‘Cognitive enhancers’: A qualitative exploration of university students’ experiences with prescription medicines for academic purposes

Qualitative work with students who use prescription medicines for academic purposes is limited. Thus, a more nuanced understanding of tertiary students’ experiences is urgently needed. Our study – which draws on five semi-structured interviews with New Zealand university students, complemented with information from local newspapers, blog entries and discussion forums – reveals students’ motivations and perceived effects, their risk perceptions and provides insights into the circumstances enabling the engagement with prescription medicines for academic purposes. Students were influenced by peers and social norms; and ideas about identity, morality and fairness also played a role for engaging with cognitive enhancers. Students used high levels of stress and workload to justify their use but took individual responsibility for their practices. By taking responsibility in this way, rather than considering it as a product of their environment, they buy into the neoliberal university discourse. Unexpectedly, some participants were already receiving medically justified psychopharmacological treatment but extended and supplemented this with nonmedical use. Others considered their use as being for academic emergencies, and that their low level of use helped manage risks. Overall, students viewed pharmacological cognitive enhancement for improving academic performance as cautious, safe, and morally acceptable. We argue in this paper that a local understanding of students’ motivations, justifications and perceptions of pharmacological cognitive enhancement is required, to tailor policies and support systems better to their needs and behaviours.

Crowdsourcing historical photographs: autonomy and control at the Copenhagen City Archives

This study of crowdsourcing practices at Kbhbilleder.dk at the Copenhagen City Archives provides a rich description of how motivation and work relations are situated in a wider infrastructure of different tools and social settings. Approximately, 94% of the work is here done by 7 of the 2,433 participants. The article contributes insights into how these super-taggers carry out their work, describing and placing images on a map, through an extensive discursive effort that takes place outside the institution’s more limited interface in private discussion forums with over 60 000 participants. The more exploratory qualitative work that is going on in different discussion groups does not fit within the archive’s technical framework. Instead, alternative archives are growing within privately owned networks, where participants’ own collections merge with images from public archives. Rather than focusing on the nature of participants’ motivation, the article suggests a relational perspective on participation that is useful for analyzing a systems’ support for participation. Pointing out how people’s motivation in citizen science correspond with relational and intra-relational aspects enables an approach to system design that potentially supports or counteracts these aspects.

Challenges Reported by Certified Nursing Assistants During COVID-19: A Qualitative Study

Certified nursing assistants (CNAs) who care for vulnerable nursing home residents faced unprecedented circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While staff and PPE shortages were ubiquitous and widely known, the focus of this qualitative work was to gain a broader understanding of the numerous challenges they faced. We conducted 10 remote focus groups with CNAs at 5 nursing homes (N=56) in downstate New York. Content analysis was conducted, and emerging themes identified. Results showed a myriad of emotional challenges including helplessness, fear and anxiety. Operational challenges focused on lack of COVID testing capacity, information, and consistent guidance and support, in addition to staff and equipment. Individual challenges included personal experience of COVID illness and that of colleagues, and balancing high concurrent demands of work and family. These results are discussed in the context of developing recommendations to promote future safety, skill refinement and enhanced resilience in the workforce moving forward.

Using the Adaptive Leadership Framework for Chronic Illness to Design a Palliative and Collaborative Intervention

Our study addresses symptoms and functional management early in acute myeloid leukemia treatment using a PAlliative and Collaborative Care inTervention (PACT) delivered by clinical staff. PACT is an interdisciplinary nurse-led intervention of nursing [RN], occupational therapy [OT], physical therapy [PT] for adults ≥ 60 years of age at time of initial treatment. Finding from our preliminary qualitative work led to use of the Adaptive Leadership Framework for Chronic Illness to guide optimal engagement of the patient in self-management of symptoms and functional activities to address QOL outcomes. We share lessons learned of how the ALFCI was applied to the PACT intervention to empower patients with self-management skills to reduce symptoms and optimize function. In summary, the team and patient identify and address emotional, motivational, attitudinal barriers so that the patient can do the work required for self- management to reduce symptoms and avoid functional decline.

Exploring the Relationship between Demographic Isolation and Professional Experiences of Black and Latinx Teachers

Educational leaders throughout the United States have repeatedly emphasized the importance of increasing the number of Black and Latinx teachers in American schools. Prior qualitative work suggests that Black and Latinx teachers who are demographically isolated in their schools often report negative experiences. Drawing on theories of proportional representation in organizations, we use Tennessee statewide survey and administrative data to examine whether self-reported professional experiences of Black and Latinx teachers are different when they are demographically isolated. We estimate models using two measures of demographic isolation: a continuous measure and a theoretically generated ordinal measure. We find that, for Black teachers, the percentage of Black teachers in the school is positively associated with teachers’ perceived satisfaction and support and with the frequency of collaboration. There is also some evidence of threshold effects of demographic isolation for Black teachers, as Black teachers in schools in which at least 60% of fellow teachers are Black report significantly higher satisfaction and support than other Black teachers. Our models do not find any associations between isolation and professional experience for Latinx teachers, but a small sample size and lack of variation in demographic isolation among Latinx teachers makes it difficult to estimate these associations. Our findings suggest that both ordinal and continuous measures of demographic isolation may be useful when examining relationships between demographic isolation and workplace experiences. Because we study factors linked to turnover in prior research, these analyses can contribute to the broader discussion about the retention of Black and Latinx teachers.

Towards Understanding Post-Socialist Migrants’ Access to Physical Activity in the Nordic Region: A Critical Realist Integrative Review

Experiences of, and access and barriers to, physical activity (PA) differ between individuals. This becomes perpetuated in a migration context. Although there is super-diversity between migrant groups, health research rarely accounts for this cultural diversity. More concerningly, the matter of context is rarely scrutinized or juxtaposed with the specifics of certain ethnic groups. This integrative review assessed the evidence on post-socialist migrants’ PA levels, constraints, and enablers for PA in the Nordic region. The results show that post-socialist female migrants have an especially high risk of being physically inactive. The qualitative work elucidates socio-cultural factors that impose specific constraints on females when attempting to engage in PA. Furthermore, in scrutinizing the context, Nordic nature (Friluftsliv) is a viable way for migrants to access PA with additional health benefits (e.g., mental). However, the Nordic environment also poses specific PA challenges, such as harsh winters. This can be understood by considering post-socialist migrants’ prior use of, and attitude to, nature. The review highlights the importance of understanding specifics about both migrant groups and contexts through a critical-realist lens in the pursuit of providing PA opportunities. Future PA programs need to understand the contextual, sociohistorical, and cultural settings in which they and migrants are embedded.

Theoretical Foundations to the Impact of Dog-Related Activities on Human Hedonic Well-Being, Life Satisfaction and Eudaimonic Well-Being

Cross-sectional comparisons of well-being between dog owners and non-owners commonly generate inconsistent results. Focusing on the uniqueness of the relationship might help address this issue and provide a stronger foundation for dog-related psychotherapeutic interventions. This study aims to evaluate the impact of dog-related activities (e.g., exercising the dog) on owner hedonic well-being, life satisfaction and eudaimonic well-being. It was also hypothesised that psychological closeness to the dog would affect these well-being outcomes. For this study, 1030 dog owners aged over 18 years old answered an online questionnaire about the impact of 15 groups of dog-related activities on their well-being. Ordinal regressions were used to estimate the mean response (and its uncertainty) for each outcome, while conditioning for psychological closeness to the dog and controlling for several key covariates. Tactile interactions and dog playing were significantly more beneficial than other activities for hedonic well-being, and dog training and dog presence for eudaimonic well-being. In contrast, dog health issues and behavioural problems were linked to decrements in these well-being outcomes. Higher psychological closeness to the dog predicted greater improvement in well-being in positive dog-related activities. Our quantitative study validates the general findings of previous qualitative work and lays the groundwork for future longitudinal studies.

“Longer than I Would’ve Originally Liked and Originally Thought”: Postsecondary Debt and Marriage Plans for Young Adults Coming of Age in the Great Recession

While student loans play a large role in the financing of higher education, there has been relatively little qualitative work on how young adults understand their debt burdens and the debt’s perceived future impact. We examine this topic utilizing a sample of 105 young people from working-, middle-, and upper middle-class backgrounds who experienced young adulthood during the Great Recession. While most respondents are accepting of debt at the time of postsecondary enrollment, their inability to meet the demands of their debt leads to frustration and anxiety. Further, many respondents are concerned that this debt will impact their ability to support themselves and transition into the role of a marital partner, although this varies across social class backgrounds and debt levels. We argue that this debt, and its corresponding repercussions, are likely to contribute to the continued bifurcation of family life in the United States.

A Different Road Towards a Better Personality Science

This is a commentary on Leising et al. (in press). We argue that a better personality science is one that is inclusive of diverse theories, methods, researchers, and participants. The road towards that science will involve serious reflective work on our history, biases, and the systemic inequities that we have built as personality scientists, which sustain the status quo. The suggestions proposed by Leising et al. systematically bias particular methods and tools, such as qualitative work, which we propose are necessary to better our science.

Proper Technical Maintenance of Combine Harvester Rolling Bearings for Smooth and Continuous Performance for Grain Crop Agrotechnical Requirements

The threshing mechanism is the main component of the combine harvester on which the grain separation and cleaning qualitative work indicators depend. It is important to ensure that all threshing mechanism components, including the threshing drum bearings and all other bearings of the combine, are working properly and reliably. There are many places in the combine where it is not possible to measure bearing vibrations directly without dismounting them, since there is no suitable spot to mount a sensor. The paper investigates the threshing drum rolling bearing condition of combines, which are difficult to access, by using a vibration diagnostics technique utilizing a newly manufactured steel bracket. The vibration measurements and analysis were conducted by the Adash A4900 Vibrio M analyzer (Adash spol. s.r.o., Ostrava, Czech Republic). The vibration source measurement was based on the fast Fourier transform (FFT) spectrum analysis. Analysis of the experimental results showed that average squared velocity values (in the frequency interval of 10–1000 Hz), together with other measured vibration parameters, can be used for the combine threshing drum‘s bearing condition evaluation.