BACKGROUND Simulation-based technologies are emerging to enhance medical education in the digital era. However, there is limited data for the use of virtual reality simulation in pediatric medical education. We developed Virtual Doc as a highly immersive virtual reality simulation to teach pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation skills to medical students. OBJECTIVE The primary objectives of this study were to evaluate participant satisfaction and perceived educational efficacy of Virtual Doc. The secondary aim of this study was to assess the game play features of Virtual Doc. METHODS We conducted a prospective closed beta-testing study at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) in 2018. All medical students from the 6-year undergraduate program were eligible to participate and were recruited through voluntary convenience sampling. Participants attended a 1-hour testing session and attempted at least one full resuscitation case using the virtual reality simulator. Following this, participants were asked to complete an anonymous postsession questionnaire. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS A total of 26 participants were recruited, consented to participate in this study, and attended a 1-hour in-person closed beta-testing session, and 88% (23/26) of participants completed the anonymous questionnaire and were included in this study. Regarding participant satisfaction, Virtual Doc was enjoyed by 91% (21/23) of participants, with 74% (17/23) intending to recommend the simulation to a colleague and 66% (15/23) intending to recommend the simulation to a friend. In assessment of the perceived educational value of Virtual Doc, 70% (16/23) of participants agreed they had an improved understanding of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and 78% (18/23) agreed that Virtual Doc will help prepare for and deal with real-life clinical scenarios. Furthermore, 91% (21/23) of participants agreed with the development of additional Virtual Doc cases as beneficial for learning. An evaluation of the game play features as our secondary objective revealed that 70% (16/23) of participants agreed with ease in understanding how to use Virtual Doc, and 74% (17/23) found the game play elements useful in understanding cardiopulmonary resuscitation. One-third (7/23, 30%) found it easy to work with the interactive elements. In addition, 74% (17/23) were interested in interacting with other students within the simulation. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrates a positive response regarding trainee satisfaction and perceived educational efficacy of Virtual Doc. The simulation was widely accepted by the majority of users and may have the potential to improve educational learning objectives.

Coaches are trusted to create effective training plans based on the abilities of their athletes. However, there can exist a discrepancy between the coaches’ intended training intensity and the intensity perceived by their athletes. Thus, the purpose of this study was to evaluate athletes’ perceptions of training intensity and how they compared to their coach’s intended training intensity. Six female collegiate track and field athletes who ran >800 meter events were recruited for this study (Mean [SD]: 21.3 [1.2] years). Training duration, rate of perceived exertion (RPE), average heart rate for each training session and hours slept nightly were recorded for the next 14 weeks. Easy training days showed a discernible difference with actual session RPE rating higher than the target value (mean [SD] perception 3.25 [.847], target 1.51 [.692], p<.001), while hard training days were perceived as easier than intended (mean [SD] perception 6.26 [1.24], target 8.16 [.646], p<.001). Similarly, average training load (defined as the product of Session RPE and exercise duration) was higher than coach’s intentions on easy days (actual load mean [SD] 117.28 [19.15] p=.046), and lower than the coach’s intentions on hard days (p=.029). Workouts that are more intense than intended may lead to overtraining syndrome in athletes, and workouts that are less intense than intended may lead to undertraining, and athletes not achieving their full potential. Appropriate monitoring of training load can provide important information to athletes and coaches. Training load needs to be accurately determined to establish other recovery factors.

There is an abundance of intelligent tutors and expert systems across all domains. Some are driven by “cognitive technologies” and conversational agents, which have become common in providing an accessible interface to a range of devices. They are often used to provision initial support for businesses to guide users of their websites through frequently asked questions and help material. However, there are only few examples applied to the educational context, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in particular. This paper presents work in progress aiming to bring cognitive technologies to use in the running of MOOCs and supporting both instructors and students to answer content-related questions. The overall architecture of the system is presented, together with the modeling of the knowledge base in three different MOOCs from different disciplines. The approach is promising in offering a tool capable of providing teacher support, as well as direct student support, in dealing with the large amount of questions posted in discussion forums and in answering common questions regarding both the running of the course as well as content.

In this chapter the RASE learning design framework is proposed as a key strategy for utilizing multiple affordances of mobile learning technology. This learning design framework is based on the premise that an effective learning environment must include and integrate at least four core components, namely: Resources, Activity, Support and Evaluation. The activity component is the most important, requiring students to engage with intellectual and knowledge-based developments. Mobile technology offers a number of affordances that support learning, including: Resources, Connectivity, Collaboration, Capture, Representation, Analytical and Administration tools. Effective use of mobile technology includes deployment of these affordances in the learning design in a way that supports different components of the RASE framework and achievement of set learning outcomes. This chapter presents and discusses concepts, arguments, and a discussion of an example of an app that integrates multiple affordances, supported by all components of the RASE learning design framework.

Annual influenza epidemics continue to cause worldwide morbidity, mortality and societal disruption, especially among the aged residents of residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs). Vaccination remains the most effective measure to prevent influenza and its associated complications. The seasonal influenza vaccine uptake rates among RCHE staff were much lower than that among residents. In order to increase uptake of influenza vaccination among RCHE staff in Hong Kong, this study developed and evaluated amultimodal vaccine promotion program (VPP) based on identified factors affecting vaccination acceptance or refusal within the Hong Kong Chinese context. Vaccine acceptance was found to be significantly associated with belief in vaccine efficacy, duration of service, staff group and providing direct care to residents. The focus group study revealed that RCHE staff's belief in the efficacy and safety of the vaccine played a major role in vaccine acceptance. VPP effectiveness was evaluated with a cluster randomised controlled trial among RCHEs with staff vaccination rates below 50%. Compared with 2008/09, the 2009/10 mean staff vaccination rates increased significantly in both the intervention (39.4% to 59.6% (P < 0.001)) and control groups (36.3% to 47.6% (P = 0.008)). RCHE staff in the intervention group had a higher vaccination rate than in the control group (59.6% versus 47.6%, P = 0.072). This program reinforces the importance of a comprehensive and culturally sensitive approach to promote influenza vaccination for RCHE staff.

Student learning is a hot topic in tertiary education circles these days. However, it is not always clear what words like 'learning' and 'learner' mean. It is important for educationalists to understand learning as it actually occurs in real-time learning situations. We build on Hutchins' theory of distributed cognition and Gibson's ecological psychology to show how human learning is an interactive process. We propose Multimodal Event Analysis as a tool for analyzing a University tutorial in which students attempt to solve a problem of regression analysis. We investigate how participants' multimodal interactivity with the changing affordance arrays of the learning situation is the driver and shaper of learning. Moreover, learning is an unfolding microgenetic construction process. Theories of microgenesis (e.g., Brown, Werner) are a fertile starting point for developing new understandings of human learning as an always embodied and culturally-saturated form of values-realizing interactivity.

This chapter provides an overview of educational mobile apps as well as different models of classification. It also sheds light on the complex mobile app ecosystem from four perspectives: the learner, the teacher, the developer and the distributor. It highlights the contradictions that arise from the different goals and expectations from each perspective. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the motivational aspects of games and their current role for educational mobile apps as well as the future development of apps.

This paper addresses some fundamental methodological and ethical issues confronting non-Chinese researchers undertaking research in Hong Kong Chinese society. Among other things, it considers problems pertaining to data collection, the challenges of data interpretation, and the implication that this has for research. Whilst the issues are by no means unique to Hong Kong, there are a number of matters related to outsider research that require special attention in the Hong Kong Chinese context, even when the researchers may be acquainted with both the context and the participants. Understanding the context of research, including the socio-cultural context of which the research participants are a part leads to an enhanced understanding of the issues at hand. This paper intends to serve as an overview that may guide future research in Hong Kong. Issues raised in this paper will need re-theorizing in order to provide a more realistic and comprehensive view of the need to re-examine the paradigms that guide research methodology in Confucian societies.

This paper reports on the cross-disciplinary research that resulted in a decision-support tool, Team Machine (TM), which was designed to create maximally diverse student teams. TM was used at a large United States university between 2004 and 2012, and resulted in significant improvement in the performance of student teams, superior overall balance of the teams as well as overwhelmingly favorable reactions from stakeholders. An empirical study is conducted comparing the performance of teams created by TM compared to teams manually allocated by a subject matter expert. The findings show that optimally balanced teams perform better than those created manually. TM serves as a broad-based example of how to integrate business analytics into interactive search by conflating human judgment with algorithmic efficiency in the context of team formation. The contribution of this research to the academic community is a model and solution method which can be easily implemented to solve a very important and recurring issue faced by many MBA programs and empirical evidence of its value. The outcomes of this study include empirical evidence of increased team performance, significant administrative time savings, improvement to team diversity, and increased satisfaction from students and administrators with the team formation process.

INTRODUCTION:Sexual assault is one of the most traumatic stressors one may experience in life. Although studies have investigated the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and associated psychosocial factors on victims of sexual assault internationally, such studies in Mainland China are limited.METHODS:Two hundred thirt-three Chinese females (aged 17-38) victims of sexual assault were surveyed in three Guangdong province cities (Guangzhou city, Shenzhen city, and Huizhou city). The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, PTSD Checklist Civilian Version, Social Support Rating Scale, and Trait Coping Style Questionnaire were used.RESULTS:The prevalence of PTSD in Chinese female victims of sexual assault was 15.25% (34/223). Six psychosocial factors were found to be significant for PTSD symptomatology, including objective support (β = -1.01, P = 0.001), subjective support (β = -0.59, P < 0.001), support utilization (β = -1.03, P = 0.005), negative coping style (β = 0.58, P < 0.001), positive coping style (β = -0.44, P < 0.001), and neuroticism (β = 0.48, P < 0.001).DISCUSSION:These findings suggest that negative coping bias and neuroticism were predisposing risk factors that increase PTSD symptoms, while objective support, subjective support, support utilization, and positive coping style were protective factors for PTSD following sexual assault, and provide prima facie evidence for posttrauma intervention.

Contemporary technological and social developments demand transformation of educational practices. Teachers and schools are no longer fountains of knowledge that fill students with information. Rather, their primarily role is to equip students with new literacies, competencies for productive use of information technology, and sufficient disciplinary-specific bases of conceptual knowledge. This requires changes toward student-centered practices. In such contexts, teachers are designers of learning; therefore lesson planning is replaced with a concept of ?learning design.? This paper introduces the RASE (Resources-Activity-Support-Evaluation) learning design model developed as a framework to assist teachers in designing learning modules. Central to RASE is the emphasis on the design of activities where students engage in using resources and in the production of artifacts that demonstrate learning. The paper also emphasizes the importance of ?conceptual models? as a special type of educational multimedia resource, and its role in assisting learning and application of concepts, as opposed to the ?information transfer? models. RASE is beginning to emerge as a powerful framework for transformation of teachers and their traditional practices to contemporary, relevant student-centered practices. The model is also an effective framework for productive uses of information technology in education.

Post-PC TouchPad mobile devices are increasingly being used in educational contexts. Growing investment is planned by higher education institutions in Hong Kong and by the HKSAR Education Bureau in relation to educational uses of TouchPad technology. However, current research into educational applications of this technology is limited. This paper reports an ongoing qualitative study that investigates how higher education teachers use iPad technology to facilitate their practice. The emergent study results provide insight into both the educational affordances of iPad technology and the ways in which teachers' personal or private theories mediate these affordances and transform through the process. The study outcomes will contribute to theoretical understanding of higher education teacher changes through adoption of technology. Furthermore, the outcomes will provide a set of recommendations for applications of TouchPad technology in higher education and ways to support teachers to effectively adopt such technology in their practices.

This paper addresses the influence of CHC on how the insider/outsider distinction is drawn and what consequences follow for the conduct of research. The paper outlines the methodological complexities faced by us whilst conducting our respective research projects in Hong Kong. In the studies reported in this paper we, the researchers, were insiders at one level as both of us have a degree of familiarity with Hong Kong being residents of the city. We were also insiders on a professional level in the contexts under study. However being ethnically non-Chinese positioned us as outsiders. Additionally, our Western-trained research selves accepted certain normative paradigms, whilst our own personal ethno-centricities tended to question these self-same paradigms. In sum, the research context for us assumed hues in accordance with the lens that we were using for viewing our data concurrently and concomitantly and this we argue has much to do with the research methodologies that we used in the studies.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a relatively common and predictable psychological syndrome (Miller, 1999). PTSD occurs in a proportion of individuals exposed to severe psychological trauma (Kasai et al., 2006) and in which the individual responds with fear, helplessness, or horror (Danckwerts & Leathem, 2003). Individuals with PTSD suffer from intrusive memories about the traumatic event, persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, and persistent symptoms of increased arousal. These symptoms become uncontrollable and disabling (Bremner & Charney, 1994) that serious threaten human health and social function. Due to its debilitating nature, PTSD has emerged as an important public health problem in the general population (Sareen et al., 2007). In recent years, a great deal of research has been directed towards understanding the etiology, phenomenology, neurobiology, clinical characteristics and treatment of PTSD (Nemeroff et al., 2006). However, a number of core psychological processes underlying PTSD have yet to be elucidated (Shin et al., 2006; Liberzon & Sripada, 2008). Over the past decade, findings from neuroimaging studies have allowed for tremendous advances in our understanding of the experience of emotions in healthy individuals and the dysregulation of these processes associated with PTSD. These studies have been useful in both generating hypotheses on the neurobiology of normative human responses to trauma and complementing our understanding of the wide-ranging alterations in trauma survivors who develop PTSD. Structural neuroimaging studies have focused primarily on hippocampal volumetry (Geuze et al., 2005) as well as the prefrontal cortex (Geuze et al., 2008a) and other brain structures. Hippocampal morphology has been correlated with severity of PTSD symptomatology (Gilbertson et al., 2002; Villarreal & King, 2004). However, the results have been inconsistent, with studies reporting significant reductions or increases, as well as unchanged volumes. For example, studies have shown that patients with PTSD are associated with bilateral lower hippocampal volume (Bossini & Castrogiovanni, 2007; Bremner et al., 2003; Emdad et al., 2006; Lindauer et al., 2004a; Vythilingam et al., 2005; Li et al., 2006), which are

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements We would like to thank Professor Michael Crossley for his support in the production of this Special Issue. We also gratefully acknowledge the considerable support extended to us by the Comparative Education Research Centre (CERC) of The University of Hong Kong.