Background There is a dearth of published literature that demonstrates the impact of a Guide to Reading Biomedical English Literature course on new Chinese medical postgraduates. Keeping this gap in mind, the objectives of this study were to assess the factors associated with course effectiveness using the teacher, postgraduate and organizational factors. Methods This study was conducted at Nanjing Medical University from December 2014 to December 2015. The participants were 440 new graduate students from different medical specialties. At baseline, each student was assessed for teacher factors, individual factors and organizational factors using a self-administered structured scored anonymous questionnaire. After that, Pearson chi-square analysis was conducted to evaluate the factors that impact teacher factors (knowledge level, teaching style, individualized teaching, logical teaching, heuristic teaching, literature difficulty, bilingual teaching), individual factors (gender, attitude toward studying, previewing literature, English literacy level) and course management (such as teaching objectives and assessment system) on this course. Furthermore, multiple logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the impact of the above factors on our outcome variables (knowledge level, teaching style, individualized teaching, heuristic teaching, study attitude, previewing literature, management). Results Nearly all of the participants (420 of 440, 95.5%) thought this course was helpful for learning to read scientific literature and understanding scientific research design. Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that the participants perception of the course as effective was associated with teachers’ high knowledge level (Adjusted Odds Ratio, AOR = 49.673; 95% confidence interval, 95% CI = 4.28, 575.90). In addition, heuristic teaching was found to be significantly associated with a positive teaching effect of teaching (AOR = 12.76; 95% CI = 1.78, 91.64). Furthermore, the participants perception of the course as effective was associated with positive attitude toward studying (AOR = 25.004; 95% CI = 2.51, 249.09). Previewing literature was also associated with course effectiveness (AOR = 0.02; 95% CI = 0.04, 0.11). Conclusions This study indicated that the course effectiveness of the Guide for Reading Biomedical English Literature was associated with i) teachers’ knowledge, ii) heuristic teaching, iii) students’ positive attitude, and iv) students’ previewing literature. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-019-1731-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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With the competitive environment intense, the leader of the market gradually becomes buyers market. For the enterprise, to maintain and retain existing customers, which is to reduce the customer switch to the competition as low as possible, is particularly important. Therefore, how to effectively seize the minds of consumers and understand their behavior trends is the crux for enterprise to win. This study developed a model of the influence of relationship characteristics on switching costs, and we set customer characteristics as a regulated variable which was always set to a leading factor in the previous study. We used smart-phone users as our research object, through the method of questionnaire and established an equation model to analyze data. The results showed that: (1) in general, the relationship characteristics between consumers and businesses (including the length of time and the kind of purchase) respectively played a positive role on the switching costs (including procedural switching costs, relational switching costs and lost benefits costs), (2) the moderating effects of customer characteristics (including involvement and switching tendency) in the relationship between relationship characteristics and switching costs (including the procedural switching costs, relational switching costs and lost benefits costs) are respectively significant. This article verifies the regulated effect of customer characteristics and enriches the antecedent influencing factors of switching costs. So it is of great significance for enterprises to better manage switching costs and effectively retain customers.

Abstract. Primary and secondary school teachers' national training program-National Training Program has been fully implementing nearly seven years' time. This paper mainly uses the CNKI as sources of information to sample the articles from 2010 to 2016 related to national training program and uses the content analysis to static and analyzes the training needs, training contents, training models, methods and strategies, training results performance evaluation, training effectiveness and impact objectively, systematically and quantitatively, at the same time, do the keywords analysis. The study found that the "National Training Program" has achieved great success since its implementation, but there are still some problems, such as too few concerned about the training performance evaluation, the irrational training modes and the ways increase the burden on teachers and specialized teacher training team contradict effective follow-up and other issues.

This paper mainly uses the CNKI as sources of information to sample the articles from 2008 to 2015 related to instructional design on educational technology journals and uses the content analysis to static and analyzes the instructional design theories, applied researches, research tools and research methods objectively, systematically and quantitatively. The study finds that the achievements of instructional design theories and applications have made, but the theoretical development is far from comprehensive, the application development is imbalance and the study of research tools and research methods have not been explored specially.