Enhancing Delivery and Assessment: A Case Study in Module Redesign for Improved Transition Into Higher Education

Understanding student transition into higher education is an important aspect of module design, linking content, delivery, and assessment with a student’s prior educational experience and knowledge bases. However, reflections on how modules designed choices are, generally, not widely disseminated. Here, we document the reflections of a junior lecturer responsible for redesigning a Level-4 Political Systems module and analyze the intentions of change via a transition pedagogy perspective, presenting a program renewal that establishes connected curriculum as an enabling infrastructure for students to actively engage with learning. First-year experience is considered as a major impacting factor of a student’s subsequent success on a program of higher education and the diversification of student cohorts requires teaching staff to consider a wider number of intersectional factors that may impact on a student’s opportunity to succeed in their studies. With a focus on simulations and active-learning, by providing examples of the thinking behind the resultant activities and assessment realignment we hope to provide an example of how a transition approach to a first-year module can be explored.     

Feelings of Safety In The Presence Of the Police,Security Guards,and Police Volunteers

Uniformed presence is commonly thought to create feelings of safety in people. However, do differently uniformed people contribute to an equal amount of safety and are there situation-dependent differences? The present study examined the association between various types of uniformed presence and people’s feelings of safety through a questionnaire among 352 respondents (18–86 years) (49.1 % women). The questionnaire contained pictures of situations perceived as relatively safe and unsafe with or without uniformed presence. The respondents estimated how safe they thought they would feel in these situations with no uniformed presence, two police officers, six police officers, a police vehicle, two security guards, or two police volunteers. Results showed that uniformed presence did not increase feelings of safety in a situation perceived as relatively safe, making patrol unnecessary. In situations perceived as relatively unsafe however, all types of uniformed presence increased feelings of safety. Foot patrolling police contributed to the greatest increase in feelings of safety. Security guards and police volunteers created similar amounts of feelings of safety making police volunteers a cost-effective alternative. All types of foot patrol were better than vehicle patrol, making non-police groups an alternative to vehicle patrol. Some situational, gender, and age differences were found.     

Transcellular and extracellular impedances of the intact abdomen in putrefying rat cadavers

Total (Zt) and extracellular (Ze) abdominal impedances of putrefying rat cadavers, stored at 18.0±0.7°C, were measured at 50 kHz and at 1 kHz, respectively, during the first 7 days of death. Transcellular impedance was calculated from the measured values of Zt and Ze. Total impedance and Ze increased during the first day, and then decreased with increasing postmortem interval, while Zi remained unchanged during the first 3 days before increasing more than 4-fold between 3 and 7 days postmortem. These changes are consistent with net gain of electrolyte by the extracellular fluids and with degeneration of cell membranes which occur postmortem. It is concluded that, during putrefaction, Ze is a potentially more useful index of postmortem interval than Zt or Zi, and that measurement of total abdominal impedance at 50 kHz, rather than at 10 kHz, markedly improves the precision and accuracy of impedance measurement.     

Forecasting highway casualties: The British road safety act and a sense of déja vu

This paper reexamines the effect of the introduction of the British Road Safety Act of 1967. We construct a dynamic model relating monthly road casualties to road traffic, rainfall, and alcohol consumption, standardizing for the seasonality in the data. An intervention variable captures the effect of the Road Safety Act. The findings confirm Ross's earlier conclusion that the Road Safety Act significantly reduces casualties. However, we find that the Road Safety Act only accounts for 2.7 percent of the variance in road casualties, while miles-driven and rainfall account for 48.8 percent, and alcohol consumption explains 4.2 percent. Our model forecasts accurately for 24 months beyond December, 1972, the last month used for estimation.