Studies among people with dementia demonstrated that the sleep quality and rhythm improves significantly when people are exposed to ambient bright light. Since almost half of the healthy older people also indicate to suffer from chronic sleep disorders, the question arises whether ambient bright light can be beneficial to healthy older people. Particularly the effect on sleep/wake rhythm in relation to the exposure to natural light is the focus. It was hypothesised that the sleep quality would be worse in winter due to a lower daylight dose than in summer due to the lower illuminance and exposure duration. A field study was conducted to examine the relationship between daylight exposure and sleep quality in 14 healthy older adults living independently in their own dwellings in the Netherlands. All participants were asked to take part of the study both during the summer period as well as during the winter period. Therefore, they had to wear an actigraph for five consecutive days which measured sleep, activity and light exposure. Results confirmed that people were significantly longer exposed to high illumination levels (>1000 lx) in summer than in winter. Sleep quality measures, however, did not differ significantly between summer and winter. A significant, positive correlation was found between exposure duration to high illuminance from daylight during the day and the sleep efficiency the following night in summer, implying that being exposed to high illuminance for a longer time period has a positive effect on sleep efficiency for the individual data. There was also a tendency of less frequent napping in case of longer exposure duration to light for both seasons. Sleep quality does not differ between summer and winter but is related to the duration of the exposure to bright light the day prior to the night. CC-BY Original article at http://solarlits.com/jd/5-14 http://dx.doi.org/10.15627/jd.2018.2 https://www.dehaagsehogeschool.nl/onderzoek/lectoraten/details/urban-ageing#over-het-lectoraat
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Orthography is considered to be a major problem in Dutch education, since many pupils don’t seem to be able to master orthographic rules, even after years of education. In educational literature it is argued that the problems related to spelling are caused by approaches that focus more on rules of thumb than on linguistic insights. This is somewhat remarkable, since a good understanding of the Dutch orthographic system requires a fair amount of morphological knowledge. In order to effectively implement this knowledge, the development of a morphological awareness (MA) seems to be required. Therefore, a short intervention was designed for the upper levels of secondary schools (4 havo) which aimed to foster MA and, subsequently, improve orthographic skills. Results of this quasi-experimental study indicate that a short intervention can significantly boost MA, but that students don’t seem to be able to use MA effectively to enhance spelling performance.
A reflective goal-setting intervention could help students adjust to higher education, and improve their performance and well-being, as has been shown by small-scale and quasi-experimental studies conducted so far. However, a large experimental study found no effects, highlighting the importance of replication, and a better understanding of the mechanisms that explain when and why the intervention works. This replication study tested the effects of such a goal-setting intervention on the academic performance of 1,134 first-year business and teacher education students, with a randomized control trial. The treatment group earned significantly more course credits, and had a 15% lower risk of dropping out of college, compared to the control group. Contrary to the findings of previous studies, this study found no evidence that these effects are larger for men, or ethnic minorities. Additionally, we found no effect of the intervention on self-regulated learning, resilience, grit, engagement, or well-being.
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