This research was not carried out in real healthcare settings. However, participants who could correctly identify random allocation methods, yet judged random allocation unacceptable, doubted the possibility of individual equipoise and saw no scientific benefits of random allocation over doctor/patient choice, are unlikely to draw upon contrasting views if invited to enter a real clinical trial. This suggests that many potential trial participants may have difficulty understanding and remembering trial information that conforms to current best practice in its descriptions of randomisation and equipoise. Given the extent of the disparity between the assumptions underlying trial design and the assumptions held by the lay public, the solution is unlikely to be simple. Nevertheless, the results suggest that including an accessible explanation of the scientific benefits of randomisation may be beneficial provided potential participants are also enabled to reflect on the trial's aim of advancing knowledge, and to think actively about the information presented. Further areas for consideration include: the identification of effective combinations of written and oral information; helping participants to reflect on the aim of advancing knowledge; and an evidence-based approach to leaflet construction.
Genre-based approaches to teaching writing have made important strides in heightening students' awareness of audience and purpose but have paid less attention to the ways in which expectations for written performance in school context are embedded in expectations for certain kinds of discipline-based thinking. In this paper we present a study that explored how a group of high school students studying history and literature within an interdisciplinary framework experience the thinking demands associated with a particular kind of writing characteristic of both subjects: analytic exposition. We found that the task of articulating interpretive thematic statements is a significant challenge for these students, in some cases because the nature of interpretative understanding remains elusive to them and in others because they struggle with finding the language to express this understanding in a concise form. A separate but related finding has to do with opportunities for interpretive insight that arose from writing in genres other than conventional analytic exposition, for example, narrative, descriptive, and imaginative writing. We conclude our discussion by recommending further investigation of ways in which alternatives to analytic exposition may be used as bridges to mastery of this important academic genre.
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