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The lack of critical thinking in new graduates has been a concern to the nursing profession. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of an innovative, evidence-based skills fair intervention on nursing students' achievements and perceptions of critical thinking skills development.

The explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was employed for this study.

The findings indicated participants perceived the intervention as a strategy for developing critical thinking.

The study provides educators helpful information in planning their own teaching practice in educating students.

Special education in the USA is, in most respects, a 20th century phenomenon and is now governed primarily by federal legislation first enacted in 1975. The federal law in its most recent reauthorization (2004) continues to require a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all students with disabilities, a full continuum of alternative placements (CAP) ranging from residential or hospital care to inclusion in general education, an individual education plan or program (IEP) for each student identified as needing special education, and placement in the least restrictive environment (LRE) that is thought best for implementing the IEP. Parents must be involved in the special education process. Approximately 14 percent of public school students were identified for special education in 2004–2005, but the number and percentage of students identified in most high-incidence categories as needing special education have declined in recent years (the total for all categories was about 8.5 percent of public school students in 2010). A variety of evidence-based interventions can be used to address the wide range of instructional and behavioral needs of students with disabilities and their families, including transition to further education or work, family services, and teacher education. Special education in the USA may find new sources of support and thrive or may become less common or be abandoned entirely due to criticism and withdrawal of support for social welfare programs of government.

To describe how combining a working definition of reflection with a framework for applying this definition can lead to a greater consistency in the manner with which reflection instruction is implemented in educator preparation programs.

Cultivating the habit and practice of reflection has been a long-standing goal of educator preparation programs. However, much of the research literature indicates a lack of consistency in the way that reflection is defined and taught in these programs, particularly in the context of video-reflection. This chapter examines how a workable definition of reflection based on Dewey’s phases of reflection can be used to make reflection instruction more consistent and meaningful for pre-service teachers.

The authors discuss the video-reflections of four different pre-service teachers, providing examples from their reflections to demonstrate how a workable reflection definition can assist teacher educators in developing the reflective capabilities of pre-service teachers.

By instituting a workable definition of reflection consistently across an educator preparation program, teacher educators can increase the likelihood that pre-service teachers will be prepared to engage in meaningful reflection when they begin to lead a classroom on an extended basis.

The size of the population classified as people with disabilities or older adults is increasing globally. The World Health Organization estimates that the average prevalence of disability is around 18% among adults age 18 and older. People with disabilities and older adults have lower levels of physical activity and experience significant barriers to walking in local neighbourhoods. A new perspective is needed that views disability in the context of the built environment and across the lifespan. The purpose of this chapter is to examine walking as an activity that is inclusive of any age, ability or assistive device used for mobility. Through a literature review, we illustrate the complex relationship that exists between individuals with disabilities/older adults and the built environment. We describe environmental and social factors, which have been found to be associated with walking among people with disabilities and older adults as well as factors perceived to be barriers to walking. Factors cited in the literature include aspects that fall into the environmental domains of the International Classification of Functioning. We conclude by highlighting key factors needed for planning supportive walking environments for people with disabilities and older adults. Recommendations include the use of walking audits to gain information on detailed aspects of the built environment, developing inclusive walking initiatives, including people with disabilities and older adults in the planning process and planning for maintenance.

To outline the multiple ways in which animals are inserted into sporting practices, outline historical and contemporary approaches to studying human–animal sporting practices, and advocate for the centering of sociological problems in human–animal research in sporting contexts and cultures and for considering such problems in relation to environmental issues.

In the first part of the chapter, conceptual differentiation of animals in the animal–sport complex is presented. Subsequently, studies of interspecies sport are reviewed with reference to the “animal turn” in the literature. In the second part, a critique is presented relating to: (1) the privileging of companion animals, especially dogs and horses, which overlooks the multiple ways animals are integrated into (multispecies) sport; (2) micro-sociological and insider ethnographies of companionship displacing of sociological problems in favor of relationship perspectives; and (3) the environment as absent from analysis. The conclusion offers implications for understanding multispecies sport and the environment.

I chart a general shift in emphasis and focus from animals as an “absent presence” in pursuit of sociological knowledge toward a clearly defined focus on interspecies sport as a field of research characterized by investigations of relationships with companion animals through the “animal turn.”

The focus on companion species means other animals (i.e., noncompanions) are understudied, big picture sociological questions are often sidelined, environmental concerns marginalized, and sociological understanding of the environment more generally is either ignored or reduced to a conduit of human–animal interactions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the association between components of metabolic syndrome with health-related fitness (HRF) and perceived stress in a sample of law enforcement officers.

Law enforcement officers (N = 28) from the Mountain West region of the US reported their HRF scores (1.5 mile run, push-up, and sit-ups), had their blood drawn (glucose, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL)) and had their waist circumference and blood pressure measured in a fasted state. Officers also completed a short questionnaire to assess health-enhancing physical activity (SQUASH) and both the Organizational and Operational Police Stress Questionnaires (PSQ-Org, PSQ-Op).

Linear regression models revealed a positive linear relationship between glucose levels and 1.5 mile run times (beta = 0.560, p = 0.021, R² = 0.24). A bivariate positive linear relationship between waist circumference and 1.5 mile run times was found to be significant (R² = 0.17, p = 0.041). For every minute increase in 1.5-mile run times, PSQ-Org scores significantly increased by 0.543 standard deviations (p = 0.022) with 25% of the variance explained (R² = 0.25). There were no statistically significant parameter estimates from the logistic regression equations when dependent variables were treated on the categorical measurement scale using recommended cut-points.

In conclusion, those who performed better on the 1.5 mile run were more likely to have lower fasting glucose levels, experience less stress and have a smaller waist circumference.

Therefore, according to these findings, it is imperative for those in law enforcement to improve their cardiorespiratory endurance to minimize stress and reduce their risk of metabolic syndrome.

This research is novel according to a recent PubMed search using the keywords “law enforcement,” “Metabolic Syndrome” and “fitness testing.”

Heavy metal music has had a long relationship with environmental and ecological concerns, one that can be traced as far back as Black Sabbath’s ‘Into the Void’ (1971). Academic work has, however, been slow to recognise the entanglements of metal, environment and ecology in either the global or an Australian context. More recently, however, popular music scholars have begun to acknowledge how the sonic anger of black, death and other genres of extreme metal might be an appropriate medium for social and environmental commentary and protest (Lucas, 2015, p. 555). Therefore, according to Wiebe-Taylor (2009), metal’s ‘darker side is not simply about shock tactics and sensory overload…’, because, ‘metal also makes use of its harsh lyrics, sounds and visual imagery to express critical concerns about human behaviour and decision making and anxieties about the future’ (p. 89). Taking an ecocritical approach, this chapter will map and analyse the environmental concerns and ecological anxieties of Australian metal across a range of different bands and metal genres, as they emerge through three ‘dead-end’ discourses-misanthrophism, apocalypticism, Romanticism – which offer little or no hope of survival.

“It is generally accepted that the food industry must be scientifically based to cope with the problems, particularly of public health, which arise as new processes of growing, manufacturing, packaging and preserving food depart even further from traditional ways.”

The attacks of September 11th transformed homeland security into a central policy task for governments in the U.S., culminating in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Planning and preparation for counter terrorism were no longer secondary priorities. This article seeks to examine some of the salient organizational and management issues that could potentially facilitate or impair DHS’s successful integration of its varied 22 agencies, and its subsequent execution of its critical tasks associated with countering terrorism and bioterrorism. Characterizing this change as a type of punctuated equilibrium, this article closes by suggesting that a differentiated network structure offers a potentially powerful mechanism by which the DHS could proactively and effectively address many of these leadership, management and organizational challenges.