Recruiting schools, adolescents and parents to a sexual-health trial: experiences, challenges and lessons learned from the Jack Trial

Background
Recruitment to school-based randomised trials is challenging; even more so when the focus of the study is a sensitive issue such as sexual health. The Jack Feasibility Trial aims to determine the facilitators and barriers to recruitment and retention to a school-based sexual health trial and identify optimal multi-level strategies for a full trial.
Method
The Jack Trial is an NIHR-funded feasibility study of a film-based sexual health intervention, recruiting over 800 adolescents from 8 post-primary schools in Northern Ireland. In order to examine the feasibility of piloted recruitment and retention methods and assess acceptability of participation across the range of schools and individuals approached, we analysed qualitative data from triangulated sources including a parents’ survey and semi-structured interviews with principals, vice-principals, teachers and parents recruited to the study.
Results
With reference to Social Learning Theory, we identified a number of individual, behavioural and environmental level factors which influenced recruitment and retention. Commonly identified facilitators included the perceived relevance and potential benefit of the intervention to adolescents, the credibility of the organisation running the study, support offered by trial staff, and financial incentives. Key barriers were prior commitment to other research, lack of time and resources, and perceptions that the intervention was incompatible with adolescent needs or school ethos.
Conclusion
This study highlights pertinent general and trial-specific facilitators and barriers to recruitment to a sexual health trial in a school setting, which will prove useful for successful conduct of future trials with schools, adolescents and parents.

Parent education and home-based behaviour analytic intervention: an examination of parents' perceptions of outcome

There is convincing evidence that applied behaviour analysis (ABA) offers a highly effective form of intervention for children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). There is less evidence, however, about how parents perceive and evaluate ABA programmes. In this paper an examination of parents’ perceptions of outcome is reported. Twenty-two questionnaires were completed by two groups of parents. The first group had just completed an introductory course in ABA and were in the early stages of implementing ABA programmes with their children. The second group had been involved in ABA education for more than 2 years. Overall, both groups of parents reported a positive impact of ABA on the lives of their children, their family life, and themselves. The long- term group reported that they had achieved complex goals with their children, whilst the short-term group reported an immediate positive impact on child and family functioning and parental self-esteem. Conclusions are drawn in the context of evidence-based practice.

Crossing Thresholds and Expanding Conceptual Spaces: Using Arts-Based Methods to Extend Teachers’ Perceptions of Literacy

The context for this paper is a teacher education program for adult literacy practitioners at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland. This paper describes and reflects on the use of arts-based approaches to enhance these practitioners’ conceptualizations of literacy, presenting their arts-based responses and their evaluations of the methods and their contrasting definitions of literacy at the start and the end of the course. The discussion raises questions about the inclusion of visual literacy in adult literacy teacher education programmes.

Defending Identity and Ethos: an analysis of teacher perceptions of school collaboration in Northern Ireland

The purpose of this article is to examine the process of collaborative working between teachers located in separate faith-based schools in Northern Ireland. Drawing on theories of intergroup relations, and with reference to in-depth interviews with teachers in post-primary schools, the article shows that despite earlier research which identified a reluctance amongst teachers in the different sectors to work together, most Catholic and Protestant teachers are motivated to collaborate to develop a more broadly based curriculum for pupils. However, it has also been shown that teachers tend to studiously avoid discussing their differences in mixed-faith contexts, and it is argued that this may have the potential to constrain collaborative relations. It is concluded that without strategic direction from policy makers to assist teachers in negotiating and exploring their differences it will be difficult to build the trust which is likely to sustain collaborative relations.

Student Teachers’ Perceptions of the Effectiveness of their Initial Preparation

What influences how well-prepared student teachers feel towards working in schools upon completion of their initial teacher preparation (ITP)? In order to investigate this question, we used a path analysis using data from a longitudinal study investigating the experiences of trainee and early career phase teachers in England. The data were generated via self-complete questionnaires and follow-up telephone interviews with 1,322 trainees. Those on undergraduate or school-based programmes felt better prepared to work as teachers than one-year postgraduate trainees, perhaps because the former give higher ratings of the quality of assessment of, and feedback received on, teaching practice, and because of the clarity of theory-practice links in programmes. Across different kinds of ITP programme, good relationships with school-based mentors significantly boosted trainees' confidence that their ITP had effectively prepared them for teaching. Trainees' motives for entering the profession and their initial concerns about and expectations of ITP also affected their perceptions of its effectiveness, by shaping the way they experienced aspects of their courses. Implications of these findings for policy and practice in teacher preparation are discussed. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Parents' perceptions of microneedle-mediated monitoring as an alternative to blood sampling in the monitoring of their infants

OBJECTIVES: Microneedle (MN) arrays could offer a pain-free, minimally invasive approach to monitoring. This is envisaged to be particularly beneficial for younger patients, but parents' views to date are unknown. The aim of this study was to explore parental perceptions of MN-mediated ISF monitoring, as an alternative to the use of conventional blood sampling, and to understand the important factors for technique approval.

METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents with recent experience of a premature birth. Recruitment was through the Northern Ireland premature infant charity, Tinylife. Interviews progressed until data saturation was reached and thematic analysis employed.

KEY FINDINGS: The study included 16 parents. Parental support for MN-mediated monitoring was evident, alongside the unpopularity of traditional blood sampling in neonates. Factors facilitating MN approval included the opportunity for pain reduction, the simplicity of the procedure, the potential for increased parental involvement and the more favourable appearance, owing to the minute size of MNs and similarities with a sticking plaster. Confirmation of correct application, a pain-free patch removal and endorsement from trusted healthcare professionals were important.

CONCLUSION: These findings will inform researchers in the field of MN development and enlighten practitioners regarding parental distress resulting from conventional blood sampling. Further work is necessary to understand MN acceptability among practitioners. This work should assist in the development of an acceptable MN device and facilitate the reduction of parental distress.

Peer tutoring in a medical school: perceptions of tutors and tutees

Background: Peer tutoring has been described as “people from similar social groupings who are not professional teachers helping each other to learn and learning themselves by teaching”. Peer tutoring is well accepted as a source of support in many medical curricula, where participation and learning involve a process of socialisation.
Peer tutoring can ease the transition of the junior students from the university class environment to the hospital workplace. In this paper, we apply the Experienced Based Learning (ExBL) model to explore medical students’ perceptions of their experience of taking part in a newly established peer tutoring program at a hospital based
clinical school.
Methods: In 2014, all students at Sydney Medical School – Central, located at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital were invited to voluntarily participate in the peer tutoring program. Year 3 students (n = 46) were invited to act as tutors for Year 1 students (n = 50), and Year 4 students (n = 60) were invited to act as tutors for Year 2 students (n = 51). Similarly, the ‘tutees’ were invited to take part on a voluntary basis. Students were invited to attend focus groups, which were held at the end of the program. Framework analysis was used to code and categorise data into themes.
Results: In total, 108/207 (52 %) students participated in the program. A total of 42/106 (40 %) of Year 3 and 4 students took part as tutors; and of 66/101 (65 %) of Year 1 and 2 students took part as tutees. Five focus groups were held, with 50/108 (46 %) of students voluntarily participating. Senior students (tutors) valued the opportunity to practice and improve their medical knowledge and teaching skills. Junior students (tutees) valued the opportunity for additional practice and patient interaction, within a relaxed, small group learning environment.
Conclusion: Students perceived the peer tutoring program as affording opportunities not otherwise available within the curriculum. The peer teaching program provided a framework within the medical curriculum for senior students to practice and improve their medical knowledge and teaching skills. Concurrently, junior students were provided with a valuable learning experience that they reported as being qualitatively different to traditional teaching by faculty.

Teachers' and teacher educators' lives: the role of emotion

This paper reports research which focuses on ways of enhancing understandings by teachers of the key role that emotions play in their personal professional growth. It combines the narrative, autobiographical accounts of teachers attending part-time masters degree programmes in England (Continuing Professional Development and School Improvement) and Northern Ireland (Personal and Social Development) with an interrogation of the underlying values which affect the practices of their tutors. It reveals the effects of powerful and often unacknowledged interaction between personal biography and professional and social contexts upon teachers in schools and higher education.