Only hearing what they want to hear:Assessing when and why performance information triggers intentions to coproduce

While performance information is often used to communicate the importance of public policies and stimulate civic engagement, we know little about the processes that connect the two. This study proposes a conceptual model that links performance information to a specific form of public engagement: coproduction. Drawing on insights from information aversion theory, we argue that the effect of performance information on engagement in coproduction depends on levels of policy understanding and the valence of performance information that individuals are exposed to. Specifically, we predict that individuals exposed to positive performance information will understand the policy better than those exposed to negative performance information. Further, we predict that higher levels of policy understanding will increase coproduction engagement intentions. These predictions are examined using two experiments and a representative sample of US residents (n = 836). Findings indicate that participants best understood positive information and that understanding significantly increased coproduction engagement intentions

Pathways from women's group-based programs to nutrition change in South Asia: a conceptual framework and literature review

Improving the nutritional status of women and children in South Asia remains a high public health and development priority. Women's groups are emerging as platforms for delivering health- and nutrition-oriented programs and addressing gender and livelihoods challenges. We propose a framework outlining pathways through which women's group participation may facilitate improvements in nutrition. Evidence is summarized from 36 studies reporting on 24 nutritional indicators across infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices, intake/diet, and anthropometry. Our findings suggest that women's group-based programs explicitly triggering behavior change pathways are most successful in improving nutrition outcomes, with strongest evidence for IYCF practices. Future investigators should link process and impact evaluations to better understand the pathways from women's group participation to nutritional impact

Systematic Literature Review of the Evidence for Effective National Immunisation Schedule Promotional Communications

Introduction: A systematic literature review examined the published evidence on the effectiveness of European promotional communications for national immunisation schedule (NIS) vaccinations. The review was commissioned by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and conducted by the Institute for Social Marketing at the University of Stirling.The purpose of the review: ‘Immunisation hesitancy' has negatively impacted population uptake of routine immunisation. A substantial body of evaluated communication activity promoting nationally indicated routine immunisation has been published. This systematic review of the evidence aims to: collate and map the types of promotional communication that have been used; assess the quality of the evaluative research reporting on these promotional communications; and assess the applicability of this evidence to immunisation policy, strategy and practice priorities. The analysis and findings are intended to provide a current status report on the evidence, and evidence gaps for good practice in national immunisation promotional communications, thus supporting countries in their communication activities for the prevention and control of communicable diseases.Objectives of the review: The review aimed to answer the following research questions: Which audiences have been targeted by NIS promotional communications? Which communication methods and approaches have been used to promote or reinforce NIS vaccination uptake? What theoretical underpinnings are used to inform communication methods and approaches? Which settings and communication channels have been used to promote or reinforce NIS vaccination uptake? What is the evidence for effectiveness of communication initiatives in changing or reinforcing knowledge, attitudes or behaviour towards NIS? What is the evidence for impact of NIS communication initiatives to control communicable disease? What impact have campaign communications promoting NIS had on public acceptance and vaccine uptake rates

What are primary school teachers' attitudes toward introversion in students?

The existing literature suggests a potential implicit social desirability associated with the extrovert personality and as a result, extroverts are accommodated across various work and educational settings, leading to a better person-environment fit and therefore better wellbeing. This study adopted a social constructionist perspective to explore whether teacher attitude to students described in terms of introversion/extroversion, varied as a function of positive and negative framing, as well as teachers’ own levels of extraversion. This was a quantitative mixed design. Participants were 334 primary school teachers. Teachers were presented with vignettes via a web-based survey, depicting hypothetical children displaying typical, extrovert, or introvert behaviours in the classroom and responded to follow-up questions assessing their attitudes. Teachers also completed a self-report measure of extraversion. The results indicated a relationship between teacher attitude and framing and teacher attitude and student personality type. The findings appear to place the cause of lower attitudinal rating within the teachers’ perception of the student themselves rather than the teachers’ perception of their own ability to teach introvert students. Attitudinal ratings did not vary with teachers’ own level of extraversion. Results are discussed in terms of their educational implications for the social and academic functioning of introvert students. This research provides an original contribution to the field of educational psychology within the Irish context, and offers insights that would benefit the fields of education and psychology, more generally.N

Lebanese adolescents' expectations about social inclusion of peers in intergroup contexts

This study examined the role of group norms, group identity, age, contact, and stereotypes on youths’ decisions to include a peer in an intergroup context portraying Lebanese and American adolescents. Lebanese participants (N = 275), ages 12 and 16 years, were surveyed about expectations for inclusion of an out-group target with similar interests or an in-group target with different interests into their own Lebanese group or another American group. Findings indicated participants focused on shared interests, rather than national identity, when making inclusion decisions for either group and group norms mattered. Older participants expected American peers to be less inclusive toward an out-group peer. Direct contact predicted inclusivity of out-group American peers into one’s own Lebanese group, and indirect media-based contact predicted expectations for inclusivity into an American out-group. Findings have implications for interventions aimed at improving cross-national friendships which, in turn, have the potential to reduce prejudicial attitudes

The Comparative Effect of Teacher- and Peer-assessment on EFL Learners’ Self-confidence

This research was conducted to investigate whether there is any significant difference between the impact of teacher-assessment and peer-assessment on the personality feature of self-confidence of EFL learners. To fulfill the purpose of this study 60 female students from Resalat high school in Qazvin were selected non-probabilistically using convenience sampling strategy. These students who were in two classes first take a self-confidence test of 56 items. Then both classes underwent six sessions of reading comprehension practice followed by quizzes. In one class the test papers were scored by the teacher (i.e. teacher-assessment) and in another they were scored by classmates (i.e. peer-assessment). At the end of the program, the self-confidence test was administered again. The means of pre- and post-tests of self-confidence were compared using t-test. Moreover, if the pre-tests of both classes were proved homogeneous, the results of post tests could be also compared for significance of any mean difference. Finally,the result showed  that there was a significant difference between the effects of peer-assessment and teacher-assessment on EFL learners’ self confidence. After comparing the effects of teacher- and peer-assessment on the participants’self-confidence peer-assessment, however,turned out to be more effective in improving the EFL learners’ self-confidence than teacher-assessment

Misleading or Informing? Examining the Effects of Labeling Design on Consumers’ Perception of Gluten-Free Products and Wheat Safety

As food products marketed as “gluten-free” become increasingly popular, many consumers start to exclude sources of gluten (e.g., wheat, barley, and rye) from their diets for both medical and non-medical purposes. The grain industry is facing a growing challenge to (re)boost consumers’ confidence in the healthiness and safety of its commodities. Using 561 participants recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk workers’ panel, this study implemented a 2 (pretzels vs. potato chips) * 2 (positive- vs. negative- frame) * 2 (wheat image vs. no wheat image) experiment to examine the effects of gluten-free labels on consumers’ perceived healthiness and safety of wheat, perceived benefits of labeled products, and their evaluation of the shown labels. Results showed that consumers evaluate the gluten-free labels most positively when they appear on products that could have contained gluten. For products that are naturally gluten-free, adding a gluten-free label only decreased consumers’ confidence in such labels. The presence of gluten-free labels increased consumers’ perceived benefits of the labeled products when they do not contain any misleading information (e.g., image of a wheat head). However, some gluten-free labels could have negative impacts on consumers’ perceptions of the healthiness and safety of wheat. Overall, food producers and marketers might have undervalued consumers’ literacy and overestimated their susceptibility to marketing strategies. We discussed the implications for food marketers, regulators, and communicators

Consumer acceptance of nutrigenomics based personalised nutrition

Nutrigenomics is a new and promising development in nutritional science which aims to understand the fundamental molecular processes affected by foods. Despite general agreement on its promise for better understanding diet¿health relationships, less consensus exists among experts on the potential of spin-offs aimed at the consumer such as personalised nutrition. Research into consumer acceptance of such applications is scarce. The present study develops a set of key hypotheses on public acceptance of personalised nutrition and tests these in a representative sample of Dutch consumers. An innovative consumer research methodology is used in which consumers evaluate short films which are systematically varied scenarios for the future of personalised nutrition. Consumer evaluations of these films, which are pre-tested in a pilot study, allow a formal test of how consumer perceptions of personalised nutrition drive consumer acceptance and through which fundamental psychological processes these effects are mediated. Public acceptance is enhanced if consumers can make their genetic profile available free at their own choice, if the actual spin-off products provide a clearly recognisable advantage to the consumer, and are easy to implement into the daily routine. Consumers prefer communication on nutrigenomics and personalised nutrition by expert stakeholders to be univocal and aimed at building support with consumers and their direct environments for this intriguing new development. Additionally, an exploratory segmentation analysis indicated that people have different focal points in their preferences for alternative scenarios of personalised nutrition. The insights obtained from the present study provide guidance for the successful further development of nutrigenomics and its applications

Impact Evaluations and Development: Nonie Guidance on Impact Evaluation

In international development, impact evaluation is principally concerned with final results of interventions (programs, projects, policy measures, reforms) on the welfare of communities, households, and individuals, including taxpayers and voters. Impact evaluation is one tool within the larger toolkit of monitoring and evaluation (including broad program evaluations, process evaluations, ex ante studies, etc.).The Network of Networks for Impact Evaluation (NONIE) was established in 2006 to foster more and better impact evaluations by its membership -- the evaluation networks of bilateral and multilateral organizations focusing on development issues, as well as networks of developing country evaluators. NONIE's member networks conduct a broad set of evaluations, examining issues such as project and strategy performance, institutional development, and aid effectiveness. By sharing methodological approaches and promoting learning by doing on impact evaluations, NONIE aims to promote the use of this more specific approach by its members within their larger portfolio of evaluations. This document, by Frans Leeuw and Jos Vaessen, has been developed to support this focus.For development practitioners, impact evaluations play a keyrole in the drive for better evidence on results and development effectiveness. They are particularly well suited to answer important questions about whether development interventions do or do not work, whether they make a difference, and how cost-effective they are. Consequently, they can help ensure that scarce resources are allocated where they can have the most developmental impact

When ethnic minority students are judged as more suitable for the highest school track: a shifting standards experiment

When students are grouped into school tracks, this has lasting consequences for their learning and later careers. In Germany to date, some groups of students (boys, ethnic minority students) are underrepresented in the highest track. Stereotypes about these groups exist that entail negative expectations about their suitability for the highest track. Based on the shifting standards model, the present research examines if and how stereotypes influence tracking recommendations. According to this theory, members of negatively stereotyped groups will be judged more leniently or more strictly depending on the framing of the judgment situation (by inducing minimum or confirmatory standards). N = 280 teacher students participated in a vignette study in which they had to choose the amount of positive evidence for suitability they wanted to see before deciding to recommend a fictitious student to the highest track. A 2 (judgment standard: minimum vs. confirmatory) × 2 (target student’s gender: male vs. female) × 2 (target student’s ethnicity: no migration background vs. Turkish migration background) between-subjects design was used. No effects of target gender occurred, but the expected interaction of target’s ethnicity and judgment standard emerged. In the minimum standard condition, less evidence was required for the ethnic minority student to be recommended for the highest track compared to the majority student. In the confirmatory standards condition, however, participants tended to require less evidence for the ethnic majority student. Our experiment underlines the importance of the framing of the recommendation situation, resulting in a more lenient or stricter assessment of negatively stereotyped groups