Structuring cooperative group work in classrooms

Cooperative, small-group learning is widely recognised as a pedagogical practice that promotes learning and socialisation across a range of curriculum areas from primary school through to high school and college. When children work cooperatively together, they learn to give and receive help, share their ideas and listen to other students’ perspectives, seek new ways of clarifying differences, resolving problems, and constructing new understandings and knowledge. The result is that students attain higher academic outcomes and are more motivated to achieve than they would be if they worked alone. This paper provides an overview of five different studies that the author has conducted that demonstrate clearly the importance of explicitly structuring cooperative small-group work in classrooms if children are to derive the benefits widely attributed to this pedagogical practice.

What the family brings: Gathering evidence for strengths-based work

Families attending child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) services are often assumed to have problems in key areas such as communication, belonging/acceptance and problem-solving. Family therapy is often directed towards addressing these difficulties. With increasing emphasis in family therapy and human services fields over the last decade on identifying and building from strengths, a different starting point has been advocated. This paper describes a large survey of the self-reported pre-therapy functioning of children and families using a public CAMH service (n = 416). Before commencing family therapy parents identified family strengths across a range of key areas, despite the burden of caring for children with moderate to severe mental health problems. This evidence supports theoretical and clinical work that advocates a strengths perspective, and highlights how resilience framed in family (and social) rather than individual terms enables a greater appreciation of how strengths may be harnessed in therapeutic work.

Professional status, employee attitudes and multiple identifications at work

We conducted two studies exploring the influence of professional status on three targets of organisational identification. In the first study, 180 employees from a large metropolitan hospital completed an organisation-wide survey. As predicted, employees belonging to high-status professional groups reported higher levels of identification with their profession, followed by their work unit and the organisation. In contrast, employees belonging to low-status professional groups reported higher levels of identification with their work unit and the organisation, compared to their profession. Identification with the various targets was also associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, and lower levels of uncertainty and emotional exhaustion. In the second study, 60 employees from the same hospital took part in semi-structured interviews to further explore issues relating to professional identification. In line with the results of the first study, the professional group was viewed as a central target of identification at work, particularly for those employees belonging to high status professional groups. Professional identification was also identified as a conduit for social meaning and a signifier of intergroup boundaries. Implications for the management of multiple identifications and heterogeneous teams are discussed.

A work domain analysis framework for modelling intensive care unit patients

Work domain analysis (WDA) has been applied to a range of complex work domains, but few WDAs have been undertaken in medical contexts. One pioneering effort suggested that clinical abstraction is not based on means-ends relations, whereas another effort downplayed the role of bio-regulatory mechanisms. In this paper it is argued that bio-regulatory mechanisms that govern physiological behaviour must be part of WDA models of patients as the systems at the core of intensive care units. Furthermore it is argued that because the inner functioning of patients is not completely known, clinical abstraction is based on hypothetico-deductive abstract reasoning. This paper presents an alternative modelling framework that conforms to the broader aspirations of WDA. A modified version of the viable systems model is used to represent the patient system as a nested dissipative structure while aspects of the recognition primed decision model are used to represent the information resources available to clinicians in ways that support lsquoif...thenrsquo conceptual relations. These two frameworks come together to form the recursive diagnostic framework, which may provide a more appropriate foundation for information display design in the intensive care unit.

The impact of computer display height and desk design on 3D posture during information technology work by young adults

Computer display height and desk design to allow forearm support are two critical design features of workstations for information technology tasks. However there is currently no 3D description of head and neck posture with different computer display heights and no direct comparison to paper based information technology tasks. There is also inconsistent evidence on the effect of forearm support on posture and no evidence on whether these features interact. This study compared the 3D head, neck and upper limb postures of 18 male and 18 female young adults whilst working with different display and desk design conditions. There was no substantial interaction between display height and desk design. Lower display heights increased head and neck flexion with more spinal asymmetry when working with paper. The curved desk, designed to provide forearm support, increased scapula elevation/protraction and shoulder flexion/abduction.

Making it work: Identifying the challenges of collaborative international research

In this article, we explore the challenges - and benefits - of conducting collaborative research on an international scale. The authors - from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand - draw upon their experiences in designing and conducting a three-country study. The growing pressures on scholars to work in collaborative research teams are described, and key findings and reflections are presented. It is claimed that such work is a highly complex and demanding extension to the academic's role. The authors conclude that, despite the somewhat negative sense that this reflection may convey, the synergies gained and the valuable comparative learning that took place make overcoming these challenges a worthwhile process. The experiences as outlined in this paper suggest that developing understandings of the challenges inherent in undertaking international collaborative research might well be a required component of the professional development opportunities afforded to new scholars.

Exploring the impact of perceived LMX variability within work teams

According to Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory, leaders develop different quaUt}' reladonships with the employees they supervise. To date, Utde research has invesdgated the impact of such differendadon by the leader on workplace outcomes. The current research proposes a novel way to capture the extent of LMX variabiUt}' within a single work team, and subsequently investigates the impact of perceived LMX variability on workplace outcomes. Across multiple employed samples, participants reported poorer team relations (as indicated by low team cohesion and high conflict) when they perceived LMX variability to be high. Perceptions of poor team relations further impacted negatively upon individual affect variables. The findings suggest that leaders may need to exercise caution when developing different quality relationships amongst individuals within the same work team.

Hemispheric asymmetry of neuroticism in the prediction of disinhibited work performance

Disinhibition is usually defined as a combination of high extraversion and high neuroticism or high extraversion and low neuroticism. The hypothesis that neuroticism interacts with aural preference (preferred-ear for listening) in the prediction of everyday types of disinhibited behaviour is tested. The importance of aural preference rests on the assumption that it is a readily available proxy measure of contra-hemispheric preference such that a left aural preference is indicative of right hemispheric preference and vice versa. Since the left hemisphere acts to initiate approach behaviour, the hypothesis investigates a model in which preference for the left hemisphere, together with high neuroticism, provides an alternative mechanism of disinhibition. This study provides evidence of the mechanism in the predicdon of disinhibited telesales performance.

Revising the theoretical structure of personality and applying it to the world of work

Most modern models of personality are hierarchical, perhaps as a result of their development by means of exploratory factor analysis. Based on new ideas about the structure of personality and how it divides into biologically based and sociocognitively based components (as proposed by Carver, Cloninger, EUiot and Thrash, and ReveUe), I develop a series of rules that show how scales of personality may be linked from those that are most distal to those which are most proximal. I use SEM to confirm the proposed structure in scales of the Temperament Character Inventory (TCI) and the Eysenck Personality Profiler. Good fit is achieved and all proposed paths are significant. The model is then used to predict work performance, deviance and job satisfacdon.