Study on consumers’ attitudes towards Terms and Conditions (T&Cs): Final Report

This report was produced under the EU Consumer Programme (2014-2020) in the frame of a service contract with the Consumers, Health, Agriculture and Food Executive Agency (Chafea) acting under the mandate from the European Commission.Previous research has shown that when buying products and services online, the vast majority of consumers accept Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) without even reading them. The current research examined effects of interventions aimed at making consumers aware of the quality of such T&Cs. This was done by 1) shortening and simplifying the T&Cs and 2) adding a quality cue to an online store, such as the presence of a logo of a national consumer organisation accompanied by the statement “these terms and conditions are fair”. The main study consisted of three experiments and was conducted in 12 Member States with 1000 respondents in each Member State. In each experiment, consumers visited an online store and went through all the steps of an ordering process. One of these steps was accepting the T&Cs. Key findings are that shortening and simplifying the terms and conditions results in improved readership of the T&Cs, a slightly better understanding of the T&Cs, and a more positive attitude towards the T&Cs. Moreover, adding a quality cue to an online store increases trust and purchase intentions. Which quality cue is trusted the most depends on what type of online store consumers are visiting. For domestic online stores, a quality cue by a national consumer organisation is trusted most; for foreign online stores, a quality cue by a European consumer organisation is trusted most. The patterns were similar across Member States

The development of a questionnaire on metacognition for students in higher education

Background Interest in the role of metacognition has been steadily rising in most forms of education. This study focuses on the construction of a questionnaire for measuring metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive regulation and metacognitive responsiveness among students in higher education and the subsequent process of testing to determine its validity. Purpose The aim of the study was to construct an original instrument for measuring features of metacognition, henceforth referred to as the Awareness of Independent Learning Inventory (AILI), and further to establish the similarities and differences between this model and existing instruments for measuring metacognition. Sample The AILI questionnaire was distributed to 1058 students in various types of Teacher Training Institutes in the Netherlands and Belgium. The abridged English version of the questionnaire was administered to another sample of 729 students reading Economics and Business Administration at the University of Maastricht in the south of the Netherlands. Design and methods The AILI instrument was constructed on the basis of a facet design along two dimensions: components of metacognition and topics of concern to students in higher education. The data gathered with the instrument was analyzed by means of a generalisability study and a decision study, respectively. The validity of the instrument was investigated by using confirmatory factor analysis. Results The generalisability study showed that the reliability of the instrument was satisfactory. The decision study revealed that the number of items included in the questionnaire could be reduced substantially by leaving out two components of one of the dimensions in the facet design, without losing too much generalisability. The validity study showed that there was a considerable level of congruity between parts of the AILI questionnaire and the relevant parts of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Conclusions The AILI questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring metacognitive knowledge, regulation and responsiveness. It is suitable for use in the evaluation of the effects of interventions that purport to increase metacognitive knowledge, regulation and responsiveness of students in higher education

Outcomes of Early Endoscopic Realignment Versus Suprapubic Cystostomy and Delayed Urethroplasty for Pelvic Fracture-related Posterior Urethral Injuries : A Systematic Review

Peer reviewedPostprin

Low Hepatitis C Virus Prevalence among Men Who Have Sex with Men Attending Public Health Services in The Netherlands

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence is high among men who have sex with men (MSM) with HIV in the Netherlands. Large reductions in HCV incidence among MSM with HIV, however, have occurred since treatment with direct-acting antivirals. Over the years, a broader understanding of the HCV epidemic has shown that HCV infections are not solely restricted to MSM with HIV, but they also occur among HIV-negative MSM. Currently, HCV testing among HIV-negative MSM is only provided for PrEP users and is not part of routine sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening among HIV-negative MSM who are not using PrEP. In this study, we screened 1885 HIV-negative MSM who did not participate in a PrEP program, with over 1966 STI screening visits at four different public health clinic sites. Among the 1885 MSM, only one person had a new HCV infection, resulting in a 0.05% (95% confidence interval 0.0–0.3) incidence. Based on our findings, we can conclude that systematic HCV testing at STI clinics may not yield significant benefits for this particular population.</p

Becoming original: effects of strategy instruction

Visual arts education focuses on creating original visual art products. A means to improve originality is enhancement of divergent thinking, indicated by fluency, flexibility and originality of ideas. In regular arts lessons, divergent thinking is mostly promoted through brainstorming. In a previous study, we found positive effects of an explicit instruction of metacognition on fluency and flexibility in terms of the generation of ideas, but not on the originality of ideas. Therefore, we redesigned the instruction with a focus on building up knowledge about creative generation strategies by adding more complex types of association, and adding generation through combination and abstraction. In the present study, we examined the effects of this intervention by comparing it with regular brainstorming instruction. In a pretest-posttest control group design, secondary school students in the comparison condition received the brainstorm lesson and students in the experimental condition received the newly developed instruction lesson. To validate the effects, we replicated this study with a second cohort. The results showed that in both cohorts the strategy instruction of 50 min had positive effects on students' fluency, flexibility and originality. This study implies that instructional support in building up knowledge about creative generation strategies may improve students' creative processes in visual arts education

Medical students’ perception of general practice:a cross-sectional survey

Background: An increase in the demand for general practitioners is expected in many countries, but only a minority of medical students consider a career in general practice. More detailed and up-to-date knowledge about medical student’s perception of general practice would be helpful for efforts to encourage medical students to consider a career in general practice. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional single center survey among Dutch medical students to evaluate their perception of general practice at three different stages in their study: Ba1: first-year bachelor students; Ba3: third-year bachelor students; Ma3: third-year master students. The impact of different factors on their attitudes and perceptions was quantified. A multivariate logistic regression was performed with ‘interest in general practice’ as the outcome variable. Results: The median age for Ba1 was 18 (IQR: 18–19) and 71.5% were female, for Ba3 the median age was 20 (IQR: 20–21) and 70.6% were female and for Ma3 the median age was 25 years (IQR: 24–26) and 73.3% were female. On average, 31.2% of the respondents had a migration background. The mean response rate for this study was 77.1%. Of the participating Ba1 students (n = 340) only 22.4% considered working as a GP after medical school; for Ba3 students (n = 231) this percentage was 33.8%, and for Ma3 students (n = 210) it was significantly higher at 70.5%; in the final multivariate model this corresponded to an odds ratio (OR) of 4.3 (95%-CI:2.6–6.9) compared to Ba1 students. The strongest predictor in the final model was the opinion that general practice provides a pleasant working environment (OR 9.5; 95%-CI: 6.2–14.5). Conclusion: This study showed that multiple factors are significantly related to medical students’ interest in general practice. Although students believed that general practice does not have a high status within the medical profession, they acknowledged the social importance and the pleasant working environment of general practice. Knowledge obtained in this study can be used when designing a medical curriculum or a general practice course.</p

Quantification of perineural satellitosis in pretreatment glioblastoma with structural MRI and a diffusion tensor imaging template

Background Survival outcomes for glioblastoma (GBM) patients remain unfavorable, and tumor recurrence is often observed. Understanding the radiological growth patterns of GBM could aid in improving outcomes. This study aimed to examine the relationship between contrast-enhancing tumor growth direction and white matter, using an image registration and deformation strategy. Methods In GBM patients 2 pretreatment scans (diagnostic and neuronavigation) were gathered retrospectively, and coregistered to a template and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) atlas. The GBM lesions were segmented and coregistered to the same space. Growth vectors were derived and divided into vector populations parallel (Φ = 0–20°) and perpendicular (Φ = 70–90°) to white matter. To test for statistical significance between parallel and perpendicular groups, a paired samples Student’s t-test was performed. O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) methylation status and its correlation to growth rate were also tested using a one-way ANOVA test. Results For 78 GBM patients (mean age 61 years ± 13 SD, 32 men), the included GBM lesions showed a predominant preference for perineural satellitosis (P < .001), with a mean percentile growth of 30.8% (95% CI: 29.6–32.0%) parallel (0° < |Φ| < 20°) to white matter. Perpendicular tumor growth with respect to white matter microstructure (70° < |Φ| < 90°) showed to be 22.7% (95% CI: 21.3–24.1%) of total tumor growth direction. Conclusions The presented strategy showed that tumor growth direction in pretreatment GBM patients correlated with white matter architecture. Future studies with patient-specific DTI data are required to verify the accuracy of this method prospectively to identify its usefulness as a clinical metric in pre and posttreatment settings.publishedVersio