The Helper And Gatekeeper: Graduate Mental Health Educators And Trainees In Psychological Distress

Graduate trainees from mental health disciplines have been found to exhibit higher levels of distress in comparison to the general population. Emotional distress is not a disqualifying factor in keeping trainees from the field. However, to provide ethical care, trainees must learn the skills necessary to manage their emotions while providing professional services. Currently, professional programs in psychology are shifting towards a competency-based education model for trainees, in which they are expected to meet progress on specific benchmarks based on their developmental stage. Trainees in distress who are unable to engage in appropriate behaviors in academic and professional settings are identified as exhibiting problems of professional competence. This study examined Mental Health Educators’ (MHEs) experiences with trainees whose emotional distress adversely affected the development of their professional competence. This study used a social constructivist framework and a consensual qualitative methodology. Participants included 12 graduate level educators from Psychology and Counselor Education programs. Four domains emerged from the data, which included: Professional Competence, Balancing Roles, Ethical Decision-Making, and Multicultural Factors. The results indicated that the MHEs’ were acutely aware of the stressors associated with graduate education and had a sense of empathy for their trainees’ distress. However, they acted within their role as educators and upheld their professional boundaries. As educators, they described assessing their trainees iv professional competence and fostering restorative remediation practices. MHEs were sensitive to numerous factors including their trainees’ multicultural identities and the language they used that shaped the power differential. While considering their trainees’ professional competence, MHEs’ affirmed their foundational sense of ethical obligation to protect the public. After multiple attempts at remediation, MHEs’ would assert their gatekeeping role by either pausing or dismissing trainees if they were unable to meet the necessary benchmarks for practice

Attitudes Towards Internationalism Through the Lens of Cognitive Effort, Global Mindset, and Cultural Intelligence

In the current study we examine attitudes towards internationalism through the lens of a specific set of constructs necessary in defining an effective global leader. One hundred fifty-nine undergraduates responded to items measuring need for cognition, cultural intelligence,and a set of items measuring the correlates of global mindset. In addition, they provided their attitudes on items measuring internationalism. A series of linear regression analyses revealed cultural intelligence,need for cognition and traveling abroad predicted students’ preference for working full-time in a foreign country. In addition, underclassmen were more likely to endorse the notion that the US culture is superior to other cultures compared to upperclassmen. Results support the importance of exposure to a diverse curriculum in shaping undergraduate students’ global mindset

A Review of Work Based Learning in Higher Education

The idea of work based learning in higher education might sound like a contradiction in terms. Work based learning is surely in the the workplace. The senses in which it might also, under certain conditions, be in higher education are explored in this review. There are increasing arrangements whereby people can obtain academic recognition for learning which has taken place outside of educational institutions. In addition to traditional forms of professional education and sandwich courses, one can add a host of relationships between employers and higher education institutions which involve quite fundamental questioning of the roles and responsibilities of each in the continuing education and training of adults. Such developments can be related to broader themes concerning the organisation of knowledge in society, the changing nature of work and career, the learning society and the implications they hold for individual workers, their employers and educational providers. The Department for Education and Employment sponsored the study to produce a substantial literature review of progress and issues raised in the field of work based learning in higher education. The first part of the book provides a contextual and conceptual backdrop against which more practical aspects of work based learning are then considered in part two. The final part considers strategic issues of implementation for higher education institutions, employers and individuals, before turning to more wide ranging issues of policy

The Education Quality Measuring: American Experience

The US Higher Education Reform is due to certain processes of competitiveness, market orientation, the tendency to form a single space for education. The American system of Higher Education has integrated the best in the education of other countries and thus helped the country overcome crises, to some extent solve the problems of racial discrimination, unemployment, poverty, improved the situation of women, people with disabilities, national minorities. The historical events, socio-economic transformations, aspiration to be a leader in the world market respectively have influenced the development of Higher Education. Due to reforms in American society, education has become more open, various, versatile. The Americans highly value the Higher Education and believe that education is necessary for a conscious political life, the functioning of a democratic government, the development of economic and political International relations. The American education serving the dynamic and global economy is effective and capable of developing in the conditions of limited public resources. This article focuses on the measurement of education quality and accreditation of Higher Learning Institutions in the USA; the analysis of educational activities of American universities; the coverage of accreditation and education performance of Higher Learning Institutions in the United States; these indicators usage in the process of education quality assessing in American universities; the essence disclosure of measurement the education quality with helping "added value" on the basis by American scientists research; the borrowing American experience into the Higher Learning Institutions in Ukraine

The competency framework for surveyors compared to other professions in Queensland

This paper will look at whether competency framework as an instrument for registation and endorsement applies to other professions regulated by government legislation

Shipboard Crisis Management: A Case Study.

The loss of the "Green Lily" in 1997 is used as a case study to highlight the characteristics of escalating crises. As in similar safety critical industries, these situations are unpredictable events that may require co-ordinated but flexible and creative responses from individuals and teams working in stressful conditions. Fundamental skill requirements for crisis management are situational awareness and decision making. This paper reviews the naturalistic decision making (NDM) model for insights into the nature of these skills and considers the optimal training regimes to cultivate them. The paper concludes with a review of the issues regarding the assessment of crisis management skills and current research into the determination of behavioural markers for measuring competence

Impact of Scottish vocational qualifications on residential child care : have they fulfilled the promise?

This article will present findings from a doctoral study exploring the impact of 'SVQ Care: Promoting Independence (level III)' within children's homes. The study focuses on the extent to which SVQs enhance practice and their function within a 'learning society'. A total of 30 staff were selected from seven children's homes in two different local authority social work departments in Scotland. Each member of staff was interviewed on four separate occasions over a period of 9 months. Interviews were structured using a combination of repertory grids and questions. Particular focus was given to the assessment process, the extent to which SVQs enhance practice and the learning experiences of staff. The findings suggest that there are considerable deficiencies both in terms of the SVQ format and the way in which children's homes are structured for the assessment of competence. Rather than address the history of failure within residential care, it appears that SVQs have enabled the status quo to be maintained whilst creating an 'illusion' of change within a learning society

An improved functional link neural network for data classification

The goal of classification is to assign the pre-specified group or class to an instance based on the observed features related to that instance. The implementation of several classification models is challenging as some only work well when the underlying assumptions are satisfied. In order to generate the complex mapping between input and output space to build the arbitrary complex non-linear decision boundaries, neural networks has become prominent tool with wide range of applications. The recent techniques such as Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), standard Functional Link Neural Network (FLNN) and Chebyshev Functional Link Neural Network (CFLNN) outperformed their existing regression, multiple regression, quadratic regression, stepwise polynomials, K-nearest neighbor (K-NN), Naïve Bayesian classifier and logistic regression. This research work explores the insufficiencies of well- known CFLNN model where CFLNN utilizes functional expansion with large number of degree and coefficient value for inputs enhancement which increase computational complexity of the network. Accordingly, two alternative models namely; Genocchi Functional Link Neural Network (GFLNN) and Chebyshev Wavelets Functional Link Neural Network (CWFLNN) are proposed. The novelty of these approaches is that, GFLNN presents the functional expansions with less degree and small coefficient values to make less computational inputs for training to overcome the drawbacks of CFLNN. Whereas, CWFLNN is capable to generate more number of small coefficient value based basis functions with same degree of polynomials as compared to other polynomials and it has orthonormality condition therefore it has more accurate constant of functional expansion and can approximate the functions within the interval. These properties of CWFLNN are used to overcome the deficiencies of GFLNN. The significance of proposed models is verified by using statistical tests such as Freidman test based on accuracy ranking and pairwise comparison test. Moreover, MLP, standard FLNN and CFLNN are used for comparison. For experiments, benched marked data sets from UCI repository, SVMLIB data set and KEEL data sets are utilized. The CWFLNN reveals significant improvement (due to its generating more numbers of basis function property) in terms of classification accuracy and reduces the computational work