• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.13
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• pp.5243-5251
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• 2015

Background: To assess women's awareness from diverse sections of society in Delhi regarding various aspects of breast cancer (BC) - perceptions, signs and symptoms, risk factors, prevention, screening and treatment. Materials and Methods: Community-level survey was undertaken in association with the Indian Cancer Society (ICS), Delhi during May 2013-March 2014. Women attending BC awareness workshops by ICS were given self-administered questionnaires before the workshop in the local language to assess BC literacy. Information provided by 2017 women was converted into awareness scores (aware=1) for analysis using SPSS. Awareness scores were dichotomized with median score=19 as cut off, create more aware and less aware categories. Bivariate and multivariate analysis provided P-values, odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: Broadly, 53.4% women were aware about various aspects of BC. Notably, 49.1% women believed that BC was incurable and 73.9% women believed pain to be an initial BC symptom. Only 34.9% women performed breast self-examination (BSE) and 6.9% women had undergone clinical breast-examination/mammography. 40.5% women had higher awareness (awareness score > median score of 19), which was associated with education [graduates (OR=2.31; 95%CI=1.78, 3.16), post-graduates (OR=7.06; 95%CI=4.14, 12.05) compared to ${\leq}$ high school] and socio-economic status (SES) [low-middle (OR=4.20; 95%CI=2.72, 6.49), middle (OR=6.00; 95%CI=3.82, 9.42) and upper (OR=6.97; 95%CI=4.10, 11.84) compared to low SES]. Conclusions: BC awareness of women in Delhi was suboptimal and was associated with low SES and education. Awareness must be drastically increased via community outreach and use of media as a first step in the fight against BC.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1919-1924
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• 2014

Background: In India, breast cancer is the leading malignancy among women in a majority of the cancer registries. Therefore it is important to understand screening practices and its predictors, including in rural areas with high female literacy and good health indices. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study with multistage sampling was conducted in Vypin Block, Ernakulam district, Kerala, India. Four Panchayats (self administration units) were randomly chosen and a woman in every second household was invited to participate from the tenth ward of each. Thus a total of 809 women were interviewed. Results: The majority of the repondents (82.1%) were not aware of risk factors and about a third (37.9%) were not aware of symptoms of breast cancer. About half of the population studied (46.6%) had undergone screening. Age (35-50 years), being married, health professionals as source of information and working were significant predictors of screening. Logistic regression showed that older women (35-50 yrs) were more likely to practice screening. Out of the never screened, about a third (35%) were desirous of doing it, but had not for various reasons and 53.5% were not willing to screen. The reasons identified for not screening among those desirous of doing it were grouped into knowledge 66 (43.4%), resources 23 (15.1%) and psychosocial 32(21.1%) factors. Unmarried women were significantly more likely to express factors related to all the three domains. Conclusions: This study showed that in spite of the absence of a population-based screening program, about half of the study population had undergone some type of screening. The older women (35-50 years) in particular were significantly more likely to practice screening. At this critical juncture, a high quality breast cancer awareness and screening initiative can help to consolidate the gains and tackle knowledge, resource and psychosocial barriers.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.1259-1275
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• 2015

Background: This study reviewed the published evidence as to how prostate cancer outcomes vary across geographical remoteness and area level disadvantage. Materials and Methods: A review of the literature published from January 1998 to January 2014 was undertaken: Medline and CINAHL databases were searched in February to May 2014. The search terms included terms of 'Prostate cancer' and 'prostatic neoplasms' coupled with 'rural health', 'urban health', 'geographic inequalities', 'spatial', 'socioeconomic', 'disadvantage', 'health literacy' or 'health service accessibility'. Outcome specific terms were 'incidence', 'mortality', 'prevalence', 'survival', 'disease progression', 'PSA testing' or 'PSA screening', 'treatment', 'treatment complications' and 'recurrence'. A further search through internet search engines was conducted to identify any additional relevant published reports. Results: 91 papers were included in the review. While patterns were sometimes contrasting, the predominate patterns were for PSA testing to be more common in urban (5 studies out of 6) and affluent areas (2 of 2), higher prostate cancer incidence in urban (12 of 22) and affluent (18 of 20), greater risk of advanced stage prostate cancer in rural (7 of 11) and disadvantaged (8 of 9), higher survival in urban (8 of 13) and affluent (16 of 18), greater access or use of definitive treatment services in urban (6 of 9) and affluent (7 of 7), and higher prostate mortality in rural (10 of 20) and disadvantaged (8 of 16) areas. Conclusions: Future studies may need to utilise a mixed methods approach, in which the quantifiable attributes of the individuals living within areas are measured along with the characteristics of the areas themselves, but importantly include a qualitative examination of the lived experience of people within those areas. These studies should be conducted across a range of international countries using consistent measures and incorporate dialogue between clinicians, epidemiologists, policy advocates and disease control specialists.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.3363-3368
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• 2013

Background: The burden due to cancers is an emerging public health concern especially in resource-limited countries like Nigeria. The WHO estimates that cancer kills more people than tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria combined. As people in Nigeria and other developing countries are beginning to survive infectious diseases, there is an observed epidemiologic transition to chronic diseases, such as cancers. In 2008, 75 out of 1,000 Nigerians died of cancer. Despite the rising incidence and public health importance, Nigeria lacks an organized and comprehensive strategy to deal with cancers. Materials and Methods: This article reviewed 30 peer-reviewed manuscripts on cancer care in four countries. It highlights the limitations to cancer care in Nigeria; due to lack of awareness, low health literacy, absence of organized screening programs, inadequate manpower (in terms of quality and quantity) as well as limited treatment options. Results: This review led to the formulation of a proposal for Nigerian National Cancer Policy, mainly drawn from effective strategies used in Canada, Brazil and Kenya. This is a vertical cancer program that is patient-centered with an emphasis on tobacco control and cancer disease screening (similar to Canada and Brazil). Additionally, it emphasizes primary cancer prevention (similar to Kenya). Its horizontal integration with other disease programs like HIV/AIDS will improve affordability in a poor resourced country like Nigeria. Capacity building for health professionals, hub-and-spoke implementation of screening services, as well as investment in effective treatment options and increased research in cancer care are essential. International 'twinning collaborations' between institutions in richer countries and Nigeria will enhance effective knowledge translation and improve the quality of patient care. Conclusions: A national cancer policy must be developed and implemented in Nigeria in order to overcome the present limitations which help contribute to the observed increases in cancer morbidity and mortality rates. Cancer control is feasible in Nigeria if the nation was to consider and employ some of the cost-effective strategies proposed here.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.605-625
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• 2012

This study examined how 132 teachers of different grade levels incorporate the key competencies identified by Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation into their mathematics teaching and how they perceive of its full potential of the competency-based learning and teaching in mathematics classroom. Survey and semi-structured interview methods were used to collect data for the study. It was found that in their instruction teachers emphasized competencies such as problem-solving, literacy, creativity, communication and information-processing skills in order. Inter-personal skills, self-management, citizenship, global understanding and career-development appeared to be challenging competencies for teachers to reflect in their instruction with the reasons such as no direct connections to mathematics and insufficient instruction. Findings of the study suggest that various instructional methods, development and dissemination of related curricula materials, change of evaluation method, and change teachers' perceptions may be needed for incorporating KICE's key competencies in K-12 mathematics education.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.1-10
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• 2018

As the emphasis on software education in the 2015 revised curriculum, Informatics has become one of the essential subjects for the middle school students, and contents and achievement standards have been developed focusing on the information culture literacy, computational thinking, and collaborative problem solving ability. The 2015 revised Informatics curriculum for the first grade of middle school has been applied for the first time in 2018. Various educational policies have been promoted such as training of teachers, development of teaching and learning materials and programs to support implementation of the actual school fields. In this study, we analyzed the improvement issues and tasks of the 2015 revised curriculum according to the change of the Informatics education policy of in the global, and suggested the development direction of the future Informatics curriculum in Korea. The direction of the development of the Informatics curriculum is focused on ensuring the linkage between school level and identity of informatics education.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.65-74
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• 2000

Environmentally literated students and adults should be able to use and apply the basic ecological concepts when considering environmental problems and issues. Because ecology forms the foundation of environmental education, a review of the literatures on the degree of students' understanding for ecological concepts can provide useful insights for environmental educators. The purposes of this study were as follows: first, to analyse the parts connected with ecological knowledge of two environmental education books, ‘environments’(middle school) and ‘environmental science’(high school), second, to investigate the level of understanding on ecological concepts by the use of new developed instrument. The 20 most important ecological concepts from Cherrett(1989) and the important ecological concepts' lists from Hungerford and Volk(1990), Ramsey, Hungerford and Volk(1992), Volk(1993) would be recognized and endorsed by most environmental educators as concepts essential to environmental literacy, We referenced these informations and sequenced ecological knowledge as four main categories(communities, populations, ecosystem, man as a component of the nature systems). We have used it as a criterion in the analysis of teaching materials and the development of a new test instrument($\alpha$=0.81). According to the analysed results, the understanding levels for scales and relationships of communities, populations, ecosystem were high but those for individual concepts and differences were low. By the analysis of Korean High School EE book, ‘environmental science’, learning for some concepts(succession, material cycling, niche etc.) has pointed out as one of problems. Environmental educators must pay a careful attention to the concepts that showed high rates of incorrect answer and this work will contribute toward consolidating the basis of EE and help the accomplishment of the ultimate goals in EE.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.501-514
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• 2018

This study aimed to develop a program that can be linked to gardening education activities in elementary students' curriculums and creative experience learning courses, and to apply the developed program to 6th graders in an elementary school located in Seoul. Research was conducted in a large category called biophilia, which named the instinct of human nature and nature throughout the research. The curriculum revised in 2015 was selected for the purpose of the garden education program based on the objectives and contents of the unit, and for the purpose of the class. In the process of developing and implementing the program, experience properties and elements were divided into direct and indirect experience of nature, including shapes and forms found in nature, air, water, plants, weather, animals, and natural materials. The results showed that the biophilic horticultural education program was effective in promoting students' multi senses. In the case of the experimental group, all the multi-sensory areas showed statistically significant differences, especially in the area of environmental literacy, environmental effect and emotional balance including plant cultivation knowledge. There was a relatively smaller difference in the dietary effect area than other areas because of no directional dietary program was included in the developed program. As a result, first, it is expected that the data can be utilized on site as a program or place of activity for students in upper grades. Second, it will be necessary to develop a more diverse program using other biophilic elements that were not covered in this study in order to maximize the effects of biophilic education.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.169-189
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to elicit the priority of the index of the operation evaluation of the school library, and to present measures for improvement of the evaluation index that reflects the project sites. To this end, the school library evaluation index was analyzed by applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP) analysis method to teacher librarians who are the representative personnel of the school library. According to the research, the priority of the upper tier evaluation areas was human resources, library services, information resources, library management, facilities and environment, and the priority of the lower tier evaluation items was human resource allocation, human resources expertise, reading education, information literacy education, efforts to activate education, book composition snowflake, the latest book, budget, facility access, book status, appropriateness of facilities and facilities, management plan, proximity accessibility, PR and marketing, school library steering committee, cooperation, use of materials current status. The conclusions drawn from this study could be used as basic data in the application of fieldworked school library assessment indicators.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.7
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• pp.409-419
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• 2020

The study selected the K Sand Art Lifelong Learning Instructor Circle as an example, focusing on learner interest-inducing factor and educational effects of Sand Art techniques, which are gaining interest in lifelong education. First, the factors that increase the interest-inducing effect of learners are to recognize sand art techniques as sand games, to tell stories and tones, to express them in sandboxes, and to express subjects of interest to learners. Second, in the field of lifelong education, sand art techniques are educationally effective in psychological therapy, improving concentration, improving self-confidence, developing expressiveness and creativity, and developing five senses. Third, sand art techniques are applied to all generations in the field of lifelong education, and sand art techniques can be used in civic participation education, basic literacy education, and culture and arts education among the six classes of lifelong education. Fourth, future tasks will be to support the training of sand art experts, support sand art materials and equipment, and spread sand art programs that visit various targets.