Dental Hygiene Students\u27 Perceptions of Themselves and the Typical Dental Hygienist in Regard to Feminism

The purpose of this investigation was to assess dental hygiene students\u27 perceptions of themselves and the typical dental hygienist in regard to feminism. The accessible population was composed of all first-year, second-year, and post-certificate dental hygiene students at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Data were organized according to a 3x3x3 factorial research design with age, Q.P.A., and educational level as the assigned independent variables. The dependent variable, students\u27 perceptions of themselves and the typical dental hygienist, was measured by the Feminism II Scale. Repeated measures analysis of variance yielded no statistically significant difference between dental hygiene students\u27 perception of themselves and students\u27 perception of the typical dental hygienist. Additionally, no statistically significant interaction was observed among educational levels, age groups, and Q.P.A. groups as measured by Feminism II scores. All comparisons were at the 0.05 level of significance

The Visiting Team: Research On The Engagement Of Urban, Commuter Student-Athletes

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III mantra of “offering participation in a competitive athletic environment that pushes student-athletes to excel on the field and build upon their potential by tackling new challenges across campus” requires administrators to support and promote academic achievement, athletic success, and personal well-being. For Division III student-athletes who are also urban, commuter students, the path to engagement in those areas is not clearly defined. The intent of this two-phase, mixed methods study was to evaluate the priorities of urban, commuting student-athletes at a NCAA Division III institution in New York City. The following research questions supported the study: 1. How do urban commuter student-athletes characterize intercollegiate athletics as part of their campus experience? 2. How does personal and career programming offered by the athletic department influence urban commuter student-athlete behavior and choices? Fifty student-athletes participated in the quantitative portion of the study. An additional eleven student-athletes participated in the survey portion of the study. The REDCap platform was used to gather survey data, which was analyzed for themes on student-athlete engagement at the institution. Interview data was gathered using the Skype platform and the interview transcripts were coded to determine themes and trends among the student-athletes. Results from the study indicate that participation in intercollegiate athletics is not the top motivator for urban, commuter student-athletes. Ability to participate in athletics ranks third, behind ability to major in a chosen subject and cost of attendance. Student-athletes did not view athletics programming as a resource that could not be found in other departments on campus. Additional findings suggested that commuter student-athletes respond more strongly when programming is associated with teammates or coaching staff, rather than the athletics department generally. The results of this study recommend that future programming address commuter student-athlete academic challenges, lessen the persona

Evaluating the implementation of HIV and AIDS policies at a major South African Hotel group

Thesis (M. Tech. (Tourism and Hospitality management)) -- Central university of Technology, Free State, 2012South Africa is the country with the largest population of HIV and AIDS sufferers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since AIDS is an incurable disease that mostly affects individuals in their productive years, it could have a disruptive impact on the productivity and financial sustainability of organisations, which is especially true in the hospitality industry where long and strenuous working hours are often expected from staff. With this in mind, the study aimed to evaluate the level of implementation of HIV and AIDS policies in the hospitality industry, by focusing on a major South African hotel group. This particular hotel group operates a number of individual hotels throughout South Africa. To ensure that all geographical areas were covered, major cities in three different provinces were identified as suitable locations for individual hotels to be identified for the study. The city of Durban, representing the Kwazulu-Natal Province, was selected on the basis of being the worst-affected area, with Bloemfontein (Free State Province) and Cape Town (Western Cape Province) as the medium-affected and least-affected area respectively. The data, which was gathered by means of a questionnaire, was interpreted both qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings show that the respondents were not always aware of the existence of HIV and AIDS policies and that these were not being adequately communicated to staff. The findings also indicate that the respondents do not fully comprehend the disruptive nature of the disease or the fact that it could negatively affect productivity and profit

Collaborative Learning and Critical Thinking: Use of the Jigsaw Learning Activity in Occupational Therapy Teaching

Collaborative team learning prepares future practitioners using well-crafted, guided collaborative learning activities. Collaborative learning distributes responsibility across team members as they engage socially to build knowledge and learner skills. Critical thinking is a learner skill that is fostered through challenging the team of learners’ assumptions through ill-defined, complex real-life cases that defy easy solutions. The ability of occupational therapists to create effective discharge plans has been found to positively alter hospital recidivism. By offering a Jigsaw Case focused on discharge planning at several points in time across the service delivery continuum of care, a team of learners engaged in collaborative learning. We offer a complete Jigsaw Case experience supported by the literature of best practice that faculty can use as an example to tailor their own case based on circumstances and contexts

The Development of a Cancer-Related Cognitive Impairments Seminar for Occupational Therapy Practitioners

Occupational therapy practitioners are qualified to address the emergence of functional deficits from cancer-related cognitive impairments (CRCI); however, they have reported a need to address gaps in their knowledge of CRCI. The purpose of this study was to comprehensively design, disseminate and examine the impact of implementing a face-to-face continuing education seminar designed to enhance occupational therapy practitioners’ knowledge of CRCI in adults and older adults. After completing a needs assessment and designing the seminar, the seminar was piloted with occupational therapy students (n = 64) where student feedback guided modifications to the seminar’s content, design and evaluation. The final CRCI seminar was presented at 15 facilities throughout the continuum of care with 130 occupational therapy practitioners. Participants’ CRCI knowledge increased significantly after the seminar (Z = -9.623, p performance (96%, n = 123) and perceived patient outcomes (94%, n = 119) in the future. The seminar was both an effective method for increasing practitioners’ short-term CRCI knowledge and a well-received method of dissemination

Critical Thinking and Transformational Learning: Using Case Studies as Narrative Frameworks for Threshold Concepts

Critical thinking is an essential component to the occupational therapy process that is a timely skill with the rapid pace of change in our healthcare system. Critical thinking exposes assumptions, biases, beliefs and points of view and challenges a shift in epistemology by asking, ‘how do we know what we believe to know?’ Case studies are a tool to engage the learner in critical thinking and are commonly employed in occupational therapy curricula. Social determinants of health (SDH) describe environmental circumstances that affect health. The authors propose that SDH, embedded in case studies, serve as a threshold concept. A threshold concept serves as a means of transformative learning and promotion of critical thinking in occupational therapy education. Social determinants of health taught through case study presentation represent the authentic complex lives of those therapists serve, bolster student critical thinking, and help to consider the multiple perspectives that may challenge long held beliefs. Qualitative content analysis of 59 case studies for SDH content across one curriculum and five semesters, revealed cases built on client factors and foundational knowledge with missed opportunity to add SDH context. Eleven guidelines for case development are proposed to foster transformational learning. Intentional instructional approaches can assist educational programs to develop the professional change agents needed to serve communities and populations with a larger goal of health equity

Community Teaching Experience: A Description of the Development and Design of a Unique Teaching Experience for Occupational Therapy Doctoral Students

Entry-level occupational therapy doctorate (OTD) students receive education and training to interpret and disseminate evidenced-based literature. However, these students are often missing the clinical experience to identify clinically relevant questions that impact occupational outcomes. Conversely, occupational therapy practitioners have the clinical experience to determine clinically appropriate questions but often encounter time, budget, and setting constraints on researching and learning up-to-date evidence-based practice assessment and intervention techniques. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and design of an exploratory educational project in which OTD students utilized clinically relevant questions identified by local occupational therapy practitioners to disseminate evidence-based literature in the form of continuing competency in-services to clinicians as it related to their clinical practice setting. Nineteen sites participated and 33 one-hour presentations were presented to clinical sites in the local area and within the occupational therapy student body. Students reflected that this was a positive learning experience and a valuable component of the course

Effects of a physiotherapy and occupational therapy intervention on mobility and activity in care home residents: a cluster randomised controlled trial

Objective To compare the clinical effectiveness of a programme of physiotherapy and occupational therapy with standard care in care home residents who have mobility limitations and are dependent in performing activities of daily living

Automatic imitation effects are influenced by experience of synchronous action in children

By their fourth year children are expert imitators but it is unclear how this ability develops. One approach suggests that certain types of experience might forge associations between the sensory and motor representations of an action that might facilitate imitation at a later time. Sensorimotor experience of this sort may occur when an infant’s action is imitated by a caregiver or when socially synchronous action occurs. This learning approach therefore predicts that the strength of sensory-motor associations should depend on the frequency and quality of previous experience. Here, we tested this prediction by examining automatic imitation; i.e., the tendency of an action stimulus to facilitate the performance of that action and interfere with the performance of an incompatible action. We required children (aged between 3:8 and 7:11) to respond to actions performed by an experimenter (e.g., two hands clapping), with both compatible actions (i.e., two hands clapping) and incompatible actions (i.e., two hands waving) at different stages in the experimental procedure. As predicted by a learning account, actions thought to be performed in synchrony (i.e., clapping/waving) produced stronger automatic imitation effects when compared to actions where previous sensorimotor experience is likely to be more limited (e.g., pointing/hand closing). Furthermore, these automatic imitation effects were not found to vary with age, as both compatible and incompatible responses quickened with age. These findings suggest a role for sensorimotor experience in the development of imitative ability