Journal Club Revisited: Teaching Evidence-Based Research and Practice to Graduate Students in a Professional Degree Program

A Journal Club can be a learning exercise that allows for the critique and pursuant analytic discussion of empirical studies, and encourages the public health, health administration, or health policy student to better understand how evidence-based research contributes to evidence-based practice. The purpose of this paper is to describe a learning exercise that implements the Journal Club to evaluate strengths and limitations of relevant research studies and their potential influence on evidence-based practice. This learning exercise was developed to increase discipline-specific knowledge and improve analytical thinking to form and communicate a well-researched and reasoned critique about current peer-reviewed research. Specifically, the exercise was designed to: (1) identify the peer-review process and its influence on evidence-based practice; (2) curate primary resources for selected health issues; (3) evaluate a published, peer-reviewed research article for its rigor and limitations with respect to reported methods, findings, and applicability to professional practice; and (4) facilitate a discussion about discipline-specific research in a concise, professional manner. At the conclusion of the exercise, graduate students, who are also working professionals, reflected on the utility of examining how evidence-based research impacts evidence-based practice. The benefits of this applied learning approach for students and the faculty instructor are discussed

Environmental Justice in Indian Country: Using Equity Assessments to Evaluate Impacts to Trust Resources, Watersheds and Eco-cultural Landscapes

Native American cultures, genetics, nutrition, and ways of life co-evolved with their natural systems through thousands of years. This process has resulted in seamless eco-cultural systems of humans, plants, animals, rivers, landforms, and air sheds. These eco-cultural systems have also provided its peoples with unique and valid environmental management science that has sustained the peoples and their resources for thousands of years. This resource-based perspective could form the basis of environmental justice risk assessment methodology in Indian Country. Cumulative impacts to tribal cultures are a combination of pre-existing stressors (existing conditions or co-risk factors) and any other contamination or new activity that affects environmental quality. Characterizing risks or impacts in Indian Country entails telling the cumulative story about risks to trust resources and a cultural way of life. Equity assessments could also be performed in a way that describes these systems-level cumulative risks/impacts. This requires improvements in metrics based on an understanding of the unbreakable ties between people, their cultures, and their resources. Specific recommendations are presented for performing equity assessments in Indian Country and for developing a Risk Ethics discipline

Etika dan moral profesional dalam kalangan Pelajar Sarjana yang telah menjalani program latihan mengajar

Etika dan moral profesional merupakan salah satu elemen yang penting bagi meningkatkan sahsiah untuk kecemerlangan pelajar yang berilmu, berkualiti dan berbudi. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti tahap etika dan moral profesional dalam kalangan pelajar Sarjana yang telah menjalani program latihan mengajar. Selain itu, kajian ini turut mengenal pasti perbezaan tahap etika dan moral profesional di antara demografi iaitu dari segi jantina dan pencapaian akademik pelajar. Kajian ini berbentuk tinjauan dengan menggunakan borang soal selidik sebagai instrumen kajian. Seramai 144 orang responden terlibat yang terdiri daripada pelajar Semester III program Sarjana PTV, UTHM yang mengikuti program latihan mengajar 2 sesi Julai 2012. Data dianalisis secara statistik deskriptif dan statistik inferensi dengan menggunakan perisian Statistical Packages for Social Science Version 16 (SPSS ver 16). Penganalisisan data secara statistik desktiptif adalah untuk mendapatkan kekerapan dan peratusan. Manakala bagi pengujian hipotesis pula, ujian Mann-Whitney U dan Ujian Kruskal Wallis digunakan. Hasil kajian menunjukkan tahap etika dan moral profesional dari aspek amalan profesional adalah baik (skor=38.19%), dari aspek menyelesaikan masalah berkaitan etika adalah pada tahap sederhana (skor= 42.36%) dan dari aspek sikap beretika adalah pada tahap lemah (skor=32.64%). Di samping itu, hasil kajian juga menyatakan tidak terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan tahap etika dan moral profesional antara pelajar lelaki dan pelajar perempuan dan tidak terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan tahap etika dan moral profesional pelajar yang berlainan pencapaian akademik. Berdasarkan dapatan kajian ini, beberapa cadangan telah dikemukan untuk meningkatkan lagi tahap etika dan moral profesional dalam kalangan guru pelatih

Linking urban design to sustainability : formal indicators of social urban sustainability field research in Perth, Western Australia

The making of a livable urban community is a complex endeavor. For much of the 20th Century plannersand engineers believed that modern and rational decision-making would create successful cities. Today, political leaders across the globe are considering ways to promote sustainable development and the concepts of New Urbanism are making their way from the drawing board to the ground. While much has changed in the world, the creation of a successful street is as much of an art today as it was in the 1960s.Our work seeks to investigate 'street life' in cities as a crucial factor towards community success. What arethe components of the neighborhood and street form that contributes to the richness of street life? To answer this question we rely on the literature. The aim of the Formal Indicators of Social Urban Sustainability studyis to measure the formal components of a neighborhood and street that theorists have stated important in promoting sustainability. This paper will describe how this concept helps to bridge urban design and sustainability. It will describe the tool and show how this was applied in a comparative assessment of Joondalup and Fremantle, two urban centers in the Perth metropolitan area

In the eyes of Janus:the intellectual structure of HRM-performance debate and its future prospects

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a perspective on the future of the human resource management (HRM)-performance debate and its prospects for interaction with practice by evaluating the debate's intellectual structure. Design/methodology/approach With co-citation analysis the paper examines the intellectual structure that informed the HRM-performance debate. The findings were presented to a group of academics, who have been influential in the development of the debate. In several rounds of a quasi-Delphi interaction they discussed the state of the art, future development of the debate, upcoming theoretical sources of inspiration and topics on which they (dis)agreed. Findings The dominant knowledge domain is built upon resource-based view, social exchange theory, human capital theory, institutional theory and critical perspective. It became well established in the mid 1990s, when the strategic HRM domain merged with the high performance work systems domain, thus forming the conceptual backbone of the debate. More recently the debate has been informed by review studies, meta-analyses and critical reflections on the current methodological paradigms, which is aligned with the debate's life cycle stage. Originality/value The paper highlights the theoretical foundations of the HRM-performance debate and gives valuable suggestions on how to take the field forward along with important implications for researchers and their relationship with the business community. Keywords: High performance work systems, HR strategy, Organization effectivenes

Practice-based Qualitative Research: Participant Experiences of Walk-in Counselling and Traditional Counselling

Walk-in single session counselling is becoming a more widely used model for delivering mental health services across Ontario. This paper reports findings from the qualitative phase of a mixed method study, exploring the experiences of those attending walk-in counselling (WIC) model compared to the traditional service delivery model employing a wait list. We used a comparative case study design for the qualitative phase. Findings reveal that participant outcomes of the walk-in counselling model is influenced by accessibility, how a participant makes sense of the service, and the degree to which a participant is motivated and able to engage in counselling. WIC supports the mental health system by reducing wait lists associated with traditional service delivery models, and meeting the needs many people identify for immediate consultation. Other participants still perceive themselves as requiring ongoing counselling over time and involving in-depth exploration. This research supports health systems providing access to both models

Business of Athletics: Dynamics Between Collegiate Athletic Organizations and the Business World

Performance, Business, Athletics, Communication, Executive Coaching, Student, Student-Athlete, Coache