This paper introduces methods used to communicate with participants in the 'Biobank Japan Project (BBJP)', which is a disease-focused biobanking project. The methods and their implications are discussed in the context of the ethical conduct of the biobanking project. Informed consent, which ensures the autonomous decisions of participants, is believed to be practically impossible for the biobanking project in general. Consequently, the concept of 'trust', which is 'judgement and action in conditions of less than perfect information', has been suggested to compensate for this limitation. As a means to maintain the trust participants feel for the project, this paper proposes communication with participants after receiving their consent. After describing the limitations of informed consent within the BBJP, based on a survey we conducted, we introduce our attempts to communicate with participants, discussing their implications as a means to compensate for the limitations of informed consent at the biobanking project.
As of 2008, surrogacy is legal and openly practised in various places; Japan, however, has no regulations or laws regarding surrogacy. This paper reports the situation of surrogacy in Japan and in five other regions (the USA, the UK, Taiwan, Korea and France) to clarify the pros and cons of prohibiting surrogacy, along with the problems and issues relating to surrogacy compensation. Not only in a country such as France that completely prohibits surrogacy within the country, but also in a country such as the UK that allows non-commercial surrogacy, infertile couples travel overseas for the purpose of surrogacy. In addition, some couples might seek underground surrogacy if the government prohibits surrogacy. If an intended parent couple and a surrogate make an agreement among themselves and then a problem occurs, they cannot ask for support from professionals or bring a case to court, as can be observed in South Korea and Taiwan. We also conclude that there is little difference between commercial surrogacy and non-commercial surrogacy in the absence of a clear definition of 'reasonable expenses.' In the UK, the law does not allow surrogates to receive compensation. However, in reality, there may be little difference between the amounts paid to surrogates for profit in the US and those paid to surrogates for reasonable expenses in the UK. We conclude that the issue of surrogacy demands further discussion in Japan.
Increasing research on teacher professional development (TPD) has found teachers' self-reflection to be key for improving teaching effectiveness. Although video methodology, as often used in TPD, provides crucial insight concerning situated learning, teachers are often reticent to participate in TPD protocols due to discomfort over being videotaped. This longitudinal study explored emotion-related behaviors by assessing the nonverbal expressions exhibited by teachers during a 1-year videobased TPD program highlighting salient contributors to productive classroom dialogue. Six teachers were observed regarding bodily motion, facial expression, and eye contact, with results obtained across four workshops coded according to five types of emotions. The emotions of shame, defensiveness, and distraction appeared more often than did laughter and surprise, with the negative emotions found to decrease over time. This study highlights the importance of longitudinally evaluating teachers' emotional expressions during video-based TPD activities and continued efforts to encourage teacher participation in these pedagogical training opportunities.
Whereas developing meaningful connections with students has long been documented as critical for promoting classroom engagement, teachers’ differing motives for building relationships with students remain underexplored. This study examined teachers’ social achievement goals from a multidimensional perspective in relation to teachers’ self-efficacy, teacher–student relationships, and perceived classroom engagement. Results from practicing K–12 teachers (N = 154) from across Canada showed three distinct goal orientations including social mastery-approach, social mastery-avoidance, and social ability goals (combining social ability-approach and social ability-avoidance goals). Teachers who aimed to develop better social skills with students (social mastery-approach goals) reported higher self-efficacy, better relationships with students, and greater classroom engagement. In contrast, social goal orientations focused on not losing connections with students (social mastery-avoidance goals) or being well-liked (social ability goals) did not correspond with self-efficacy or classroom outcomes. Implications concerning integrative pedagogies and growth mind-sets pertaining to relationship building were discussed.
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