Methodological considerations in the use of name generators and interpreters

With data from the Clergy Health Initiative Longitudinal Survey, we look for interviewer effects, differences between web and telephone delivery, and panel conditioning bias in an “important matters” name generator and interpreter, replicated from the U.S. General Social Survey. We find evidence of phone interviewers systematically influencing the number of confidants named, we observe that respondents assigned to the web survey reported a larger number of confidants, and we uncover strong support for panel conditioning. We discuss the possible mechanisms behind these observations and conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of our findings for similar studies.     

Using intervention-oriented evaluation to diagnose and correct students’ persistent climate change misconceptions: A Singapore case study

The evaluation of classroom-based educational interventions is fraught with tensions, the most critical of which is choosing between focusing the inquiry on measuring the effects of treatment or in proximately utilizing the data to improve practice. This paper attempted to achieve both goals through the use of intervention-oriented evaluation of a professional development program intended to diagnose and correct students’ misconceptions of climate change. Data was gathered, monitored and analyzed in three stages of a time-series design: the baseline, treatment and follow-up stages. The evaluation itself was the ‘intervention’ such that the data was allowed to ‘contaminate’ the treatment. This was achieved through giving the teacher unimpeded access to the collected information and to introduce midcourse corrections as she saw fit to her instruction. Results showed a significant development in students’ conceptual understanding only after the teacher's decision to use direct and explicit refutation of misconceptions. Due to the accessibility of feedback, it was possible to locate specifically at which point in the process that the intervention was most effective. The efficacy of the intervention was then measured through comparing the scores across the three research stages. The inclusion of a comparison group to the design is recommended for future studies.     

How to conduct a Narrative Policy Framework study

The Narrative Policy Framework has a growing number of researchers seeking to apply the framework in policy process scholarship. This article is intended to assist those interested in conducting an NPF study that is ‘clear enough to be wrong’ (Sabatier, 2000). While graduate programs offer critical methodological training, this article focuses on the specific application of the NPF to research inquiries about the role of policy narratives in the policy process. We approach our discussion by examining various decisions in the research process and include a detailed discussion of specifying the model and obtaining narrative data. We also point out areas for further investigation.     

Response-adaptive trial designs with accelerated Thompson sampling

In a clinical trial, sometimes it is desirable to allocate as many patients as possible to the best treatment, in particular, when a trial for a rare disease may contain a considerable portion of the whole target population. The Gittins index rule is a powerful tool for sequentially allocating patients to the best treatment based on the responses of patients already treated. However, its application in clinical trials is limited due to technical complexity and lack of randomness. Thompson sampling is an appealing approach, since it makes a compromise between optimal treatment allocation and randomness with some desirable optimal properties in the machine learning context. However, in clinical trial settings, multiple simulation studies have shown disappointing results with Thompson samplers. We consider how to improve short-run performance of Thompson sampling and propose a novel acceleration approach. This approach can also be applied to situations when patients can only be allocated by batch and is very easy to implement without using complex algorithms. A simulation study showed that this approach could improve the performance of Thompson sampling in terms of average total response rate. An application to a redesign of a preference trial to maximize patient's satisfaction is also presented.     

技术设计：技术认识的形象化

技术设计是运用设计理论和方法，在创制和改造技术人工物的过程中，把思维中的技术构思规范化、定量化，把它们以标准的图纸或说明书的形式展现出来的创造性活动。技术设计是解决技术问题的关键，通过分析问题、综合取舍、实践评估等环节使得抽象的技术认识得以形象化、具体化，从而形成切实的技术问题解决方案。在不同的认识情形下，技术设计或者被当作一个黑箱，或者被当作一个白箱，或者被当作一个系统，这三种不同的设计方式分别反映出技术设计的创造性、合理性和过程控制。     

Bayesian sample size determination for phase IIA clinical trials using historical data and semi‐parametric prior's elicitation

The Simon's two‐stage design is the most commonly applied among multi‐stage designs in phase IIA clinical trials. It combines the sample sizes at the two stages in order to minimize either the expected or the maximum sample size. When the uncertainty about pre‐trial beliefs on the expected or desired response rate is high, a Bayesian alternative should be considered since it allows to deal with the entire distribution of the parameter of interest in a more natural way. In this setting, a crucial issue is how to construct a distribution from the available summaries to use as a clinical prior in a Bayesian design. In this work, we explore the Bayesian counterparts of the Simon's two‐stage design based on the predictive version of the single threshold design. This design requires specifying two prior distributions: the analysis prior, which is used to compute the posterior probabilities, and the design prior, which is employed to obtain the prior predictive distribution. While the usual approach is to build beta priors for carrying out a conjugate analysis, we derived both the analysis and the design distributions through linear combinations of B‐splines. The motivating example is the planning of the phase IIA two‐stage trial on anti‐HER2 DNA vaccine in breast cancer, where initial beliefs formed from elicited experts' opinions and historical data showed a high level of uncertainty. In a sample size determination problem, the impact of different priors is evaluated.     

A stochastically curtailed two-arm randomised phase II trial design for binary outcomes

Randomised controlled trials are considered the gold standard in trial design. However, phase II oncology trials with a binary outcome are often single-arm. Although a number of reasons exist for choosing a single-arm trial, the primary reason is that single-arm designs require fewer participants than their randomised equivalents. Therefore, the development of novel methodology that makes randomised designs more efficient is of value to the trials community. This article introduces a randomised two-arm binary outcome trial design that includes stochastic curtailment (SC), allowing for the possibility of stopping a trial before the final conclusions are known with certainty. In addition to SC, the proposed design involves the use of a randomised block design, which allows investigators to control the number of interim analyses. This approach is compared with existing designs that also use early stopping, through the use of a loss function comprised of a weighted sum of design characteristics. Comparisons are also made using an example from a real trial. The comparisons show that for many possible loss functions, the proposed design is superior to existing designs. Further, the proposed design may be more practical, by allowing a flexible number of interim analyses. One existing design produces superior design realisations when the anticipated response rate is low. However, when using this design, the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis is sensitive to misspecification of the null response rate. Therefore, when considering randomised designs in phase II, we recommend the proposed approach be preferred over other sequential designs.     

幼儿园主题课程生成路径探索

当前我国幼儿园主题课程设计主要有主题内容（或概念）相关联导向、儿童学习与发展目标导向、儿童兴趣和经验导向三种常见思路。经实践检验，这些设计都存在一定的局限，要么不能体现儿童的学习主动性和课程决策权力，亦或忽视了教师课程参与的主体性。通过绘制兴趣图、概念图、材料图、活动记录图和发展目标图五步设计策略，不仅能解决当前主题课程设计的困惑，还能实现幼儿园课程设计的动态性和可持续发展性。     

MOOC背景下高校思想政治理论课教师信息素养的提升路径

MOOC背景下，高校思想政治理论课教师信息素养亟待提升，存在信息意识淡漠、信息知识缺乏系统性和创新性、信息能力欠缺等诸多问题。高校应创设条件，使思政课教师树牢信息意识，提高教师学习教育信息技术的积极性、主动性；丰富思政课教师的信息知识，健全教师参与教育信息技术培训的体制机制；营造健康和谐的信息环境，切实保障教师获取信息的畅通途径，不断适应新形势的要求，增强思想政治理论课的实效性。