Promoting active transport to school : evaluation of the Ride2School program

This study involved an evaluation of the Ride2School program, promoting active transport to school. The study found inconsistent evidence of a program impact, and identified the importance of addressing barriers to active transport among individual schools, parents and students; and building the capacity of schools to implement active transport initiatives.

Growing community : the impact of the Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden program on the social and learning environment in primary schools

This article presents results from a mixed-method evaluation of a structured cooking and gardening program in Australian primary schools, focusing on program impacts on the social and learning environment of the school. In particular, we address the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program objective of providing a pleasurable experience that has a positive impact on student engagement, social connections, and confidence within and beyond the school gates. Primary evidence for the research question came from qualitative data collected from students, parents, teachers, volunteers, school principals, and specialist staff through interviews, focus groups, and participant observations. This was supported by analyses of quantitative data on child quality of life, cooperative behaviors, teacher perceptions of the school environment, and school-level educational outcome and absenteeism data. Results showed that some of the program attributes valued most highly by study participants included increased student engagement and confidence, opportunities for experiential and integrated learning, teamwork, building social skills, and connections and links between schools and their communities. In this analysis, quantitative findings failed to support findings from the primary analysis. Limitations as well as benefits of a mixed-methods approach to evaluation of complex community interventions are discussed.

A holistic approach to the evaluation of sustainable housing

Residential housing is often evaluated against single or at best a limited number of similar criteria. These include quantifiable indicators such as energy use and its associated greenhouse gas emissions. It might also include material consumption from an embodied energy or resource use perspective. Social factors or qualitative indicators may be evaluated but are rarely placed or juxtaposed alongside these quantifiable indicators. A one-dimensional approach will be limiting because sustainable development includes both environmental and social factors. This paper describes the methodologies that have been developed to assess housing developments against five quite different criteria. These are: energy use, resource use, neighbourhood character, neighbourhood connectedness and diversity. In each case, high and low sustainability practice has been identified so that ranking is possible. These methodologies have then been tested by evaluating a typical precinct (approximately 400 m by 400 m) of a 1970-80s housing development in a suburb of Geelong. The rankings of the particular precinct have then been combined in a visual way to assist in the evaluation of the housing in a more holistic way. The results of this evaluation method are presented, along with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the methodologies. The research is the outcome of collaboration by a cross-disciplinary group of academics within Deakin’s School of Architecture and Building.

Sensing and using social context

We present online algorithms to extract social context: Social spheres are labeled locations of significance, represented as convex hulls extracted from GPS traces. Colocation is determined from Bluetooth and GPS to extract social rhythms, patterns in time, duration, place, and people corresponding to real-world activities. Social ties are formulated from proximity and shared spheres and rhythms. Quantitative evaluation is performed for 10+ million samples over 45 man-months. Applications are presented with assessment of perceived utility: Socio-Graph, a video and photo browser with filters for social metadata, and Jive, a blog browser that uses rhythms to discover similarity between entries automatically.

How can the impact of cultural development work in local government be measured? Towards more effective planning and evaluation strategies

The field of cultural development in local government is relatively new, with most councils only having dedicated staff or teams within the last ten to fifteen years. Challenges are associated with that newness in the areas of planning, goal setting and formal evaluation of achievements in relation to goals. How can the best decisions be made about what is needed? How can the outcomes of that work be evaluated? What should be measured and how? This paper explores these challenges and presents some solutions. Program Logic is introduced as a methodology for effective planning and evaluation of cultural development work in local government. The need for both performance and outcome evaluation of cultural development work is discussed, as are the levels of evaluation required; considering the contribution of individual workers, departments, whole of council and the overall community outcomes. Factors beyond the influence of local government, which impact the outcomes of arts initiatives, are also considered in arguing that more sophisticated evaluation processes are required.

Building the capacity of family day care educators to promote children’s social and emotional wellbeing : an exploratory cluster randomised controlled trial

Background: Childhood mental health problems are highly prevalent, experienced by one in five children living in socioeconomically disadvantaged families. Although childcare settings, including family day care are ideal to promote children’s social and emotional wellbeing at a population level in a sustainable way, family day care educators receive limited training in promoting children’s mental health. This study is an exploratory wait-list control cluster randomised controlled trial to test the appropriateness, acceptability, cost, and effectiveness of “Thrive,” an intervention program to build the capacity of family day care educators to promote children’s social and emotional wellbeing. Thrive aims to increase educators’ knowledge, confidence and skills in promoting children’s social and emotional wellbeing.
Methods/Design: This study involves one family day care organisation based in a low socioeconomic area of Melbourne. All family day care educators (term used for registered carers who provide care for children for financial reimbursement in the carers own home) are eligible to participate in the study. The clusters for randomisation will be the fieldworkers (n = 5) who each supervise 10-15 educators. The intervention group (field workers and educators) will participate in a variety of intervention activities over 12 months, including workshops; activity exchanges with other educators; and focused discussion about children’s social and emotional wellbeing during field worker visits. The control group will continue with their normal work practice. The intervention will be delivered to the intervention group and then to the control group after a time delay of 15 months post intervention commencement. A baseline survey will be conducted with all consenting educators and field workers (n = ~70) assessing outcomes at the cluster and individual level. The survey will also be administered at one month, six months and 12 months post-intervention commencement. The survey consists of questions measuring perceived levels of knowledge, confidence and skills in promoting children’s social and emotional wellbeing. As much of this intervention will be delivered by field workers, field worker-family day care educator relationships are key to its success and thus supervisor support will also be measured. All educators will also have an in-home quality of care assessment at baseline, one month, six months and 12 months post-intervention commencement. Process evaluation will occur at one month, six months and 12 months post-intervention commencement. Information regarding intervention fidelity and economics will also be assessed in the survey.
Discussion: A capacity building intervention in child mental health promotion for family day care is an essential contribution to research, policy and practice. This initiative is the first internationally, and essential in building an evidence base of interventions in this extremely policy-timely setting.

An evaluation of the Shanghai mental health service schizophrenia rehabilitation program

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a rehabilitation program for people with schizophrenia in Shanghai, China. Thirty-five people with schizophrenia participated in an eight-module program that focused on a range of psychosocial skills, while 38 others received treatment as usual in the community. Participants were assessed at baseline and subsequently at 4-week intervals over 12 weeks using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Clinical Global Impression Scale, Drug Attitude Inventory, and Personal and Social Performance Scale. The rehabilitation program participants demonstrated significantly better improvement over the course of the program than did the control participants on all measures. The rehabilitation program is effective in addressing psychosocial deficits evident in many people who have schizophrenia, and it should be implemented more widely.

The first stage of developing the adolescent friendship social capital scale

 The purpose of the study was to generate the candidate items for the Adolescent Friendship Social Capital Scale. Both inductive and deductive approaches were used to generate the scale items. Halpern's conceptual map of social capital served as the theoretical basis of this scale, and guided the development of items. Semi-structured interviews with adolescents in Sydney, Melbourne and Beijing generated the initial pool of scale items. Twenty-six items were generated for the Adolescent Friendship Social Capital Scale. The items are organised in four theoretical constructs: Bonding Networks, Bridging Norms, Bridging Sanctions, and Linking Networks. Each item is a short statement followed by a five-point Likert scale anchored by 1= "Strongly disagree" and 5= "Strongly agree". The scale has several advantages over previous measures of adolescent friendship networks and friendship social capital. The scale has a strong and clear theoretical structure, the scale items demonstrate initial construct and content validity, and the format of the scale enables the collection of continuous data. However, in order to ensure the validity and reliability of the scale, another two stages of research need to be conducted in the future: scale development and scale evaluation.

A randomised controlled trial of a social support intervention

Background: Much evidence has accumulated over the last three decades that low social support is related to both mental and physical health. Despite this large and convincing literature, reviewers have noted that there exists remarkably little evidence that social support can be increased by an appropriate intervention. This study reports on the development and evaluation of a new intervention for social support which takes account of the stress-buffering and direct effect models.

Method: Eighty-one individuals scoring low on social support were randomly allocated to the intervention or a waiting-list control condition. Treatment consisted of 10 weekly sessions administered in a group format, and 49 participants (nine males) completed assessments at the beginning and end of a 10-week period, and at 10-week follow-up (intervention condition only).

Results: The intervention proved to be successful at increasing functional support but not structural support. The intervention was also successful in increasing the social skill of self-disclosure, and decreasing depression. Gains made between pre- and post-treatment were maintained at 10-week follow-up.

Conclusions: Based on published analyses of the effects of social support on health, the results imply that the intervention would be useful for stress-buffering purposes, but not for the general health-promoting effects that are associated with good social integration.

Engagement and learning through social software in finance : a retrospective on the Trading Room experience

The introduction of a social software blog space called the Trading Room in an undergraduate finance unit generated a great deal of activity to support student learning. A subsequent evaluation of this innovation, viewed through the lens of Activity Theory, demonstrated that students perceived high value in the opportunity it provided for them to reaffirm theories, obtain individualised feedback and benchmark their work against others. While assessment is generally seen as the carrot and the stick of learning; students in the study reported that they would still participate in reading and posting to the Trading Room even if there was no assessment requirement. Students did not see any value in the environment as a purely social space, reporting that they saw it primarily as a professional educational community. It would appear that just as there are different communities in the real world social space, there are also different types of communities in the online space.

Sustaining modified behaviours learnt in a diabetes prevention program in regional Australia : the role of social context

Background
The Greater Green Triangle diabetes prevention program was conducted in primary health care setting of Victoria and South Australia in 2004--2006. This program demonstrated significant reductions in diabetes risk factors which were largely sustained at 18 month follow-up. The theoretical model utilised in this program achieved its outcomes through improvements in coping self-efficacy and planning. Previous evaluations have concentrated on the behavioural components of the intervention. Other variables external to the main research design may have contributed to the success factors but have yet to be identified. The objective of this evaluation was to identify the extent to which participants in a diabetes prevention program sustained lifestyle changes several years after completing the program and to identify contextual factors that contributed to sustaining changes.

Methods
A qualitative evaluation was conducted. Five focus groups were held with people who had completed a diabetes prevention program, several years later to assess the degree to which they had sustained program strategies and to identify contributing factors.

Results
Participants value the recruitment strategy. Involvement in their own risk assessment was a strong motivator. Learning new skills gave participants a sense of empowerment. Receiving regular pathology reports was a means of self-assessment and a motivator to continue. Strong family and community support contributed to personal motivation and sustained practice.

Conclusions
Family and local community supports constitute the contextual variables reported to contribute to sustained motivation after the program was completed. Behaviour modification programs can incorporate strategies to ensure these factors are recognised and if necessary, strengthened at the local level.

Sustainability evaluation, life cycle assessment and facilities management for Geelong Retail Development

Value management is a technique used during the design stage to justify cost and worth of a proposal. Designer must never center only to save capital expenditure but consider holistically the whole building life which will be sustainable. Therefore, sustainability evaluation must adopt a long term view and will properly include three crucial elements: economic, social and environmental. Lack of awareness of value management during the design stage of a building project will adversely impact on the life cycle assessment (LCA) and facilities management (FM). This paper provides a review of the sustainable elements that must be considered when designing and costing a new retail development in the Geelong region of Australia and how these factors influence the whole building life. The result of this research helps to create a greater understanding of the different attributes that will affect the LCA and FM decisions made on sustainable development in this and other regional Australian cities that are undergoing major population growth.

Trust evaluation for indirectly connected nodes using link community information

Inspired by recent empirical research on link communities, we borrow some important ideas and concepts for our own research to provide a more reasonable computation model of transitive trust. The key advantages of using link community methodology is to reflect on the nature of the social network features of Hierarchy and Overlap. Our research mainly resolves the computation of trust transitivity in which two nodes do not have any direct links to any link community. In this research, we discover a new direction analyzing trust transitivity. By using a social network game, we found that the link community methodology is a natural way to analyze trust in social networks. We also discovered, even in a small social network, trust has certain community features.

Adaptation and validation of the Japanese version of the health education impact questionnaire (heiQ-J) for the evaluation of self-management education interventions

Aim: