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\"A myth empowers by providing a foundation story of a society, culture or civilization, bringing coherence and meaning to identity and underpinning custom. But 'myth' also carries darker meaning, suggesting ideas or practices that are fallacious or accepted uncritically.This book engages with these possible understandings of myths and uses them to interrogate educational practice and theory in three main areas: online teaching; language teaching; and specific tertiary or university based issues. The focus is on exploring and defining myths across a wide range of contexts and educational sectors. It brings together a broad range of international talent from senior researchers, middle-career and early-career scholars from Britain, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. \"-- Provided by publisher.

Background E-cigarettes are the most-commonly used tobacco product by youth since 2014. To prevent youth access and use of e-cigarettes, many U.S. states and localities have enacted policies over a relatively short period of time. The adoption of these policies has necessitated timely data collection to evaluate impacts. Methods To assess the impact of flavored e-cigarette policies in select states and local jurisdictions across the United States, a multi-method, complementary approach was implemented from July 2019 to present, which includes analyses of cross-sectional online surveys of young people ages 13–24 years with retail sales data. Results From February 2020 through February 2023, cross-sectional surveys have been conducted in three cities, one county, and eight states where policy changes have been enacted or are likely to be enacted. Data collection occurred every six months to provide near real-time data and examine trends over time. Additionally, weekly retail sales data were aggregated to showcase monthly sales trends at the national level and for the selected states. Discussion This rapid and efficient method of coupling online survey data with retail sales data provides a timely and effective approach for monitoring a quickly changing tobacco product landscape, particularly for states and localities where rapidly-available data is often not available. This approach can also be used to monitor other health behaviors and relevant policy impacts.

In this article I briefly describe the main questions related to the design of a tax system and introduce policy evaluation methods that can help us to learn about the effects of different taxes on different outcomes. Then I consider what various responses mean in terms of agents’ behavior and give my view of aspects that are important when tax systems are reformed. Finally I present the results of my PhD dissertation (Harju (2013)) and the contributions of the articles therein one by one, the aim being to offer examples of empirical tax research applying policy evaluation methods.

As a new window of opening up to the outside world in the new era, the establishment of Free Trade Zones (FTZs) in China is an important national strategy for promoting high-quality economic development wherein the prevention and control of pollution is an important hurdle to be surmounted throughout the process. Based on data taken from model cities for environmental protection in China from 2008 to 2017, given the effect of policy spillover, this study considers the establishment of FTZs to be a “quasinatural experiment.” It uses the general analysis paradigm of spatial difference-indifference (DID) to systematically examine the impact of FTZs on air pollution as well as to conduct an in-depth analysis of their spatial heterogeneity and mechanism of action. The study shows that the establishment of FTZs significantly reduces the concentration of air pollutants in cities. If the spatial DID method is adopted to measure the policy spillover effect of the establishment of free trade zones, urban air pollutants declines by 12% to 17%, while the estimated result using the traditional DID method is only 7%. The establishment of FTZs significantly alleviates air pollution in neighboring non-pilot cities as well. Based on the range of the spillover effect from the center of the FTZ, it is found that the average spatial spillover effect presents as an inverted “U” curve as the research radius increases, with an optimal policy spillover effect radius of about 200km, while the policy spillover effect between pilot cities remains poor. The establishment of an FTZ not only improves the local atmospheric environment by promoting industrial structure optimization and green technology innovation in pilot cities but also generates a spillover effect on neighboring non-pilot cities through the same mechanism, thus contributing to improving the atmospheric environment in those non-pilot cities. These findings remain valid following a series of robustness tests such as the spatial parallel trend test and the placebo test. This study offers an answer to the key question of whether free trade zone policy can truly promote high-quality economic development in the new era. It provides useful policy insights for further expanding opening up, winning the battle for the prevention and control of pollution, and promoting the high-quality development of China’s economy.

In many areas, practitioners seek to use observational data to learn a treatment assignment policy that satisfies application-specific constraints, such as budget, fairness, simplicity, or other functional form constraints. For example, policies may be restricted to take the form of decision trees based on a limited set of easily observable individual characteristics. We propose a new approach to this problem motivated by the theory of semiparametrically efficient estimation. Our method can be used to optimize either binary treatments or infinitesimal nudges to continuous treatments, and can leverage observational data where causal effects are identified using a variety of strategies, including selection on observables and instrumental variables. Given a doubly robust estimator of the causal effect of assigning everyone to treatment, we develop an algorithm for choosing whom to treat, and establish strong guarantees for the asymptotic utilitarian regret of the resulting policy.

A practical introduction to epidemiology, biostatistics, and research methodology for the whole health care community This comprehensive text, which has been extensively revised with new material and additional topics, utilizes a practical slant to introduce health professionals and students to epidemiology, biostatistics, and research methodology. It draws examples from a wide range of topics, covering all of the main contemporary health research methods, including survival analysis, Cox regression, and systematic reviews and meta-analysis—the explanation of which go beyond introductory concepts. This second edition of Quantitative Methods for Health Research: A Practical Interactive Guide to Epidemiology and Statistics also helps develop critical skills that will prepare students to move on to more advanced and specialized methods. A clear distinction is made between knowledge and concepts that all students should ensure they understand, and those that can be pursued further by those who wish to do so. Self-assessment exercises throughout the text help students explore and reflect on their understanding. A program of practical exercises in SPSS (using a prepared data set) helps to consolidate the theory and develop skills and confidence in data handling, analysis, and interpretation. Highlights of the book include: * Combining epidemiology and bio-statistics to demonstrate the relevance and strength of statistical methods * Emphasis on the interpretation of statistics using examples from a variety of public health and health care situations to stress relevance and application * Use of concepts related to examples of published research to show the application of methods and balance between ideals and the realities of research in practice * Integration of practical data analysis exercises to develop skills and confidence * Supplementation by a student companion website which provides guidance on data handling in SPSS and study data sets as referred to in the text Quantitative Methods for Health Research, Second Edition is a practical learning resource for students, practitioners and researchers in public health, health care and related disciplines, providing both a course book and a useful introductory reference. 

Background The idea that underlying, generative mechanisms give rise to causal regularities has become a guiding principle across many social and natural science disciplines. A specific form of this enquiry, realist evaluation is gaining momentum in the evaluation of complex social interventions. It focuses on ‘what works, how, in which conditions and for whom’ using context, mechanism and outcome configurations as opposed to asking whether an intervention ‘works’. Realist evaluation can be difficult to codify and requires considerable researcher reflection and creativity. As such there is often confusion when operationalising the method in practice. This article aims to clarify and further develop the concept of mechanism in realist evaluation and in doing so aid the learning of those operationalising the methodology. Discussion Using a social science illustration, we argue that disaggregating the concept of mechanism into its constituent parts helps to understand the difference between the resources offered by the intervention and the ways in which this changes the reasoning of participants. This in turn helps to distinguish between a context and mechanism. The notion of mechanisms ‘firing’ in social science research is explored, with discussions surrounding how this may stifle researchers’ realist thinking. We underline the importance of conceptualising mechanisms as operating on a continuum, rather than as an ‘on/off’ switch. Summary The discussions in this article will hopefully progress and operationalise realist methods. This development is likely to occur due to the infancy of the methodology and its recent increased profile and use in social science research. The arguments we present have been tested and are explained throughout the article using a social science illustration, evidencing their usability and value.

In 2009, the New Teacher Project's The Widget Effect documented the failure of U.S. public school districts to recognize and act on differences in teacher effectiveness. We revisit these findings by compiling teacher performance ratings across 24 states that adopted major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems. In the vast majority of these states, the percentage of teachers rated unsatisfactory remains less than 1%. However, the full distributions of ratings vary widely across states, with 0.7% to 28.7% rated below proficient and 6% to 62% rated above proficient. We present original survey data from an urban district illustrating that evaluators perceive more than 3 times as many teachers in their schools to be below proficient than they rate as such. Interviews with principals reveal several potential explanations for these patterns.

Background The PACE ‘Steps to Success’ programme is a complex educational and development intervention for staff to improve palliative care in long-term care facilities (LTCFs). In a cluster randomized controlled trial, this programme has been implemented in 37 LTCFs in 7 European countries. Alongside an effectiveness study, a process evaluation study was conducted. This paper reports on the results of this process evaluation, of which the aim was to provide a more detailed understanding of the implementation of the PACE Programme across and within countries. Methods The process evaluation followed the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework and involved various measures and tools, including diaries for country trainers, evaluation questionnaires for care staff, attendance lists and interviews (online and face-to-face, individual and in groups) with country trainers, managers, PACE coordinators and other staff members. Based on key elements of the PACE Programme, a priori criteria for a high, medium and low level of the RE-AIM components Reach, Adoption, Implementation and intention to Maintenance were defined. Qualitative data on factors affecting each RE-AIM component gathered in the online discussion groups and interviews were analysed according to the principles of thematic analysis. Results The performance of the PACE Programme on the RE-AIM components was highly variable within and across countries, with a high or medium score for in total 28 (out of 37) LTCFs on Reach, for 26 LTCFs on Adoption, for 35 LTCFs on Implementation and for 34 LTCFs on intention to Maintenance. The factors affecting performance on the different RE-AIM components could be classified into three major categories: (1) the PACE Programme itself and its way of delivery, (2) people working with the PACE Programme and (3) contextual factors. Several country-specific challenges in implementing the PACE Programme were identified. Conclusions The implementation of the PACE Programme was feasible but leaves room for improvement. Our analysis helps to better understand the optimal levels of training and facilitation and provides recommendations to improve implementation in the LTC setting. The results of the process evaluation will be used to further adapt and improve the PACE Programme prior to its further dissemination. Trial registration The PACE study was registered at www.isrctn.com —ISRCTN14741671 (FP7-HEALTH-2013-INNOVATION-1 603111) July 30, 2015.

Background Understanding sustainability is one of the significant implementation science challenges. One of the big challenges in researching sustainability is the lack of consistent definitions in the literature. Most implementation studies do not present a definition of sustainability, even when assessing sustainability. The aim of the current study was to systematically develop a comprehensive definition of sustainability based on definitions already used in the literature. Methods We searched for knowledge syntheses of sustainability and abstracted sustainability definitions from the articles identified through any relevant systematic and scoping reviews. The constructs in the abstracted sustainability definitions were mapped to an existing definition. The comprehensive definition of sustainability was revised to include emerging constructs. Results We identified four knowledge syntheses of sustainability, which identified 209 original articles. Of the 209 articles, 24 (11.5%) included a definition of sustainability. These definitions were mapped to three constructs from an existing definition, and nine new constructs emerged. We reviewed all constructs and created a revised definition: (1) after a defined period of time, (2) a program, clinical intervention, and/or implementation strategies continue to be delivered and/or (3) individual behavior change (i.e., clinician, patient) is maintained; (4) the program and individual behavior change may evolve or adapt while (5) continuing to produce benefits for individuals/systems. All 24 definitions were remapped to the comprehensive definition (percent agreement among three coders was 94%). Of the 24 definitions, 17 described the continued delivery of a program (70.8%), 17 mentioned continued outcomes (70.8%), 13 mentioned time (54.2%), 8 addressed the individual maintenance of a behavior change (33.3%), and 6 described the evolution or adaptation (25.0%). Conclusions We drew from over 200 studies to identify 24 existing definitions of sustainability. Based on these definitions, we identified five key sustainability constructs, which can be used as the basis for future research on sustainability. Our next step is to identify sustainability frameworks and develop a meta-framework using a concept mapping approach to consolidate the factors and considerations across sustainability frameworks.