Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Edinburgh, I am particularly interested in Roman republican history, Roman law and the history of the Roman provinces, especially in Spain.
Although disasters are a major cause of mental health problems and typically affect large numbers... more Although disasters are a major cause of mental health problems and typically affect large numbers of people and communities, little is known about how social structures affect mental health after a disaster. The authors assessed the extent to which mental health outcomes after disaster are associated with social network structures. In a community-based cohort study of survivors of a major bushfire disaster, participants (N=558) were assessed for probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and probable depression. Social networks were assessed by asking participants to nominate people with whom they felt personally close. These nominations were used to construct a social network map that showed each participant's ties to other participants they nominated and also to other participants who nominated them. This map was then analyzed for prevailing patterns of mental health outcomes. Depression risk was higher for participants who reported fewer social connections, were connected to other depressed people, or were connected to people who had left their community. PTSD risk was higher if fewer people reported being connected with the participant, if those who felt close to the participant had higher levels of property loss, or if the participant was linked to others who were themselves not interconnected. Interestingly, being connected to other people who in turn were reciprocally close to each other was associated with a lower risk of PTSD. These findings provide the first evidence of disorder-specific patterns in relation to one's social connections after disaster. Depression appears to co-occur in linked individuals, whereas PTSD risk is increased with social fragmentation. These patterns underscore the need to adopt a sociocentric perspective of postdisaster mental health in order to better understand the potential for societal interventions in the wake of disaster.
ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the use of a natural language analytics engine to provide feedback... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the use of a natural language analytics engine to provide feedback to students when preparing an essay for summative assessment. OpenEssayist is a real-time learning analytics tool, which operates through the combination of a linguistic analysis engine that processes the text in the essay, and a web application that uses the output of the linguistic analysis engine to generate the feedback. We outline the system itself and present analysis of observed patterns of activity as a cohort of students engaged with the system for their module assignments. We report a significant positive correlation between the number of drafts submitted to the system and the grades awarded for the first assignment. We can also report that this cohort of students gained significantly higher overall grades than the students in the previous cohort, who had no access to OpenEssayist. As a system that is content free, OpenEssayist can be used to support students working in any domain that requires the writing of essays.
Two experiments were carried out to compare the performance of male and female students at differ... more Two experiments were carried out to compare the performance of male and female students at different educational levels on tasks that required mental rotation. Exp. 1 also compared their performance on an overt, male-typed version and a disguised, female-typed version of the same task. Amongst introductory undergraduate students, men performed significantly better than women, but this difference was as pronounced on the disguised, female-typed version as on the overt, male-typed task. However, there was no sign of any gender difference on the overt task in advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. The latter finding was not replicated in Exp. 2, in which significant effects of gender regardless of the students' educational level were noted. Nevertheless, the effect size was significantly smaller than that obtained for comparable students tested on the same task during the 1970s. Taken together, these results confirm that gender differences in at least some aspects of mental rotation may be abolished by educational experience and that gender differences in mental rotation have become smaller over the last 20 years. Such findings favor sociocultural explanations of gender differences in mental rotation rather than biological explanations.
The British Journal of General Practice the Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Nov 1, 2003
Sexual violence against women is common. The prevalence appears to be higher in north America tha... more Sexual violence against women is common. The prevalence appears to be higher in north America than Europe. However, not all surveys have differentiated the experience of forced sex by a current or former partner. Few women are thought to report these experiences to their general practitioner (GP). To measure the prevalence of rape, sexual assault, and forced sexual intercourse by a partner among women attending general practices, to test the association between these experiences of sexual violence and demographic factors, and to assess the acceptability to women of screening for sexual violence by GPs. Cross-sectional survey. A self-administered questionnaire survey of 1207 women aged over 15 years was carried out in 13 general practices in Hackney, east London. Eight per cent (95% confidence interval [CI] = 6.2 to 9.6) of women have experienced rape, 9% (95% CI = 7.0 to 10.6) another type of sexual assault, and 16% (95% CI = 13.6 to 18.1) forced sex by a partner in adulthood: 24% (95% CI = 21.2 to 26.5) have experienced one or more of these types of sexual violence. Experiences of sexual violence demonstrated high levels of lifetime co-occurrence. Women forced to have sex by partners experienced the most severe forms of domestic violence. One in five women would object to routine questioning about being raped and/or sexually assaulted, and one in nine about being forced to have sex by a partner. Experiences of sexual violence are common in the lives of adult women in east London, and they represent a significant public health problem. Those women who have one experience appear to be at risk of being victims again. A substantial minority object to routine questions about sexual violence.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 01587910903236551, Oct 7, 2009
Questionnaire responses of 457 students and 602 tutors were used to investigate conceptions of a ... more Questionnaire responses of 457 students and 602 tutors were used to investigate conceptions of a 'good tutor.'In each case, factor analysis identified scales that reflected key constructs; cluster analysis identified subgroups with different patterns of scale scores; ...
This study investigated the role of disablement as a predictor of academic attainment among stude... more This study investigated the role of disablement as a predictor of academic attainment among students awarded first degrees by UK institutions of higher education in 2004–05. Disability explained only 0.1% of the variation in attainment, as measured by whether the graduates had obtained good degrees (i.e. with first‐class or upper second‐class honours). Graduates with dyslexia and graduates with multiple disabilities were less likely to obtain good degrees than graduates with no known disability, but this was mainly due to the confounded effects of demographic and institutional variables. Graduates with an unseen disability were the only group to show significantly poorer attainment when the latter variables had been controlled. In overall terms, disablement per se does not play a significant role in predicting attainment.
Although disasters are a major cause of mental health problems and typically affect large numbers... more Although disasters are a major cause of mental health problems and typically affect large numbers of people and communities, little is known about how social structures affect mental health after a disaster. The authors assessed the extent to which mental health outcomes after disaster are associated with social network structures. In a community-based cohort study of survivors of a major bushfire disaster, participants (N=558) were assessed for probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and probable depression. Social networks were assessed by asking participants to nominate people with whom they felt personally close. These nominations were used to construct a social network map that showed each participant's ties to other participants they nominated and also to other participants who nominated them. This map was then analyzed for prevailing patterns of mental health outcomes. Depression risk was higher for participants who reported fewer social connections, were connected to other depressed people, or were connected to people who had left their community. PTSD risk was higher if fewer people reported being connected with the participant, if those who felt close to the participant had higher levels of property loss, or if the participant was linked to others who were themselves not interconnected. Interestingly, being connected to other people who in turn were reciprocally close to each other was associated with a lower risk of PTSD. These findings provide the first evidence of disorder-specific patterns in relation to one's social connections after disaster. Depression appears to co-occur in linked individuals, whereas PTSD risk is increased with social fragmentation. These patterns underscore the need to adopt a sociocentric perspective of postdisaster mental health in order to better understand the potential for societal interventions in the wake of disaster.
ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the use of a natural language analytics engine to provide feedback... more ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the use of a natural language analytics engine to provide feedback to students when preparing an essay for summative assessment. OpenEssayist is a real-time learning analytics tool, which operates through the combination of a linguistic analysis engine that processes the text in the essay, and a web application that uses the output of the linguistic analysis engine to generate the feedback. We outline the system itself and present analysis of observed patterns of activity as a cohort of students engaged with the system for their module assignments. We report a significant positive correlation between the number of drafts submitted to the system and the grades awarded for the first assignment. We can also report that this cohort of students gained significantly higher overall grades than the students in the previous cohort, who had no access to OpenEssayist. As a system that is content free, OpenEssayist can be used to support students working in any domain that requires the writing of essays.
Two experiments were carried out to compare the performance of male and female students at differ... more Two experiments were carried out to compare the performance of male and female students at different educational levels on tasks that required mental rotation. Exp. 1 also compared their performance on an overt, male-typed version and a disguised, female-typed version of the same task. Amongst introductory undergraduate students, men performed significantly better than women, but this difference was as pronounced on the disguised, female-typed version as on the overt, male-typed task. However, there was no sign of any gender difference on the overt task in advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. The latter finding was not replicated in Exp. 2, in which significant effects of gender regardless of the students' educational level were noted. Nevertheless, the effect size was significantly smaller than that obtained for comparable students tested on the same task during the 1970s. Taken together, these results confirm that gender differences in at least some aspects of mental rotation may be abolished by educational experience and that gender differences in mental rotation have become smaller over the last 20 years. Such findings favor sociocultural explanations of gender differences in mental rotation rather than biological explanations.
The British Journal of General Practice the Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Nov 1, 2003
Sexual violence against women is common. The prevalence appears to be higher in north America tha... more Sexual violence against women is common. The prevalence appears to be higher in north America than Europe. However, not all surveys have differentiated the experience of forced sex by a current or former partner. Few women are thought to report these experiences to their general practitioner (GP). To measure the prevalence of rape, sexual assault, and forced sexual intercourse by a partner among women attending general practices, to test the association between these experiences of sexual violence and demographic factors, and to assess the acceptability to women of screening for sexual violence by GPs. Cross-sectional survey. A self-administered questionnaire survey of 1207 women aged over 15 years was carried out in 13 general practices in Hackney, east London. Eight per cent (95% confidence interval [CI] = 6.2 to 9.6) of women have experienced rape, 9% (95% CI = 7.0 to 10.6) another type of sexual assault, and 16% (95% CI = 13.6 to 18.1) forced sex by a partner in adulthood: 24% (95% CI = 21.2 to 26.5) have experienced one or more of these types of sexual violence. Experiences of sexual violence demonstrated high levels of lifetime co-occurrence. Women forced to have sex by partners experienced the most severe forms of domestic violence. One in five women would object to routine questioning about being raped and/or sexually assaulted, and one in nine about being forced to have sex by a partner. Experiences of sexual violence are common in the lives of adult women in east London, and they represent a significant public health problem. Those women who have one experience appear to be at risk of being victims again. A substantial minority object to routine questions about sexual violence.
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 01587910903236551, Oct 7, 2009
Questionnaire responses of 457 students and 602 tutors were used to investigate conceptions of a ... more Questionnaire responses of 457 students and 602 tutors were used to investigate conceptions of a 'good tutor.'In each case, factor analysis identified scales that reflected key constructs; cluster analysis identified subgroups with different patterns of scale scores; ...
This study investigated the role of disablement as a predictor of academic attainment among stude... more This study investigated the role of disablement as a predictor of academic attainment among students awarded first degrees by UK institutions of higher education in 2004–05. Disability explained only 0.1% of the variation in attainment, as measured by whether the graduates had obtained good degrees (i.e. with first‐class or upper second‐class honours). Graduates with dyslexia and graduates with multiple disabilities were less likely to obtain good degrees than graduates with no known disability, but this was mainly due to the confounded effects of demographic and institutional variables. Graduates with an unseen disability were the only group to show significantly poorer attainment when the latter variables had been controlled. In overall terms, disablement per se does not play a significant role in predicting attainment.
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Papers by John S Richardson