Systematic case study research : a practice-oriented introduction to building an evidence base for counselling and psychotherapy

Background: Historically, clinical case studies have played a central role in counselling and psychotherapy training and practice, by allowing practitioners to learn about ideas and interventions being developed by colleagues. In recent years, the development of methods for systematic collection and analysis of case data has made it possible for case study research to begin to make a contribution to the evidence base for therapy policy and practice. Aim: This paper provides an overview of the characteristics of rigorous case study research, introduces a set of studies that exemplify these principles, and reviews the relevance of systematic case study inquiry for policy, practice and training. Conclusions: If case study research is to fulfil its potential as a source of research-based knowledge, it is essential for practitioners to publish more systematic case studies that document the range and scope of everyday therapeutic practice. It is also necessary to carry out further research into a variety of methodological issues associated with single-case inquiry, as a means of further developing this approach to practice-based research

Best Practices for Enhancing Teaching Presence in Online Courses

abstract: Online education has become increasingly popular in graduate nursing education. Establishing a strong sense of teaching presence in online courses requires planning and effort on the part of the instructor. The purpose of this project was to develop an evidence-based online asynchronous educational module to enhance nurse educators’ teaching presence behaviors in online courses. Teaching presence survey tools were developed and pilot tested to evaluate instructors’ self-reported teaching presence behaviors over time, as well as their intent and actual follow-through in performing teaching presence behaviors. Despite statistically significant higher levels of participants’ intent to perform teaching presence behaviors following the educational module, there was no significant change in the frequency of teaching presence behaviors reported by participants 8 weeks after completion of the module. Overall, the self-reported scores for each of the teaching presence behaviors on the surveys was high, offering little perceived room for improvement in this group of experienced instructors

Knowledge Contribution in Virtual Communities: Accounting for Multiple Dimensions of Social Presence through Social Identity

Virtual communities provide an important venue for knowledge sharing. Prior research has demonstrated that both system design factors, e.g., social presence, and social aspects of VC, e.g., social identity, are critical for encouraging knowledge contribution. However, we still lack a good understanding of how the system design and the social aspects of VC jointly influence members’ knowledge contribution. Also the uni-dimensional conceptualization of social presence in most prior research may not be sufficient to capture the complexity in VC interaction. To address these theoretical voids, a research model is developed to explain the effect of social presence on knowledge contribution as mediated through social identity. More particularly, drawing upon environmental psychology literature and prior research on social presence, we propose a three-dimensional conceptualization, consisting of sensory, affective, and cognitive components, and discuss their distinct roles in developing social identification and promoting knowledge contribution. The research model was empirically tested with a survey involving 430 registered members. The results provided a strong support for the validity and usability of the multi-dimensional conceptualization of social presence. We also found the distinct effects of various social presence dimensions on social identity and knowledge contribution. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Embodied conversations: Performance and the design of a robotic dancing partner

This paper reports insights gained from an exploration of performance-based techniques to improve the design of relationships between people and responsive machines. It draws on the Emergent Objects project and specifically addresses notions of embodiment as employed in the field of performance as a means to prototype and develop a robotic agent, SpiderCrab, designed to promote expressive interaction of device and human dancer, in order to achieve ‘performative merging’. The significance of the work is to bring further knowledge of embodiment to bear on the development of human-technological interaction in general. In doing so, it draws on discursive and interpretive methods of research widely used in the field of performance but not yet obviously aligned with some orthodox paradigms and practices within design research. It also posits the design outcome as an ‘objectile’ in the sense that a continuous and potentially divergent iteration of prototypes is envisaged, rather than a singular final product. The focus on performative merging draws in notions of complexity and user experience. Keywords: Embodiment; Performance; Tacit Knowledge; Practice-As-Research; Habitus.</p

Secure and Usable User-in-a-Context Continuous Authentication in Smartphones Leveraging Non-Assisted Sensors

Smartphones are equipped with a set of sensors that describe the environment (e.g., GPS, noise, etc.) and their current status and usage (e.g., battery consumption, accelerometer readings, etc.). Several works have already addressed how to leverage such data for user-in-a-context continuous authentication, i.e., determining if the porting user is the authorized one and resides in his regular physical environment. This can be useful for an early reaction against robbery or impersonation. However, most previous works depend on assisted sensors, i.e., they rely upon immutable elements (e.g., cell towers, satellites, magnetism), thus being ineffective in their absence. Moreover, they focus on accuracy aspects, neglecting usability ones. For this purpose, in this paper, we explore the use of four non-assisted sensors, namely battery, transmitted data, ambient light and noise. Our approach leverages data stream mining techniques and offers a tunable security-usability trade-off. We assess the accuracy, immediacy, usability and readiness of the proposal. Results on 50 users over 24 months show that battery readings alone achieve 97.05% of accuracy and 81.35% for audio, light and battery all together. Moreover, when usability is at stake, robbery is detected in 100 s for the case of battery and in 250 s when audio, light and battery are applied. Remarkably, these figures are obtained with moderate training and storage needs, thus making the approach suitable for current devices.This work has been partially supported by MINECO grants TIN2013-46469-R (SPINY), TIN2016-79095-C2-2-R (SMOG-DEV); CAM grant S2013/ICE-3095 (CIBERDINE), co-funded with European FEDER funds

Effect of an Intensive Intervention on the Early Literacy Skills of Kindergarten Students Identified as Most at Risk for Future Reading Difficulties

There is limited research investigating the individualized effects of early literacy interventions on kindergarten students who are most at risk for reading failure at school entry. In this study, a multiple baseline design was used to measure the effect of an early literacy intervention on the alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness of kindergarten students identified as most at risk. First, a two-stage screening process consisting of measures of alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and rapid automatic naming was employed to identify those students with the lowest overall skill level from the entire at-risk kindergarten population from one school building. The nine students with the lowest skill level were selected to receive more intensive intervention services than were typically offered to at-risk kindergarten students. The intervention consisted of both code-focused and meaning-focused components and was delivered daily for 25 minutes in small groups of three students for a total of 60 instructional sessions. The intervention was implemented at three different points in time, resulting in three baseline and three intervention phases. During baseline and intervention phases, two alphabet knowledge measures and one phonological awareness measure were repeatedly administered to all participants. Data was analyzed through systematic comparison of within and between phase patterns, such as performance level, trend, variability, non-overlap of data points, and immediacy of effect. Analysis was enhanced using the conservative dual criterion approach. Results indicated that an experimental effect was evident after the first and second introduction of the independent variable but not at time three, weakening the claim of a cause and effect relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Differences in performance level and trend in the data were evident for five students on letter name knowledge, six students on letter sound knowledge, and six students on first sound identification skills

Leadership process models: A review and synthesis

In organizational research, studying "processes" is important for uncovering and understanding the underlying causal mechanisms in a predictor-mediator-outcome logic. Processes answer "how" and "why" questions and provide more complete explanations about phenomena. Our focus in this review is on studies of leadership processes, which we systematically analyze to report on the state-of-the science. In doing so, we present a two-dimensional target-centric taxonomy to integrate previous research: The taxonomy distinguishes the target's level (i.e., individual follower, team, organizational, and extra-organizational) as well as the type of leadership processes that affect either the target's development or leverage of resources. Our review indicates that the predominantly studied leadership "meta" process model looks at the effect of leader traits or behaviors on performance-related outcomes through cognitive, affective, or behavioral leveraging factors. This "meta" model points to several important and understudied processes including a leader's influence on the target's development or work context. We also identify two largely overlooked yet critical issues for leadership process research: Modeling the role of time and that of multiple processes through which leadership effects manifest themselves in organizations. Using our taxonomy, we provide several reflection points that can guide the development of genuine and thoughtful leadership process theories. We conclude by urging future leadership process research to embrace multi-process, multi-level, and time-sensitive models