Stars wept in court docket. Coaches missing their employment. Elite universities saw their reputations stained. And just about four years later, the mastermind of the Varsity Blues plan was sentenced this thirty day period to far more than three a long time in prison.
But there’s tiny belief the higher education bribery scandal has stirred important transform in the admissions landscape. Some schools tweaked guidelines to avert the most flagrant sorts of misconduct, but the outsize roles of wealth, class and race — which have been thrust into public view in stunning plainness — loom as large as ever.
College or university admissions leaders say the circumstance is an anomaly. Corrupt athletics officials abused holes in the system, they argue, but no faculty admissions officers were accused. Even now, critics say the case disclosed further, much more troubling imbalances.
“Privilege is just seriously baked into the procedure in many techniques,” said Julie Park, who scientific studies school admissions and racial equity at the University of Maryland. “At the stop of the day, there’s disproportionate representation of the 1{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} at any private university.”
The scheme alone was brazen, with wealthy mother and father paying to get their children approved to selective universities as pretend athletes. It drew consideration to the strengths these people by now experienced, together with tutors and private consultants. It also highlighted other ways cash can sway admission selections, with edges provided to the relations of donors and alumni.
In court docket, some of the accused mothers and fathers argued their alleged bribes were no unique from donations colleges routinely accept from kinfolk of potential pupils. Records exposed from the College of Southern California showed lists detailing scores of “VIP” candidates, with notes these as “potential donor” or “1 mil pledge.”
Among the mother and father despatched to jail for collaborating in the plan were “Full House” actor Lori Loughlin, her manner designer spouse Mossimo Giannulli, and “Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman.
When authorities declared the initially fees in 2019, it remaining faculties throughout the U.S. scrambling to assessment their very own admissions methods, in particular the place there was overlap with athletics programs. Faculties included layers of scrutiny all-around recruiting, with a sharp eye on reduced-profile sports specific in the plan, this sort of as water polo and rowing.
Asked what has transformed given that then, the universities at the center of the scheme level to a flurry of policies that were adopted inside a couple of months of the arrests.
An inner review at USC observed an ordinary of 12 college students a yr had been recruited for sports activities they did not end up actively playing. Some, but not all, were being tied to the bribery plan. The university blamed it on “one or a little number” of athletics officers who violated university coverage and hid it from the admissions office environment.
Officials at USC reported they started out examining athletic recruits at several levels of administration, like by an business office of athletics compliance, which also begun verifying that recruits actually stop up competing.
Yale University created equivalent changes immediately after a women’s soccer coach acknowledged $860,000 in bribes to get pupils admitted as section of the plan. Yale’s athletic director started reviewing all proposed recruits, the college introduced in 2019, and recruits that never close up on groups now confront “close scrutiny.”
But in the significant picture of Yale’s admissions, “very tiny has adjusted,” mentioned Logan Roberts, a senior at the Ivy League college who came from a very low-income spouse and children in upstate New York. The university denounced the scandal, he claimed, but disregarded deeper troubles that give rich students advantages in admissions.
On campus, he said, students from modest indicates are continue to considerably outnumbered by these who went to personal universities with access to expensive tutors. Roberts and other people have pressed the college to abandon policies that favor wealth, such as preferences for the kids of alumni, but so significantly Yale has resisted alter.
“When revenue and morality clash, funds frequently tends to acquire,” claimed Roberts, 22.
Angel Pérez was the head of admissions at Trinity School in Connecticut when the scandal broke. His faculty wasn’t implicated, but inside of minutes, his telephone was buzzing with texts from colleagues. Could it occur listed here, they puzzled? Trinity reviewed its policies and concluded they were being audio.
In the end, it did minor to adjust the market, mentioned Pérez, who now sales opportunities NACAC, a nationwide association of faculty admissions officers.
“The greater part of institutions identified that they experienced a actually good system and that there wasn’t unethical actions getting spot,” he explained. “This was a circumstance of some bad actors who were being framing themselves as university counselors.”
Nevertheless, he explained, the bribery situation — alongside with the country’s racial reckoning and independent legal battles around affirmative action — stirred debate about the fairness of legacy choices and entrance exams.
“I assume it just woke up the American general public,” he explained.
Right after the Jan. 4 sentencing of scheme mastermind Rick Singer, authorities claimed their function led to reform. The FBI stated faculties reached out asking how they could catch wrongdoing.
Massachusetts U.S. Lawyer Rachael Rollins mentioned it unveiled a “separate higher education admissions system for the wealthy, strong and entitled,” but she also reported it led to “meaningful changes.” She instructed it might have contributed to much more schools producing the SAT and ACT optional, a trend that commenced just before the case but gained steam all through the pandemic.
Others, nevertheless, argue that the scheme was only a symptom of a ailment.
America’s obsession with elite faculties, merged with opaque admissions techniques, has led to desperation between households searching for the best for their children, stated Mark Sklarow, CEO of the Impartial Academic Consultants Affiliation, a nonprofit that signifies personal counselors who assist in the admissions process.
Colleges assistance fuel the frenzy, he stated, by boasting about their at any time-narrowing acceptance rates, all while giving pros to the well-connected.
“Colleges created a procedure that was made to reject much more and extra children,” he explained. “It turned considerably less and fewer clear who received in and who obtained turned down, and I feel that led this era of dad and mom to say, ‘I’ll do whatever it can take to get my kid in.’”
Closing bribery loopholes, he included, does minimal to make admissions a lot more fair.
In the long run, wealth and privilege engage in the very same job in admissions that they did before the scenario, explained Park, of the College of Maryland. So much she sees very little real transform, she reported, with only a modest selection of faculties agreeing to fall legacy choices, for illustration.
“Things have the likely to improve,” she stated. “But is it just heading to be shifting chairs all-around on the Titanic? I don’t know.”
Purpose: This study describes physician assistant students’ perception toward online didactic education and highlights relationships between student characteristics and their preference for online learning.
Methods: A previously validated survey questionnaire was administered online to physician assistant students enrolled in traditional, in-person training programs across the United States. The survey consisted of five Likert-scale statements measuring perceptions of online learning and was rated on a seven-point Likert scale. Students also reported their age, gender, history of taking an online course, and preferred learning style. Mean scores were reported for agreement with each Likert-scale statement; Pearson correlation coefficients, one-way ANOVA with post hoc Tukey tests, and independent samples t-tests were used to determine relationships between student characteristics and their preference for online learning.
Results: A total of 391 completed surveys met the inclusion criteria for the study and were used in data analysis. The average age of respondents was 25.98 years, 81.1{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 317) were female, 96.2{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, (n = 376) reported taking an online course previously, and preferred learning styles were reported as 36.1{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 141) visual, 7.7{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 30) auditory, 15.6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 61) reading/writing, and 40.7{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 159) kinesthetic. Nearly a quarter of respondents indicated they preferred online courses, particularly students with a preferred learning style of reading/writing. No relationships were observed between age, gender, or history of taking an online course and preference for online education.
Conclusion: Most physician assistant students prefer in-person learning. However, a substantial number prefer online learning, and a significant number of these students reported a preferred learning style of reading/writing. More research is necessary to give educational institutions the ability to make data-driven, student-centered program development decisions. However, data in this study indicate a need for continued development of online/hybrid physician assistant programs to better align with current student preferences.
Introduction
Since the inception of the profession in 1965, physician assistants (PAs) have learned to practice medicine through a combination of in-person didactic instruction followed by the completion of supervised clinical practice experiences at affiliated hospitals and clinics. Although this is an effective curriculum delivery method, pioneers in the field have also recently demonstrated the feasibility of hybrid PA education [1]. In the hybrid model, students complete the didactic year predominantly online, followed by traditional, in-person clinical training. Anderson summarized some of the benefits of online medical education [2]. These include fostering the development of self-directed learners [3], enhancing student engagement in the classroom [4], expanding opportunities for interprofessional education experiences [5,6], promoting digital literacy with medical technology [7], widening the instructor pool [7,8], removing barriers to attending PA school [9], repurposing time spent commuting [4], allowing students to live in and learn about the communities where they may one day practice, and helping to close the gap of clinician shortages in underserved areas [10]. The ability to teach didactic content online may also prove beneficial considering recent changes to the educational landscape following the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2)/coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. During this time, remote learning in the didactic year across PA programs increased from 6.4{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} before the pandemic to 96.8{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} during the pandemic [11]. During this time, there has also been increasing program director support for online didactic education in PA programs [12]. Now that online didactic PA education is possible, innovative PA educators should seek to determine what method of curriculum delivery students prefer, and analyze these preferences to help guide future program development decisions.
A review of the current literature indicates an overall preference for traditional in-person education over online learning among health professions students, both within and outside of the PA profession; however, research specific to the PA community is limited. In a 2006 seminal study, Day et al. concluded that PA students preferred in-person over online curriculum delivery [13], and in 2009, York et al. observed that 78{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of PA students enrolled in a web-based evidence-based medicine course stated they would have preferred in-person lectures instead of, or in addition to, online learning [14]. A review of the literature outside of the PA profession yields similar findings [15-17]. Although video-recorded lectures were found to be of equal or more educational value when compared to in-person instruction, Harvard Medical School students continued to attend traditional lectures if given the choice [15]. Hamilton et al. reported that third-year pharmacy students favored a blended educational approach as opposed to an exclusively online course [16]. A study by Bramer et al. also found that United Kingdom nursing students preferred a balanced mixture of online and face-to-face learning and did not feel that online learning should replace traditional teaching [17].
Further research is needed to explore the current preferences of didactic PA students regarding in-person versus online education to ensure PA program development decisions are student-centered, evidence-based, and data-driven. This is especially important considering the number of new PA programs in development and the number of existing programs that are adapting their curricula to combat current and evolving barriers to medical education. The current study sought to narrow this information gap by determining the curriculum delivery preferences of currently enrolled didactic PA students. Participants were also asked to report their age, gender, history of taking an online course, and preferred learning styles to determine if an association existed between any of these factors and their preference for online education.
Materials & Methods
Study description
This was a cross-sectional survey study. Risks were minimal and consisted of time lost by students to complete the survey and the potential loss of confidentiality among participants. To mitigate these risks, the survey was designed to be completed in fewer than five minutes, participation was a one-time endeavor with no follow-up, and no personally identifiable information was collected. The primary benefit of the study was insight into the preferences of didactic PA students regarding their preferred curriculum delivery method. This could help current and future programs plan the instructional design of their curriculum. The study proposal was reviewed and approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of A.T. Still University, Mesa, Arizona, United States (approval number: 2021-174), and secondary approval was given by Franklin Pierce University, Rindge, New Hampshire, United States (protocol number: 08252021) for exempt status prior to data collection.
Study sample
The Physician Assistant Education Association (PAEA) Program Report 35 reported that the maximum capacity enrollment of didactic students in PA programs across the United States was 11,299 [18]. According to a sample size estimator by Qualtrics (Seattle, Washington, and Provo, Utah, United States), 372 individuals from this population needed to be sampled to adequately represent the target population [19]. Inclusion criteria for participation were as follows: students had to be at least 18 years old, be enrolled in a currently accredited PA Program in the United States, and be in their didactic phase of study. Students at the Yale PA online program were excluded from participation as the principal investigator felt they may reasonably have a favorable bias toward online education. The principal investigator currently works for Franklin Pierce University and has previously been employed by the University of South Alabama; therefore, students from these institutions were also excluded to limit participation bias.
Survey design and distribution
A previously validated survey instrument from O’Malley et al. [20] regarding perceptions of online education was adapted for use in the study, with the author’s permission. The adapted survey consisted of two questions to identify eligibility criteria, five Likert-scale questions regarding student perception of online education, and four student characteristic/demographic questions: (i) age, (ii) gender, (iii) history of taking an online course previously, and (iv) preferred VARK (visual, auditory, reading/writing, kinesthetic) learning style [21]. An alphabetical list of currently accredited PA programs by state from the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA) website was used to determine which programs to target for student recruitment [22]. The program director for the first accredited program listed for each state was sent a recruitment email asking whether they would offer participation to their didactic students. Those who agreed were asked to forward a standardized student-specific recruitment email to their currently enrolled didactic students that described the study’s purpose, risks, and benefits, and informed students that participation was voluntary, and completion of the survey was considered their consent to participate. The email also provided a link to the survey should they wish to complete it. If no response was received from a program director after one week, the recruitment email was sent for a second and final time. At the end of every two-week period, the next accredited program listed on the ARC-PA website for each state was contacted. This process continued, every two weeks, until the needed sample size of 372 qualified surveys was completed.
Data collection, storage, and analysis
Data were collected from September through December 2021. Both ordinal and nominal (categorical) data were collected and stored on the SurveyMonkey platform (Momentive Inc., Waterford, New York). Following data collection, descriptive (frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, and confidence intervals) and comparative statistics were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 28.0 (Released 2021, Armonk, New York). To determine if a correlation existed between age and preference for online education, a Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated for each Likert-scale statement; p-values less than .05 were used to determine statistical significance. A one-way ANOVA test was used to compare means among Likert-scale statements according to the four different preferred learning styles of participants; p-values less than .05 were used to determine statistical significance. Post hoc Tukey tests were then conducted to determine pairwise differences between the preferred learning styles for each Likert-scale statement; p-values less than .05 were used to determine statistical significance. Independent samples t-tests were used to determine if there was a significant difference in mean Likert-scale scores between genders or between those who had taken an online course previously versus those who had not; because multiple t-tests were conducted, the criterion for statistical significance was adjusted downward to a p-value less than 0.1 to control for alpha inflation in accordance with the Bonferroni correction.
Results
PA program participation and student characteristics
The researchers did not directly access the study sample (didactic PA students), which instead had to be recruited to the study by PA program directors of invited programs. Therefore, the total number of student participants who received the survey was unknown and an accurate response rate could not be calculated. Approximately 35{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (50/141) of PA programs invited to the study responded to the email request, and 32{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (45/141) opted to participate. These programs represented didactic PA students across 31 states. At the conclusion of data collection, 472 surveys were received, of which 391 were complete, met inclusion criteria for the study, and were subsequently used for data analysis. The average age of the study sample was 25.98 years (range = 21-51 years). Gender was reported as 18.4{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 72) male, 81.1{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 317) female, 0.3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 1) gender non-binary, and 0.3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 1) preferred not to answer. Most participants (96.2{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, n = 376) reported taking an online course previously. The distribution of preferred learning styles of the sample was 36.1{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 141) visual, 7.7{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 30) auditory, 15.6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 61) reading/writing, and 40.7{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 159) kinesthetic (hands-on).
Participant preferences for online education
Table 1 reports the study participants’ agreement and disagreement with statements pertaining to their perception of online education. Most students disagreed to some degree (strongly disagreed, disagreed, or somewhat disagreed) with four out of the five Likert-scale statements studied; 76.5{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 299) disagreed with the statement “Most people believe that online learning is more effective than traditional methodologies”, 72.4{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 283) disagreed with the statement “In a course with both traditional and online methodologies, I learn better through the online portion”, 69.4{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 271) disagreed with the statement “I prefer online courses to traditional courses”, and 59{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 231) disagreed with the statement “I believe that I can learn the same amount in an online course as in a traditional course.” In contrast, most students (56.5{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, n = 221) agreed to some degree (strongly agreed, agreed, or somewhat agreed) with the statement “I believe that I can make the same grade in an online course as in a traditional course.”
Likert-scale Statement
Strongly Disagree, n ({e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf})
Disagree, n ({e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf})
Somewhat Disagree, n ({e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf})
Neither Agree nor Disagree, n ({e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf})
Somewhat Agree, n ({e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf})
Agree, n ({e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf})
Strongly Agree, n ({e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf})
Most people believe that online learning is more effective than traditional methodologies.
96 (24.6)
125 (32.0)
78 (19.9)
29 (7.4)
39 (10.0)
14 (3.6)
10 (2.6)
In a course with both traditional and online methodologies, I learn better through the online portion.
104 (26.6)
117 (29.9)
62 (15.9)
35 (9.0)
29 (7.4)
27 (6.9)
17 (4.3)
I prefer online courses to traditional courses.
116 (29.7)
96 (24.6)
59 (15.1)
27 (6.9)
41 (10.5)
25 (6.4)
27 (6.9)
I believe that I can learn the same amount in an online course as in a traditional course.
74 (18.9)
83 (21.2)
74 (18.9)
22 (5.6)
55 (14.1)
48 (12.3)
35 (9.0)
I believe that I can make the same grade in an online course as in a traditional course.
41 (10.5)
48 (12.3)
42 (10.7)
39 (10.0)
67 (17.1)
101 (25.8)
53 (13.6)
Table
1: Levels of Agreement with Likert-scale Statements Regarding Perception of Online Education
n, number of participants
Relationships between participant characteristics and their preferences for online education
Age
One survey respondent was omitted from analysis due to an erroneous input of their age (“2t”) which could not be validated. As reported in Table 2, no significant correlation was observed between age and preference for online education.
Likert-scale Statement
What is your current age?
n
Pearson Correlation
p-value
Most people believe that online learning is more effective than traditional methodologies.
390
0.02
0.66
In a course with both traditional and online methodologies, I learn better through the online format.
390
0.09
0.07
I prefer online courses to traditional courses.
390
0.06
0.23
I believe that I can learn the same amount in an online course as in a traditional course.
390
0.03
0.56
I believe that I can make the same grade in an online course as in a traditional course.
390
0.01
0.79
Table
2: Correlation of Likert-scale Statements with Age
n, number of participants
Gender
Only male and female genders were used in the analysis as these categories made up 99.49{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the sample. As reported in Table 3, no significant relationship existed between gender and preference for online education.
Statement
Gender
n
Mean
Standard Deviation
t
df
Two-sided p-value
Mean Difference
95{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Bound
Upper Bound
Most people believe that online learning is more effective than traditional methodologies.
Male
72
2.64
1.50
-0.16
387
0.87
-0.03
-0.43
0.37
Female
317
2.67
1.56
In a course with both traditional and online methodologies, I learn better through the online format.
Male
72
2.72
1.68
-0.31
387
0.76
-0.07
0.23
-0.52
Female
317
2.79
1.75
I prefer online courses to traditional courses.
Male
72
2.89
1.84
-0.09
387
0.93
-0.02
-0.51
0.47
Female
317
2.91
1.92
I believe that I can learn the same amount in an online course as in a traditional course.
Male
72
3.58
2.07
0.59
387
0.56
0.15
-0.36
0.66
Female
317
3.43
1.95
I believe that I can make the same grade in an online course as in a traditional course.
Male
72
4.33
2.06
-0.44
387
0.66
-0.11
-0.61
0.39
Female
317
4.44
1.93
Table
3: T-test Comparison of Likert-scale Scales by Gender
n, number of participants; t, independent sample t-test; df, degrees of freedom.
History of Taking an Online Course Previously
As reported in Table 4, no significant relationship existed between taking an online course previously and preference for online education.
Statement
Online Course Previously
n
Mean
Standard Deviation
t
df
Two-sided p-value
Mean Difference
95{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Bound
Upper Bound
Most people believe that online learning is more effective than traditional methodologies.
Yes
376
2.66
1.53
-0.74
14.58
0.47
-0.41
-1.59
0.77
No
15
3.07
2.12
In a course with both traditional and online methodologies, I learn better through the online format.
Yes
376
2.77
1.71
-0.79
14.56
0.45
-0.50
-1.85
0.86
No
15
3.27
2.43
I prefer online courses to traditional courses.
Yes
376
2.90
1.88
-0.61
389
0.54
-0.30
-1.29
0.68
No
15
3.20
2.31
I believe that I can learn the same amount in an online course as in a traditional course.
Yes
376
3.44
1.96
-1.86
389
0.06
-0.96
-1.98
0.06
No
15
4.40
2.20
I believe that I can make the same grade in an online course as in a traditional course.
Yes
376
4.38
1.94
-2.74
15.53
0.02
-1.22
-2.17
-0.27
No
15
5.60
1.68
Table
4: T-test Comparison of Likert-scale Statements by History of Taking an Online Course Previously
n, number of participants; t, independent sample t-test; df, degrees of freedom.
Preferred Learning Style
As reported in Table 5, the highest mean score (most agreement) for each Likert-scale statement was observed with those who selected reading/writing as their preferred learning style; four out of the five differences in means reached statistical significance. There were also statistically significant findings on the pairwise analysis of the different learning styles (Table 6).
Likert-scale Statement
Visual
n
Mean
Standard Deviation
95{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} confidence interval for mean
p-value
Lower Bound
Upper Bound
Most people believe that online learning is more effective than traditional methodologies.
Visual
141
2.75
1.49
2.50
3.00
0.04
Auditory
30
2.70
1.70
2.06
3.34
Reading/Writing
61
3.08
1.80
2.62
3.54
Kinesthetic
159
2.44
1.44
2.21
2.67
In a course with both traditional and online methodologies, I learn better through the online format.
Visual
141
2.84
1.71
2.56
3.13
0.02
Auditory
30
2.77
1.87
2.07
3.46
Reading/Writing
61
3.33
2.07
2.80
3.86
Kinesthetic
159
2.53
1.56
2.29
2.78
I prefer online courses to traditional courses.
Visual
141
3.01
1.83
2.71
3.32
0.01
Auditory
30
2.73
1.91
2.02
3.45
Reading/Writing
61
3.56
2.25
2.98
4.13
Kinesthetic
159
2.60
1.75
2.32
2.87
I believe that I can learn the same amount in an online course as in a traditional course.
Visual
141
3.57
1.99
3.24
3.90
0.55
Auditory
30
3.57
1.96
2.83
4.30
Reading/Writing
61
3.66
2.06
3.13
4.18
Kinesthetic
159
3.30
1.94
3.00
3.61
I believe that I can make the same grade in an online course as in a traditional course.
Visual
141
4.43
1.97
4.10
4.75
0.04
Auditory
30
4.47
2.13
3.67
5.26
Reading/Writing
61
5.03
1.75
4.58
5.48
Kinesthetic
159
4.19
1.93
3.89
4.49
Table
5: One-way ANOVA of Likert-scale Statements with Preferred Learning Styles
n, number of participants
Likert-scale Statement
Preferred Learning Style (a)
Preferred Learning Style (b)
Mean difference
(a-b)
95{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} confidence interval for mean
p-value
Lower Bound
Upper Bound
Most people believe that online learning is more effective than traditional methodologies.
Visual
Auditory
0.05
-0.75
0.85
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.33
-0.94
0.28
0.50
Kinesthetic
0.31
-0.15
0.77
0.30
Auditory
Visual
-0.05
-0.85
0.75
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.38
-1.27
0.50
0.68
Kinesthetic
0.26
-0.53
1.05
0.83
Reading/Writing
Visual
0.33
-0.28
0.94
0.50
Auditory
0.38
-0.50
1.27
0.68
Kinesthetic
0.64
0.04
1.24
0.03
Kinesthetic
Visual
-0.31
-0.77
0.15
0.30
Auditory
-0.26
-1.05
0.53
0.83
Reading/Writing
-0.64
-1.24
-0.04
0.03
In a course with both traditional and online methodologies, I learn better through the online format.
Visual
Auditory
0.08
-0.82
0.97
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.48
-1.17
0.20
0.26
Kinesthetic
0.31
-0.21
0.82
0.41
Auditory
Visual
-0.08
-0.97
0.82
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.56
-1.55
0.43
0.46
Kinesthetic
0.23
-0.65
1.12
0.91
Reading/Writing
Visual
0.48
-0.20
1.17
0.26
Auditory
0.56
-0.43
1.55
0.46
Kinesthetic
0.79
0.12
1.46
0.01
Kinesthetic
Visual
-0.31
-0.82
0.21
0.41
Auditory
-0.23
-1.12
0.65
0.91
Reading/Writing
-0.79
-1.46
-0.12
0.01
I prefer online courses to traditional courses.
Visual
Auditory
0.28
-0.69
1.25
0.88
Reading/Writing
-0.54
-1.28
0.20
0.23
Kinesthetic
0.42
-0.14
0.98
0.22
Auditory
Visual
-0.28
-1.25
0.69
0.88
Reading/Writing
-0.82
-1.90
0.26
0.20
Kinesthetic
0.16
-0.83
1.10
0.98
Reading/Writing
Visual
0.54
-0.20
1.28
0.23
Auditory
0.82
-0.26
1.90
0.20
Kinesthetic
0.96
0.23
1.69
0.00
Kinesthetic
Visual
-0.42
-0.98
0.14
0.22
Auditory
-0.14
-1.10
0.83
0.98
Reading/Writing
-0.96
-1.69
-0.23
0.00
I believe that I can learn the same amount in an online course as in a traditional course.
Visual
Auditory
0.00
-1.03
1.03
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.09
-0.87
0.69
0.99
Kinesthetic
0.27
-0.33
0.86
0.65
Auditory
Visual
-0.00
-1.03
1.03
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.09
-1.23
1.05
1.00
Kinesthetic
0.26
-0.75
1.28
0.91
Reading/Writing
Visual
0.09
-0.69
0.87
0.99
Auditory
0.09
-1.05
1.23
1.00
Kinesthetic
0.35
-0.42
1.12
0.64
Kinesthetic
Visual
-0.27
-0.86
0.33
0.65
Auditory
-0.26
-1.28
0.75
0.91
Reading/Writing
-0.35
-1.12
0.42
0.64
I believe that I can make the same grade in an online course as in a traditional course.
Visual
Auditory
-0.04
-1.04
0.96
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.61
-1.37
0.16
0.17
Kinesthetic
0.24
-0.34
0.81
0.72
Auditory
Visual
0.04
-0.96
1.04
1.00
Reading/Writing
-0.57
-1.68
0.55
0.56
Kinesthetic
0.28
-0.72
1.27
0.89
Reading/Writing
Visual
0.61
-0.16
1.37
0.17
Auditory
0.57
-0.55
1.68
0.56
Kinesthetic
0.84
0.09
1.60
0.02
Kinesthetic
Visual
-0.24
-0.81
0.34
0.72
Auditory
-0.28
-1.27
0.72
0.89
Reading/Writing
-0.84
-1.60
-0.09
0.02
Table
6: Tukey Post Hoc Pairwise Analysis of Preferred Learning Styles
Discussion
Purpose and major findings
The PA educational community has endured many challenges and evolved significantly over the last few years. Due to the unfortunate COVID-19 global pandemic, almost every PA program across the country quickly discovered its ability to implement didactic curriculum online and continue the education of PA students at a time when clinicians were crucially needed [23]. Academic administrators, faculty, students, and other stakeholders must now decide what role hybrid PA programs have in the future of PA education. Perceptions of PA students toward online learning should be considered in this discussion; determining these perceptions was the purpose of this study.
Most pre-COVID-19 studies show that health professions students generally prefer in-person over online education [13-17], and the results of the current study align with those findings. However, the current study also reveals a significant number of PA students who do prefer learning in an online environment. Despite the majority of participants (69.31{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}, n = 271) preferring traditional courses, the survey nevertheless identified 23.79{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 93) who preferred online learning. Furthermore, as the sample population did not include students from programs that currently use online programming as a major component of their curriculum [2], the preference for online education of the entire PA student population may be slightly higher than reported here. The current study also provides insight into the type of student who may prefer learning online. Interestingly, data analysis showed no correlation between age and students’ preference for online education. Similarly, there were no significant relationships between gender or having previously taken an online course and preference for online education. However, a statistically significant relationship did exist between self-reported preferred learning styles and preference for online learning. Although only 15.6{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} (n = 61) of the sample reported their preferred learning style as reading/writing, this group had the most agreement with all Likert-scale statements favoring online education; four out of five of these results were statistically significant.
Relevance of findings
A substantial interest among PA students in online didactic education is not surprising considering other recent studies of medical students in a post-COVID-19 educational environment. Stoehr et al. collected cross-sectional data from 3,286 medical students across 12 countries [24]. In their study, 91{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of participants agreed that lecture-style education was a suitable teaching concept for online learning, 97{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} indicated they had the devices required for online learning, 80{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} felt comfortable using the software required for online learning, 76{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} felt well prepared for online learning, and 62{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} reported being happy with the quality of online courses [24]. Another post-COVID-19 study of 64 medical students at a United States-based allopathic medical school that moved the entire pre-clinical curriculum to a virtual format during the pandemic demonstrated that 70.3{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of students reported an unchanged or improved overall medical education in a virtual course module compared to a previous module that was taught in a traditional face-to-face setting [25]. Furthermore, a recent systematic review of 24 studies measuring medical student satisfaction with e-learning during the pandemic indicated that 51.8{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of the 15,473 medical students studied were satisfied [26].
Study limitations
A potential limitation to this study is that it was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic and perceptions of online education may have been influenced by either positive or negative experiences encountered during this turbulent time in medical education. Furthermore, the study was not experimental in nature and, therefore, could not control for other variables that may have influenced student perception of online PA education, such as the quality of instructional design and the types of resources made available to students at different institutions. Another limitation was that students were asked to self-report their VARK [21] learning style instead of completing the VARK questionnaire, and students were limited in their selection to only a single preferred learning style. Other limitations to this study are those inherent to survey-based research, including an inability to clarify study questions if needed and not allowing respondents to further explain their answers beyond predetermined survey selections.
Conclusions
Most didactic PA students (69.31{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}) prefer traditional in-person education over online learning. However, the number of didactic PA students that do prefer online learning (23.79{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf}) is also substantial. If we generalize these findings to the 11,299 maximum enrollment slots available per the last PAEA Program Report, there are potentially 2,689 students who may benefit from online/hybrid PA education. Despite these findings, only three out of the 282 currently accredited PA programs are designed to offer a significant portion of their curriculum in an online/hybrid format. Although more research is needed regarding hybrid PA education, based on the findings of this study, the researchers recommend more institutions consider exploring and/or piloting this type of program delivery. Future studies may consider determining the characteristics and preferred learning styles of students who decide to apply to online/hybrid PA programs and how a student’s preferred learning style relates to their satisfaction with, and success in, an online PA educational environment.
In 2021, as aspect of the current Training Analytics Provider (EAS) review sequence, the Australian Authorities and ACER gathered empirical, qualitative and true-time proof of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on instructing procedures and college student learning in Lao PDR, Vanuatu and Timor-Leste.
Details was collected through a series of in-depth interviews with instructors, college principals and pedagogical help advisers throughout 3 critical places: duration of teaching disruption how the disruption impacted training and the styles of aid provided to academics throughout the disruption.
Widespread conclusions across all 3 international locations incorporated:
principals, teachers and moms and dads been given restricted direction from their governments on how to assure mastering continuity in the course of the pandemic
constrained accessibility to telecommunications infrastructure (on the net/Television/radio) meant several students and instructors could not access govt courses from dwelling
productive implementation of property mastering relied on parental assistance that was typically restricted
academics struggled to give remedial assistance to learners when courses resumed as not all learners professional a uniform understanding experience at residence
‘Early investigate on the instruction impacts of the pandemic typically focused on estimating the extent of finding out decline,’ explains Jeaniene Spink, Study Director for Education and learning and Development at ACER.
‘But the EAS research series presented the possibility to acquire perspectives from a huge array of instruction stakeholders on the immense problems of transitioning and adapting to property finding out all through extended emergencies. Among other results, we found out that the function mother and father engage in in thriving residence understanding are unable to be underestimated, although the aid mothers and fathers need to do this very well is generally disregarded.’
Exclusive to the Vanuatu research was the inclusion of parent focus-group discussions. These emphasis groups requested mother and father about how they perceived their children’s education was impacted by the COVID-19 disruption and how they as mother and father and/or caregivers ended up supported in helping their kids with household schooling.
The EAS examine collection located that there have been numerous motives that moms and dads have been not able to assist their young children with house discovering, which includes small levels of literacy amid mom and dad, time availability and a lack of assistance from colleges. For instance, in Vanuatu, rather than relying on patchy telecommunications infrastructure, faculties presented learners with ‘home packages’ of self-contained functions to make certain they had been capable to continue on the curriculum. Nonetheless, moms and dads reported that they struggled to guidance their children’s household learning mainly because of work commitments and troubles in comprehending the dwelling deals.
Limitations in conversation meant that instructors could not deliver normal support to mother and father. These boundaries experienced a knock-on outcome in all 3 countries, with teachers reporting that they confronted steep issues in helping students capture up with lessons the moment encounter-to-experience courses resumed.
A different discovering from the analyze was that academics wanted help to deliver successful remedial guidance. For instance, in Lao PDR, very few academics interviewed claimed examining students when classes resumed. Academics recurring lessons to test and protect the curriculum missed for the duration of the faculty closure period of time, but reported that learners failed classroom jobs, struggled with the pace of the curriculum and course attendance was an issue.
’Without determining the discovering gaps of each university student, transitioning back to school is that a great deal more challenging,’ notes Spink. ’We require to develop new strategies that will empower instructors to provide efficient remedial assistance to learners soon after crises, and that commences with building the ability of instructors to execute classroom-centered assessments.’
Peer aid networks had been a lifeline for quite a few academics in the course of lockdown periods. In Timor-Leste, teachers pointed out that the extended-operating peer guidance community, supported by the Australian Government, was an critical outlet to share tales on how to adapt to disruptions and solution issues of remedial guidance in the classroom.
’Peer help networks are vital avenues for mentors and principals to connect with lecturers, but also for ongoing experienced understanding,’ emphasises Spink. ’Building and maintaining peer networks for teachers should really be a precedence for governments as they prepare for the subsequent crisis to occur.’
Last year, health officials in Seattle decided to stop requiring bicyclists to wear helmets. Independent research found that nearly half of Seattle’s helmet tickets in recent years went to unhoused people, while Black and Native American cyclists in the city were four times and two times more likely, respectively, than white cyclists to be cited.
Whether people should wear helmets was not the motivation behind the repeal, King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay said at the time. “The question is whether a helmet law that is enforced by police, on balance, produces results that outweigh the harms the law creates.” For lawmakers, the answer was clear: The potential benefits of a helmet mandate were not worth the harms it did to marginalized Seattle residents.
But some local bike advocates argued that there was a second advantage: Repealing the law could make riding more safe. Helmet mandates intimidate potential riders, they argued, by framing cycling as an activity so dangerous it necessitates body armor. That, in turn, can suppress ridership, and take away the safety benefits of riding in numbers. The more bicyclists take up space on the road, the more visible they become to drivers. And as cars more regularly contend with bikes, the more consideration bikes will get in conversations about transit safety and road infrastructure.
Other jurisdictions have done away with their helmet mandates too: In 2020 Tacoma, Washington, repealed its requirement; in 2014 Dallas did the same for adults. These repeals push back at the notion that bike safety starts and ends with helmets and suggest that helmet laws might actually pose a risk to cyclists. Now some avid cyclists are going so far as to loudly proclaim forgoing helmets on principle.
I feel unsafe, always, on my bicycle—and for soundreason.
I have been a bike commuter in every city I’ve lived in as an adult, including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Columbus, and New York City. I travel on two wheels for the exercise and fresh air, for environmental reasons, and for independent, efficient mobility.
In exchange, I feel unsafe, always, on my bicycle—and for sound reason. I’ve gotten doored in Times Square. I’m forced to weave in and out of bike lanes to avoid the vehicles that constantly park and loiter there. I hold my breath when a passing truck leaves only a few inches between my shivery flesh and its metal flanks.
I do what I can to protect myself. I use front and rear lights. I gravitate toward roads with designated bike lanes. I signal turns with my arms and ding my handlebar bells to attract the attention of inattentive drivers. And I never, ever leave home without my neon yellow helmet.
But as with many cyclists and lawmakers, I’ve increasingly found myself wondering: How much does my helmet help me, really? Are there costs to our single-minded devotion to it?
In the past 50 years, as helmet designs have become more sophisticated, adult cycling deaths in the United States have not declined—they’ve quadrupled. As I dug into the history of these humble foam-and-plastic shells, I learned that helmets have a far more complicated relationship to bike safety than many seem ready to admit.
In 1883 the League of American Wheelmen paraded in Manhattan to celebrate the group’s third anniversary.
At the time, the penny-farthing’s supersized front wheel offered more cycling efficiency than its predecessor, the velocipede—and also threatened taller falls for riders. Face-dives were a common hazard. A significant-enough number of American Wheelmen took “headers” during their Fifth Avenue procession for the New York Times to notice: “Twenty bicycles were broken in this process but no one suffered anything worse than a good shaking,” the paper remarked.
As mass production made bicycles cheaper and more commonplace, the need for head protection grew increasingly obvious. Cyclists’ earliest choice was a single-use, plant-based pith helmet (basically, a safari hat) that broke upon impact. Next up, a leather halo padded with wool or cotton—referred to as a “hairnet”—did little more than protect a cyclist’s ears and face “from dragging the ground when sliding across pavement,” as the product review website Gearist put it.
It wasn’t until 1975 that the first modern bike helmet, the “Bell Biker,” emerged, with an expanded polystyrene liner and stiff plastic shell. The modern helmet, unlike its predecessors, was designed to cushion collision impacts, absorbing shock so the human head didn’t. This made it potentially lifesaving in slow-speed crashes—for example, if a biker hit a pothole and flew off the handles. “The primary way they protect your head is by their own self-destruction,” said David Halstead, a biomechanical engineer at the University of Tennessee and founder of the Southern Impact Research Center, a private testing company. “I would never ride without one.”
The “bicycle boom” was underway, with an estimated 60 million bikes in use by 1972—a trend kindled by an increase in environmental consciousness, a national energy crisis, and the growing popularity of physical fitness. Though helmets had not yet emerged as bike safety’s primary symbol, their design evolved. They became lighter, thanks to polyethylene terephthalate (or PET, as in a soda bottle or clamshell plastic) and other novel, thin-but-strong plastics. New nylon straps and plastic buckles helped keep everything in place.
Not long after, fueled by concern about head injuries among bike-riding children, jurisdictions around the country began implementing the first mandatory helmet laws for minors. By the 1980s, as scholars have chronicled, cycling advocates, news outlets, and medical literature alike encouraged widespread helmet use. “I am alive today because I was wearing a helmet,” New York state’s bicycle coordinator told the New York Times in 1986 about his collision with a taxicab years prior. In 1999 the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission voted unanimously to create mandatory federal safety standards for bike helmets.
Those standards require that helmet manufacturers evaluate their product’s safety performance by dropping a helmeted dummy head made of magnesium about 6.5 feet onto a variety of steel anvils. Accelerometers and gyroscopes inside the dummy measure the impact’s kinetics. The drop test lasts less than two seconds total; the impact itself happens in a third of the time it takes to blink.
You can’t predict a bicycle accident the way you can expect collisions in a footballgame.
This test, while crude, partially captures the dangers to an unprotected head, which can suffer a life-threatening skull or intracranial fracture after falling from a height of just 18 inches. “The energy’s got to go somewhere—it can be your head, or your helmet,” said Steve Rowson, a biomechanical engineer and director of Virginia Tech’s Helmet Lab, which aims to decrease the incidence of injuries, and in particular concussions, in everything from sports to military contexts.
But lab tests of helmeted dummies in vertical free fall do not capture how most people hit their heads while bicycling.
Studying “real world”–like bike crashes in an artificial setting is itself a scientific challenge. You can’t predict a bicycle crash the way you can expect collisions in a football game, for example; there are simply more variables on the road than on a playing field. (To get around this, Rowson’s lab reverse-engineers the dynamic by acquiring helmets from real bike crashes, CT scanning them to create 3D models of the damage, and replicating crash conditions such as velocity, angle of impact, and surface conditions by plastering the drop-test anvil with adhesive sandpaper and other materials to imitate asphalt or gravel roads.)
Lab tests also fail to capture a whole body in motion, which some experts argue underestimates impact forces. It’s rare in the real world for someone to fall directly onto the top of their head; hitting the ground somewhere between a 30-degree and 60-degree angle is far more typical.
And standard drop tests, critically, don’t factor in the rotational forces at play as a rider falls not only down but forward. These forces—which are akin to bouncing a bobblehead—have been long associated with life-threatening or disabling traumatic brain injury. Among sports-related concussions, including contact sports, “cycling’s normally near the top of the list,” Rowson said. In recent years, helmet manufacturers have developed new “anti-concussion” technologies to reduce rotational forces’ impact on the head; experts are divided about the extent of this extra protection.
Outside the lab, researchers struggle to study the population-level protection conferred by bicycle helmets.
“The data around bicyclist crashes is very limited,” said Elise Omaki, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. It’s also often incomplete or biased.
Most crash data come from traffic-safety monitoring systems that happen to catch motor-vehicle-related bike injuries and fatalities. Medical records from bike-crash victims focus on diagnosis, treatment, and outcome, while typically leaving out details of the circumstances of the crash itself; they also fail to capture people who cycle without ever needing medical attention. Insurance claims and police reports catalog some bicycle crashes, but miss plenty: One study by San Francisco’s public health department found that 39 percent of bicyclists who required ambulance transport were not documented in police records. The United States can’t even accurately tally overall bike helmet use.
In this absence, several meta-analyses have pooled together existing studies to gauge the protective effect of bike helmets.
One—a roundup of 55 studies between 1989 and 2017—found that helmet use reduced serious head injury by 60 percent, mild head injury and traumatic brain injury by about 50 percent, and the total number of seriously injured or killed cyclists by 34 percent. But its author, Alena Høye, a traffic-safety researcher at the Institute of Transport Economics in Norway, had some major caveats. For one, Høye pointed out, helmets offer more injury protection in single-bicycle crashes. “Bicycle helmets have only limited potential to protect from serious head injury in high energy impacts or when a cyclist is overrun by a motor vehicle,” she wrote. Høye also noted that many studies concluding that people who wear helmets are less likely to suffer a head injury don’t account for the simple fact that helmet-wearers may be more generally cautious. (The opposite is true too: Non-helmeted cyclists are more often under the influence of alcohol or riding without light in the dark, and are more likely to be involved in single bicycle crashes.)
Epidemiologists who have studied mandatory helmet laws have drawn mixed conclusions, with some showing a reduction in overall head injury rates and others suggesting that those trends may be better explained by improvements to cycling infrastructure, as well as educational safety campaigns that provide free helmets or teach defensive-biking techniques.
More than a decade ago, Ian Walker, an environmental psychologist at Swansea University in the U.K., set out to study the effect of helmets on drivers.
His experimentalseries involved riding around in a variety of cycling outfits, including a “long feminine wig” meant to stand in for female riders, a stereotypical spandex cyclist suit, and a vest embossed with “Novice Cyclist.” In each, Walker measured how much space passing cars afforded each rider “type.”
Walker—who was struck by buses and trucks alike during his research—found that traffic passed significantly closer when he rode farther from the road’s edge, and that it gave more space to “female” riders (again, Walker in a wig). Notably, Walker discovered, motorists and commercial truck drivers in particular afforded less space—not more—to helmeted cyclists. In his second experiment, the only outfit that widened the average passing distance granted by motorists was a vest that prominently featured the word “Police” and warned that the rider was video-recording their journey.
Helmets, we know at the very least, are not an adequate safeguard for protecting riders from the most dangerous threat they’ll encounter on the road.
Cyclists are statistically more likely to die in urban areas, if alcohol is involved, and if they are male. In 2020 two-thirds of bicyclist deaths in the United States occurred in motor-vehicle traffic crashes, according to National Center for Health Statistics mortality data. That year, 938 cyclists were killed in traffic crashes, up almost 100 deaths from the year before; in 5 out of every 6 crashes with a single vehicle, the car, truck, or bus first hit the cyclist from behind—likely without spotting the rider until it was too late.
“Looking at helmets as a solution is very shortsighted,” said Alison Dewey, the League of American Bicyclists’ education director. “It’s like a tertiary, or even farther down of a level, to keep you safe.”
After a drunk driver going 60 mph in his 3,500-pound BMW hit and killed cyclist Eric Ng, the New York Times pointed out that he had been helmetless. “Mentioning whether or not Eric wore a helmet is akin to blaming an egg for cracking against a pan,” wrote Ng’s friend and journalist Jessie Singer in their 2022 book There Are No Accidents. Cycling advocates have long argued that finger-wagging over helmet use unfairly shifts blame onto the most vulnerable people on the road instead of targeting risks at their source.
“What’s really kind of lurking over everything is that you are exposed to danger from private motor vehicles,” said Robert Davis, chair of the U.K.-based cycling advocacy group Road Danger Reduction Forum. “You go out there and it’s your job to watch out. It’s your job to grab hold of some product.”
From a zoomed-out perspective, helmets are simply not the road-safety panacea we want them to be. Several analyses suggest that U.S. riders are more likely to wear helmets compared with cyclists in other countries—all while suffering the highest fatality rate per distance traveled. Research shows that among a 14-country cohort, the Netherlands enjoyed the lowest bicyclist fatality rate per mile traveled. The Dutch also largely eschew the helmet: 73 percent of adults and 84 percent of children in the Netherlands report they never wear a helmet while bicycling. There’s a simple reason for that. Surveys show that Dutch residents feel safe biking, and attribute that sense of security to the country’s long-standing cycling culture and network of dedicated cycling lanes.
“We have this unquestioned idea that the roads are there forcars.”
— Robert Davis
“They made it safe so that people don’t feel the need to wear helmets,” Davis said. “They think of cycling as a normal activity,” not as one that is inherently dangerous. This Dutch helmet paradox demonstrates the scale—cultural and infrastructural—of problem-solving required to address traffic safety.
But in cultures where transit prioritizes convenience for motorists, that’s a hard sell. “Our roads and systems were really designed around car users,” Omaki said. Davis agreed from his side of the Atlantic. “We have this unquestioned idea that the roads are there for cars,” he said.
Putting the responsibility of safety solely on individual shoulders all but guarantees failure, said Kathleen Bachynski, an assistant professor of public health at Muhlenberg College, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who has studied bike helmet and sports injuries. “It’s an enormous burden,” she said. Asking individuals to spend money on helmets, lights, and reflective gear without investing in better transit culture ignores the fact that the real danger to cyclists comes from behind the wheel, not from behind handlebars.
“We can talk about bike helmets because it’s something we can blame for individual decision-making,” said Alison Bateman-House, an ethicist and medical historian at New York University who has studied mandatory helmet laws.
In 2019 the National Transportation Safety Board released a report analyzing bicyclist safety—something it hadn’t done for 47 years. It targeted many recommendations at changing driver behavior and road infrastructure.
The fear that I feel biking in cities isn’t actually a fear of biking; it’s a fear ofcars.
For one, the NTSB suggested reducing traffic speeds, pointing to data that show that bicyclist crashes at locations with speed limits of at least 50 mph were more than five times as likely to result in fatal or serious injuries than were crashes in speed-limit zones of 25 mph or less. The safety board also encouraged federal motor-vehicle standards to require evaluating headlights in real-world settings, and for the auto industry to modify collision avoidance systems to detect bicycles. It encouraged municipalities to invest in bicycle-compatible drainage grates and maintenance-hole covers, as well as to repurpose traffic lanes into separate travel lanes for cyclists, more pedestrian space, or additional street parking.
Increases in cycling transit—prodded by bike-share programs and the growing adoption of tricycles as well as recumbent, tandem, and foldable bikes—could also transform our car-centric culture into one that is safer for all road users, Dewey said. “To many motorists, it’s often forgotten that that’s a person,” she said. “The more we can open that tent and bring people in, the more, I think, empathetic that person will be as a motorist.”
When it comes to the dangers threatening cyclists, wearing a helmet is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. America’s top-selling vehicle model, the Ford F-Series, weighs up to 7,500 pounds. Its hood stands 4.5 feet tall—at the height of my chin. The fear that I feel biking in cities isn’t actually a fear of biking; it’s a fear of cars. Only a suite of infrastructure changes can combat the deadliest risk to cyclists. Not helmets alone. As a spokesperson for helmet-maker Giro told a cycling trade magazine in 2020: “There are many misconceptions about helmets, unfortunately,” adding: “We do not design helmets specifically to reduce chances or severity of injury when impacts involve a car.”
Regardless, experts I spoke to were unanimous about what these flaws don’t mean: that helmets are useless. They all believe you should wear one. “Every time I see someone on a bike in New York City without a helmet, it makes me sick to my stomach,” said Bateman-House. (For my part, I agree.) It may not save you from a car crash, but in a slow-moving fall, “it can be the difference between life and death,” said Rowson, who runs the Helmet Lab.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, public-health experts popularized the “Swiss cheese” harm-reduction model: the notion that imperfect protection stacked together can provide more safety than any single layer could on its own.
For infectious diseases, this ideally means combining individual measures such as mask-wearing and hand-washing with broader policies such as paid sick leave, widespread remote work, and universal access to tests, treatments, and vaccines. For bike safety, this would mean a combination of personal behaviors, like wearing helmets and using bike lights, and infrastructure, like protected bike lanes and reduced speed limits.
During the pandemic, much of the U.S. showed resistance to this kind of profound social and structural change, which would have saved lives but would have also required money, sacrifice, and consensus. “We chose not to do that,” Bateman-House said. We’re approaching bike safety, for the time being, with the same attitude. And those of us waiting for a safer ride are left to don our plastic shells and hope for the best.
BENNINGTON — The elementary university board achieved this week and gave new facts about what is taking place to the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union’s outdated developing on Beech Avenue.
The update was presented in the course of superintendent James Culkeen’s report at the Jan. 10 Southwest Vermont Union Elementary Faculty District board meeting.
The former SVSU central business office on Beech St. has been repainted and recarpeted to get ready for the building’s new use as a procedure facility for elementary school college students.
Director of University student Solutions Kate Abbott gave an overview of the facility’s intent. She explained a handful of pupils have “significant trauma” or mental well being issues that they are performing by way of.
When these issues influence the student’s discovering or the schooling of other college students close to them, they will be ready to go to the Beech St. place for counseling with no impeding the student’s instruction.
College students will continue to study even though doing work by means of their clinical assessments. Abbott explained the facility ought to “stabilize them” so the pupil can return to their college or to get further therapy.
There is now 1 scholar making use of the new facility. “It’s been a pretty beneficial gradual start out,” said Abbott. Culkeen explained, “It’s a commence. It’s a fantastic commence.”
A few staff members customers will be assigned to the creating, and there are 15 college students who will gain from this facility, Culkeen stated.
Though the specifics are continue to staying finalized as the job settles, Culkeen explained the elementary faculty in North Bennington can make the most of the facility. He also talked about that Arlington and Sandgate elementary colleges can likely benefit from the software employing a tuition composition.
It all comes down to what is most effective for that personal scholar, Culkeen reported.
“This is an intervention that we have essential,” said Culkeen. The alternate remedies are out of district, are expensive, and have to have a lot of travel for the student, he stated,
Featuring the services in the district will make the transition again to their key school simpler, he said.
Chair of the SVUESD Christopher Murphy mentioned he’s “excited to have this support as portion of the menu of supports for our students.”
Culkeen claimed he will appear back again to the board soon after spending plan time to explain the finances of the project.
Some associates of the public were being existing at the meeting and requested questions about staffing and other information about the facility. Murphy and Culkeen made a decision to hold people particulars private in purchase to not recognize the single student who is in the application.
Also Announces Third Quarter Fiscal Year Earnings Connect with
Tulsa, Oklahoma–(Newsfile Corp. – December 21, 2022) – Academic Growth Corporation (NASDAQ: EDUC) (“EDC”, or the “Enterprise”) (http://www.edcpub.com) now announces the rebranding of its Household Business enterprise Division to PAPERPIE and the day of their third quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call.
The Business accomplished rebranding its House Organization Division and announces its new title, PaperPie. Per Craig White, President and Main Government Officer, “Our Home Bash Division generates about 85{e4f787673fbda589a16c4acddca5ba6fa1cbf0bc0eb53f36e5f8309f6ee846cf} of our Firm’s product sales. We have noticed this Division grow from 6,000 consultants only 10 decades ago to as several as 60,000 consultants at its peak throughout 2021. We are launching our new branding, PaperPie, which is a better reflection of our total item presenting, which has developed past books. Replacing the title Usborne Publications & More (UBAM) with PaperPie, a new title that a lot more accurately captures all of the products that we offer as a result of this Division together with Usborne Publishing, Ltd. Kane Miller Guides SmartLab Toys and Studying Wrap-Ups. Our Gross sales and Promoting teams have place wonderful initiatives into producing a new identify for this division and we are happy to start PaperPie at the start off of the 2023 calendar 12 months.”
For each Heather Cobb, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, “We commenced the Home Social gathering Division rebranding method in May of this year with the aim to entire the Division’s rebrand by December 2022. We have engaged our discipline management, workers customers and outside the house companions who contributed innumerable quantities of time, exertion and really like into creating our new title and manufacturer. PaperPie is actually ‘filled’ with the lifestyle and values of our Property Enterprise Division, specially centered on kid’s literacy and learning. Our new model, PaperPie, superior defines who we are and what we symbolize to our shoppers and their families. We are so proud to announce this new identify and start our PaperPie journey in January 2023.”
EDC is scheduled to go to the NASDAQ Marketsite in Periods Sq. on December 28, 2022, to kick off the rebranding start of PaperPie. Craig White is established to ring the NASDAQ Closing Bell alongside with Heather Cobb and Dan O’Keefe, the Firm’s Chief Economical Officer. The new PaperPie identify and emblem will be presented to individuals at this function and broadcast nationwide on various tv and social media channels.
EDC will host its 3rd Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Get in touch with, like a are living Q&A webcast, on Thursday January 5, 2023, at 3:30 PM CT (4:40 PM ET). Craig White, Main Govt Officer and President Heather Cobb, Main Product sales and Advertising Officer Dan O’Keefe, Main Fiscal Officer and Secretary and Randall White, Executive Chairman, will present the Company’s third quarter results and be obtainable for queries next the presentation. Cell phone traces for participants will be out there at (888) 396-8049. The convention ID is: 47737918. Audio replays will be available following the celebration at www.edcpub.com/traders.
About Academic Development Company (EDC)
EDC commenced as a publishing enterprise specializing in publications for little ones. EDC is the owner and special publisher of Kane Miller Books (“Kane Miller”) Discovering Wrap-Ups, maker of instructional manipulatives and SmartLab Toys, maker of STEAM-based toys and online games. EDC is also the special United States Multi-level marketing distributor of Usborne Publishing Minimal (“Usborne”) children’s publications. EDC-owned merchandise are marketed by means of 4,000 retail outlets and EDC and Usborne items are available by unbiased brand name associates who maintain guide showings as a result of social media, reserve fairs with universities and community libraries, in particular person households, as well as other in-man or woman events and world wide web gross sales.
Get hold of: Educational Progress Company Craig White, (918) 622-4522
Investor Relations: Three Aspect Advisors, LLC Steven Hooser or Jean Marie Youthful, (214) 872-2710
