Developing and evaluating interventions that are applicable and relevant to inpatients and those who care for them; a multiphase, pragmatic action research approach

Background Randomised controlled trials may be of limited use to evaluate the multidisciplinary and multimodal interventions required to effectively treat complex patients in routine clinical practice; pragmatic action research approaches may provide a suitable alternative. Methods A multiphase, pragmatic, action research based approach was developed to identify and overcome barriers to nutritional care in patients admitted to a metropolitan hospital hip-fracture unit. Results Four sequential action research cycles built upon baseline data including 614 acute hip-fracture inpatients and 30 purposefully sampled clinicians. Reports from Phase I identified barriers to nutrition screening and assessment. Phase II reported post-fracture protein-energy intakes and intake barriers. Phase III built on earlier results; an explanatory mixed-methods study expanded and explored additional barriers and facilitators to nutritional care. Subsequent changes to routine clinical practice were developed and implemented by the treating team between Phase III and IV. These were implemented as a new multidisciplinary, multimodal nutritional model of care. A quasi-experimental controlled, ‘before-and-after’ study was then used to compare the new model of care with an individualised nutritional care model. Engagement of the multidisciplinary team in a multiphase, pragmatic action research intervention doubled energy and protein intakes, tripled return home discharge rates, and effected a 75% reduction in nutritional deterioration during admission in a reflective cohort of hip-fracture inpatients. Conclusions This approach allowed research to be conducted as part of routine clinical practice, captured a more representative patient cohort than previously reported studies, and facilitated exploration of barriers and engagement of the multidisciplinary healthcare workers to identify and implement practical solutions. This study demonstrates substantially different findings to those previously reported, and is the first to demonstrate that multidisciplinary, multimodal nutrition care reduces intake barriers, delivers a higher proportional increase in protein and energy intake compared with baseline than other published intervention studies, and improves patient outcomes when compared with individualised nutrition care. The findings are considered highly relevant to clinical practice and have high translation validity. The authors strongly encourage the development of similar study designs to investigate complex health problems in elderly, multi-morbid patient populations as a way to evaluate and change clinical practice.

Course evidence matrix : a collaborative evaluation using multiple lines of evidence

Welcome to the Evaluation of course matrix. This matrix is designed for highly qualified discipline experts to evaluate their course, major or unit in a systemic manner. The primary purpose of the Evaluation of course matrix is to provide a tool that a group of academic staff at universities can collaboratively review the assessment within a course, major or unit annually. The annual review will result in you being ready for an external curricula review at any point in time. This tool is designed for use in a workshop format with one, two or more academic staff, and will lead to an action plan for implementation. I hope you find this tool useful in your assessment review.

‘Works well with others’ : examining the different types of small group learning approaches and their implications for law student learning outcomes

In the current regulatory climate, there is increasing expectation that law schools will be able to demonstrate students’ acquisition of learning outcomes regarding collaboration skills. We argue that this is best achieved through a stepped and structured whole-of-curriculum approach to small group learning. ‘Group work’ provides deep learning and opportunities to develop professional skills, but these benefits are not always realised for law students. An issue is that what is meant by ‘group work’ is not always clear, resulting in a learning regime that may not support the attainment of desired outcomes. This paper describes different types of ‘group work', each associated with distinct learning outcomes. It suggests that ‘group work’ as an umbrella term to describe these types is confusing, as it provides little indication to students and teachers of the type of learning that is valued and is expected to take place. ‘Small group learning’ is a preferable general descriptor. Identifying different types of small group learning allows law schools to develop and demonstrate a scaffolded, sequential and incremental approach to fostering law students’ collaboration skills. To support learning and the acquisition of higherorder skills, different types of small group learning are more appropriate at certain stages of the program. This structured approach is consistent with social cognitive theory, which suggests that with the guidance of a supportive teacher, students can develop skills and confidence in one type of activity which then enhances motivation to participate in another.

Valuable learning, unwelcome assessment : what LLB and JD students really think about group work

This article contributes to current debates about the appropriate role of group work in legal curricula by providing insights into the attitudes of Bachelor of Laws (‘LLB’) and Juris Doctor (‘JD’) students towards such tasks. It begins by reviewing arguments for incorporating group work in legal education, both as a result of the recognition of its educational benefits, and as a response to increasing regulatory expectations regarding student collaboration skills. The article then reports the findings of a UNSW Law School Student Assessment Survey designed to determine how law students perceive group work and its assessment in law. One of the most striking findings is that many of the law students surveyed recognise and appreciate the learning and skills development benefits of group tasks, but are resistant to summative assessment of group work. Moreover, there are marked differences in attitude between LLB and JD students, and across year cohorts within those degrees. These findings suggest that further thought needs to be directed towards the specific purposes underpinning the choice of group work as a pedagogical tool, and assessment that is congruent with those purposes, taking into account the varying needs and experiences of different cohorts of students. The article concludes by considering whether meaningful group work can exist without summative assessment.

Kids, counselors and troubles-telling : morality-in-action in talk on an Australian children’s helpline

This article begins with the premise that morality is an intrinsic, although often invisible, aspect of everyday social action. Drawn from a corpus of fifty audiorecorded telephone calls to Kids Helpline, an Australian helpline for children and young people, we examine one call to show how the young caller and counsellor co-construct ‘morality-in-action’. Ethnomethodological understandings and, in particular, Sacks’ (1992) description of ‘Class 2’ rules and infractions show how an adolescent caller and counsellor collaboratively assemble moral versions of the caller. In puzzling out possible motives, the caller and counsellor can be seen to be attending to the implications of different moral versions of the caller. This attribution of motives is moral work in action, with motives contingently assembled, displayed and evaluated, with such work understood as displays of moral reasoning. The counselling call makes visible the counsellor’s interactional work to support and empower the client. Analysis such as this offers counsellors ways of understanding and making visible their interactional and moral work within helpline call interactions.

A framework for qualitative analysis of focus group data in information systems

Focus groups are a popular qualitative research method for information systems researchers. However, compared with the abundance of research articles and handbooks on planning and conducting focus groups, surprisingly, there is little research on how to analyse focus group data. Moreover, those few articles that specifically address focus group analysis are all in fields other than information systems, and offer little specific guidance for information systems researchers. Further, even the studies that exist in other fields do not provide a systematic and integrated procedure to analyse both focus group ‘content’ and ‘interaction’ data. As the focus group is a valuable method to answer the research questions of many IS studies (in the business, government and society contexts), we believe that more attention should be paid to this method in the IS research. This paper offers a systematic and integrated procedure for qualitative focus group data analysis in information systems research.

Is climate change litigation an effective strategy for promoting greater action to address climate change? What other legal mechanisms might be appropriate?

In recent times a widespread consensus on the reality and gravity of anthropogenic climate change has emerged. Perceived inadequacies in the Australian government’s legal and policy responses to climate change issues have resulted in environmental activists increasingly turning to the courts as a strategy to promote greater action to address adverse climate impacts. The efficacy of this strategy for achieving climate goals is limited by the time and expense of litigating, the restrictions inherent in environmental law administrative challenges, and the possibility that judicial decisions may be overruled by the legislature. To date, climate change litigation in Australia has met with varied success, yet its significance extends beyond the court room as an important mechanism for raising public, political and commercial awareness about climate change issues. Ultimately, however, the types of far-reaching changes needed to mitigate and manage adverse climate impacts require strong regulatory backing. The most effective approach to addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change is a coordinated suite of regulatory measures spearheaded by the Federal Government.

Understanding carers' intention for their child to walk to school : further application of the theory of reasoned action

One quarter of Australian children are overweight or obese (ABS, 2010), putting them at increased risk of physical and psychological health problems (Reilly et al., 2003). Overweight and obesity in childhood tends to persist into adulthood and is associated with premature death and morbidity (Reilly & Kelly, 2011). Increases in Australian children’s weight have coincided with declines in active transportation, such as walking, to school (Salmon et al., 2005). Investigating the factors which influence walking to school is therefore important, particularly since walking to school is a low cost and effective means of reducing excess weight (Rosenberg et al., 2006) that can be easily integrated into daily routine (Brophy et al., 2011). While research in this area has expanded (e.g., Brophy et al., 2011; Giles-Corti et al., 2010), it is largely atheoretical (exceptions Napier et al., 2011). This is an important gap from a social marketing perspective given the use of theory lies at the foundation of the framework (NSMC, 2006) and a continued lack of theory use is observed (Luca & Suggs, 2013). The aim of this paper is to empirically examine a widely adopted theory, the deconstructed Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Fishbein & Azjen, 1975), to understand the relative importance of attitude and subjective norms in determining intentions to increase walk to school behaviour.

Smart cities: An effective urban development and management model?

It is argued that the smart cities model promise solutions to fuel sustainable development and a high quality of life with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory action and engagement. The paper provides a critical review of this model and application attempts of smart urban technologies in contemporary cities by particularly looking into emerging practices of ubiquitous eco-cities as exemplar smart cities initiatives. Through a thorough review of literature and best practices on the smart cities model, this paper attempts to address the research question of whether smart cities model is just another fashionable city brand or an effective urban development and management model to solve the problems of our cities. The findings shed light on urban planning and development considerations for the integration of smart urban technologies and their possible implications in shaping up of the built environment to produce prosperous and sustainable urban futures.

Reducing recidivism by first time drink driving offenders

This research provides a detailed description of first time drink driving offenders at the time of their court appearance and at follow-up to examine the factors leading to subsequent drink driving. To develop models for behavioural change a novel theoretical application of the Health Action Process Approach was used to determine what enables some offenders to avoid future drink driving. Utilising self-report and official offence records in the follow-up of offenders enabled an in depth exploration of first offender characteristics and drink driving behaviour. The research demonstrates that first offenders are not a homogenous group in terms of their characteristics or the circumstances of the offence and will be used to develop tailored countermeasures for first offenders including online intervention programs.

Multi-action recognition via stochastic modelling of optical flow and gradients

In this paper we propose a novel approach to multi-action recognition that performs joint segmentation and classification. This approach models each action using a Gaussian mixture using robust low-dimensional action features. Segmentation is achieved by performing classification on overlapping temporal windows, which are then merged to produce the final result. This approach is considerably less complicated than previous methods which use dynamic programming or computationally expensive hidden Markov models (HMMs). Initial experiments on a stitched version of the KTH dataset show that the proposed approach achieves an accuracy of 78.3%, outperforming a recent HMM-based approach which obtained 71.2%.

Practical implementation of species' recovery plans - Lessons from the White-backed Woodpecker Action Plan in Sweden

Successful biodiversity conservation requires safeguarding viable populations of species. To work with this challenge Sweden has introduced a concept of Action Plans, which focus on the recovery of one or more species; while keeping in mind the philosophy of addressing ecosystems in a more comprehensive way, following the umbrella concept. In this paper we investigate the implementationprocess of the ActionPlanfor one umbrella species, the White-backed Woodpecker (WBW) Dendrocopos leucotos. We describe the plan's organisation and goals, and investigate its implementation and accomplishment of particular targets, based on interviewing and surveying the key actors. The achievement of the targets in 2005-2008 was on average much lower than planned, explained partially by the lack of knowledge/data, experienced workers, and administrative flexibility. Surprisingly, the perceived importance of particular conservation measures, the investment priority accorded to them, the money available and various practical obstacles all failed to kg? explain the target levels achieved. However qualitative data from both the interviews and the survey highlight possible implementation obstacles: competing interests with other conservation actions and the level of engagement of particular implementing actors. Therefore we suggest that for successful implementation of recovery plans, there is aneed for initial and inclusive scoping prior to embarking on the plan, where not only issues like ecological knowledge and practical resources are considered, but also possible conflicts and synergies with other conservation actions. An adaptive approach with regular review of the conservation process is essential, particularly in the case of such complex action plans as the one for the WBW.

In pursuit of some appreciation: Assessment and group membership in children’s second stories

Group membership is central to social interaction. Within peer groups, social hierarchies and affiliations are matters to which members seriously attend (Corsaro, 2014). Studies of peer groups highlight how status is achieved through oppositional actions. This paper examines the way in which competition and collaboration in a children’s peer group accomplishes status during the production and management of “second stories” (Sacks 1992). We present analysis of the interaction of young boys in a preparatory year playground who are engaged in a single instance of storytelling “rounds”. Analysis highlights the pivotal role of members’ contributions, assessments and receipts in a series of second stories that enact a simultaneously competitive and collaborative local order.

Analysis of passenger group behaviour and its impact on passenger flow using an agent-based model

Group interaction within crowds is a common phenomenon and has great influence on pedestrian behaviour. This paper investigates the impact of passenger group dynamics using an agent-based simulation method for the outbound passenger process at airports. Unlike most passenger-flow models that treat passengers as individual agents, the proposed model additionally incorporates their group dynamics as well. The simulation compares passenger behaviour at airport processes and discretionary services under different group formations. Results from experiments (both qualitative and quantitative) show that incorporating group attributes, in particular, the interactions with fellow travellers and wavers can have significant influence on passengers activity preference as well as the performance and utilisation of services in airport terminals. The model also provides a convenient way to investigate the effectiveness of airport space design and service allocations, which can contribute to positive passenger experiences. The model was created using AnyLogic software and its parameters were initialised using recent research data published in the literature.