Constructing validated clinical tools to enable the development of a new evidence base for personalised nutrition practice in obesity management

This project focused on evaluating, constructing and integrating standardised clinical data-collection tools for obesity management in personalised nutrition practice. A mixed methods research design including surveys and interviews was used. A collaborative Delphi survey method was undertaken with purposefully selected stakeholder participants, who then contributed to the construction of four new tools. The project comprised of two research questions: 1. Is it possible and ethical to standardise a personalised approach to nutrition practice? 2. If so, what tools can be constructed and validated to help individual health history data collection, clinical decision making and clinical outcome analysis to enable the development of a case-by-case evidence base for personalised nutrition practice in the management of obesity? Theoretical frameworks that influenced the project include: the functional medicine approach, clinical psychoneuroimmunology (cPNI), the interdisciplinary approach of systems science, pathophysiological mechanistic reasoning and translational bioinformatics. The project focused on personalised nutrition practice, which is primarily centred on nutritional therapy but also draws on the practice of dietitians, nutritionists, functional medicine and cPNI practitioners. The research project had five stages included in the overall design. The first was a literature review undertaken to inform the project approach and tool development. The second stage involved gathering, categorising and evaluating existing tools. Surveys and interviews assessed practitioner experiences of using tools, while interviews with statisticians and academics evaluated their experiences and views on tool development to inform the development of new tools. The third stage was the Delphi method: a multi-staged, collaborative survey resulting in the development of four new clinical tools. The fourth stage was a pilot trial which aimed to achieve face validity and measure feasibility and utility for each of the four tools. The final stage included a survey and interviews which aimed to evaluate ways standardised tools could be successfully embedded into personalised nutrition practice. The findings showed that there were few ethical concerns with utilising standardised data-collection tools in nutrition practice, but there were numerous ethical considerations in relation to the development of a case-by-case evidence base for personalised nutrition practice. It was possible to construct new tools aimed at standardising individual health history data collection and clinical outcome analysis in order to support clinical decision making, but it was not possible to validate these tools. This project has been the first of its kind: a synthesis of different nutritional practice approaches to support the development of robust translational bioinformatics tools using pathophysiological reasoning. The results have created new knowledge in terms of understanding, defining and developing an evidence-based personalised nutrition practice approach. This could lead to major change initiatives and enhance and strengthen the nutrition profession

Using decision analysis: connecting "classroom" and "field"

This paper reports on the findings of a small-scale research project investigating the views of social work students on the use of decision analysis. After giving the context of the research, the article reports on what was found when students, who had just completed a Decision Making and Risk module, were asked for their opinions on the component parts of decision analysis, its use as a practice tool and their attitudes to using it on placement. The research found that the respondents in general took a critical and supportive stance towards the use of decision analysis in social work and, with extra teaching and a positive approach from their practice assessor, would be happy to use decision analysis. When the same group of students completed a follow-up questionnaire on a placement recall day, half of them had thought about using decision analysis but only three had gone on to discuss this with their practice assessors. Some issues in relation to connecting 'classroom' and 'field' are identified and the paper concludes that a number of further steps would be necessary to realise the potential of decision analysis to help students be more systematic and analytical in their approach to decision makin

Continuous Improvement Through Knowledge-Guided Analysis in Experience Feedback

Continuous improvement in industrial processes is increasingly a key element of competitiveness for industrial systems. The management of experience feedback in this framework is designed to build, analyze and facilitate the knowledge sharing among problem solving practitioners of an organization in order to improve processes and products achievement. During Problem Solving Processes, the intellectual investment of experts is often considerable and the opportunities for expert knowledge exploitation are numerous: decision making, problem solving under uncertainty, and expert configuration. In this paper, our contribution relates to the structuring of a cognitive experience feedback framework, which allows a flexible exploitation of expert knowledge during Problem Solving Processes and a reuse such collected experience. To that purpose, the proposed approach uses the general principles of root cause analysis for identifying the root causes of problems or events, the conceptual graphs formalism for the semantic conceptualization of the domain vocabulary and the Transferable Belief Model for the fusion of information from different sources. The underlying formal reasoning mechanisms (logic-based semantics) in conceptual graphs enable intelligent information retrieval for the effective exploitation of lessons learned from past projects. An example will illustrate the application of the proposed approach of experience feedback processes formalization in the transport industry sector

Enhancing skills of critical reflection to evidence learning in professional practice

Professional organisations and regulatory bodies are making critical reflection a mandatory component of professional practice. Reflection is a vital part of learning from experience and is central to developing and maintaining competency across a practitioner's lifetime. This paper will discuss key educational theories to illustrate why reflection is important. Kolb's and Gibbs' reflective cycles are used to structure the process of critical reflection. Elements of the educational tradition of Bildung are discussed and integrated to enrich the understanding of self and to facilitate the reader's ability to enhance their professional practice

Exploring Current Practice of Using Technology to Support Collaborative Argumentation in Science Classrooms

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how middle school science teachers enact the practice of using technology to support collaborative argumentation in their science classroom. This study employed qualitative case study and drew on data sources of interviews and observations. This study identified two themes. Six teachers regarded scientific argumentation as an important science practice, but five of them integrated this practice into their science class without formally introducing it. All teachers integrated different forms of technology to engage students in scientific argumentation. In this study, the findings suggested there is a need to provide professional development for teachers to learn about scientific argumentation. The findings can be used as a basis for the design and development of professional development training experiences for in-servic

A study on the effect of a web-based teaching module and gender on accounting students’ ethical judgements

Accounting educators face the increasingly important task of teaching ethics. Yet, there is little empirical evidence on the effectiveness of different ethics instructional methods on accounting students’ ethical judgements. This study examines whether the ethical decision making of accounting students differs (1) between those instructed through a web-based teaching module and those adopting a more traditional textbook-focused approach, and (2) between gender. A total of 156 students from a second-year financial accounting course participated in the study, with 90 students utilising the web-based module which was designed based on Rest’s (1979) model on ethics development. The other 66 students were instructed through a more traditional teaching approach based on regular class discussions using the ethical problems presented in the textbook. Subsequently, when presented with a whistle-blowing situation, the results of the study suggest that the attitudes and judgements of students instructed through the web-based module were more ethical than those utilising the traditional textbook module. Further, gender was found to impact ethical judgements but only among students who were exposed to the web-based module. The implications of the findings on accounting ethics education are discussed