers and assisting services in identifying, implementing and assessing quality improvement initiatives.

Globalization, Plurilingualism and Young Learners in Mexico and Beyond

In the 21st century the teaching of English to young learners (TEYL) has become a truly global phenomenon. It is therefore important to deepen our understanding of the lived experience of TEYL in the very different settings where it is being taught. The 11 research-led accounts included in this volume are by TEYL teachers, teacher educators and other important stakeholders in a range of contexts around the world. The accounts span a variety of topics and issues in TEYL, each of personal importance to the authors themselves, and resonant with TEYL educators everywhere. The fresh practical and theoretical perspectives on different facets of TEYL that the chapters offer provide teachers and researchers with a set of stimulating ideas which can inform debate and pedagogical innovation in all areas of language teaching and educational research.