Teacher Perceptions on the Sustainability of Trauma-Informed Practices in a Delaware School

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore teacher perceptions about the sustainability of trauma-informed practices implementation in a secondary, public comprehensive school. For the purpose of this study, the researcher examined perceptions of 10 staff members who have knowledge of and experience with implanting trauma-informed practices into their school routine. The findings from this study can be used by teachers, support staff, school leaders, and district leaders to help sustain an institutional application and implementation of trauma-informed care in schools. The implication from this study suggests resources for school staff to successfully sustain trauma-informed care

Achieving Musical Peak Performance: The Impact of an Online Self-Efficacy and Performance Anxiety Management Program Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Every musician should be encouraged to strive for peak performance; however, many musicians do not know how to achieve it. Although there is a significant amount of research done on music cognition, music therapy, and musical behavior, the research that aims to expose the inner workings of the performer’s brain is still in its infancy. In the field of Sports Performance Psychology, there have been many performance-based studies designed to discuss this idea among athletes; however, to date, there has not been a correlation for how to attain peak performance results among musicians. To bridge the relationship between the theories found in Sports Performance Psychology and music performance, I created an online program entitled Maslow for Musicians, which draws from a wide range of psychological theories such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Goal Setting, Mindset, Flow, Learning Styles, Self-Efficacy, Self-Attribution, and Baby Steps/Tiny Habits. This self-directed online program was created to foster an environment that could encourage musical peak performance right at the fingertips of the user. The purpose of this study was to discover if the application of the Maslow for Musicians program is beneficial to help musicians work towards peak performance. Participants at the University of Northern Colorado (N = 25) went through a five-week intervention using the Maslow for Musicians program to measure weekly confidence, flow, emotional/mental fulfillment, and overall performance experience. In addition, participants were also given The Positivity Scale, the Performance Anxiety Inventory, and a self-created assessment of current musical abilities pre- and post-intervention with the addition of the Measurement of Self-Actualization Index post-intervention. Using a mixed methods design, the quantitative data from this study found an increase in perceived weekly confidence ratings, along with engagement in flow, perceived emotional and mental fulfillment, overall performance experience ratings, personal optimism, perception of musical abilities, and a decrease in performance anxiety scores from pre-intervention to post-intervention. Survey data collected also found that 23 out of 25 participants felt happy with their performance progress throughout the duration of the intervention and believed that the Maslow for Musicians program helped strengthen their practice routine and overall feelings of personal musicianship. Further preliminary inferential statistical analysis found significance in confidence, overall experience, personal optimism, and musical abilities. Likewise, qualitative data supported quantitative findings through thematic coding analysis suggesting progression of confidence, change in mindset, belief in one’s self and musical abilities, positivity, improvement, and creation of new habits. Post-intervention, 22 out of 25 participants reported that they felt to have either achieved or were close to achieving musical self-actualization, and 24 out of 25 participants reported that they would continue using the Maslow for Musicians program in the future. Although the sample size is small, further implications for future study are discussed throughout this paper

Organisational Citizenship Behaviours: Definitions and Dimensions

Organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is an evolving concept concerning how and why people contribute positively to their organisations beyond defined work roles that have rapidly expanded in recent years. The study of OCB engages fundamental questions analysing the circumstances in which individuals “go the extra mile” in the workplace. This briefing reviews the literature to shed a light on the antecedents and enabling environments for OCB in order to improve employee and employer ability to maximise citizenship behaviour for mutual benefit

Duncan and the cholera test: public health in mid-nineteenth century Liverpool

Local studies have much to contribute to the study of the history of public health reform in nineteenth-century Britain. They may help elucidate the shifting margins between competition and complementarity in the efforts of local and national government. They can offer a corrective to hasty generalization from narrow, usually London-based, sources. They throw light upon the implementation of legislation and upon the local negotiation of the ideas and strategies of medical and political elites. It is equally important, however, that local studies remain aware of the national context of the issues being examined. Otherwise, the specific significance of the local study will be lost

Duncan and the cholera test: public health in mid-nineteenth century Liverpool

Local studies have much to contribute to the study of the history of public health reform in nineteenth-century Britain. They may help elucidate the shifting margins between competition and complementarity in the efforts of local and national government. They can offer a corrective to hasty generalization from narrow, usually London-based, sources. They throw light upon the implementation of legislation and upon the local negotiation of the ideas and strategies of medical and political elites. It is equally important, however, that local studies remain aware of the national context of the issues being examined. Otherwise, the specific significance of the local study will be lost

Psychological Ownership: Effects and Applications

Psychological ownership (PO) can be an important tool for organizations to encourage productivity and certain desirable employee behaviours. In the organizational literature, PO is the sense of ownership over a “target”: not only physical objects, but a concept, a job, or the whole organization. It can express itself in positive ways, such as higher motivation; but it also has potentially negative effects, such as territoriality. This briefing looks closely at the literature to understand the various dimensions of PO, and how organizations can foster the positive aspects of it to help improve employees’ experiences in the workplace by fostering morale while contributing to productivity. By bringing together the most relevant research on the topic, this briefing also highlights areas that are still underdeveloped, such as collective PO, the role of culture, and the employee perspective

The Sensitivity of Rainfall Distributions to Time, Space, and the Environment over Kwajalein Atoll

North of the equator, winds converge causing bands of heavy rain in a region called the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Due to the small-scale processes that are not fully represented by weather models, modeled rainfall and its characteristics are often not indicative of what is observed in the ITCZ. This study attempts to bridge that gap by using observations from a weather radar on Kwajalein Atoll, located within the central-western tropical Pacific, as well as reanalysis data over Kwajalein Atoll to investigate characteristics of ITCZ rainfall. Two wet seasons are analyzed to quantify rainfall variations in terms of different spatial scales, temporal averaging, and environmental conditions. Rain observed by the radar is first categorized as either convective (i.e., heavy and sporadic) or stratiform (i.e., light and widespread). Rain rates, conditional rain rates, and rain area are calculated for different time (10 minutes to 1 day) and spatial (2 km to 128 km) scales and then compared to specific humidity (moisture in the atmosphere), omega (vertical motion in the atmosphere), and sea surface temperature (SST) to determine if a relationship exists between the large-scale environment and the observed rainfall characteristics. The results obtained from this study hold the potential to quantify to what extent environmental factors may influence precipitation intensity and extremes at Kwajalein Atoll. Significant results can lead to calibrating weather and climate models, which creates more accurate rainfall predictions through numerical weather prediction and analysis from radars

Self-Study in Elementary and Secondary Teaching: A Living Theory Approach

In this chapter we present examples of Living Theory research, a form of Self-Study, which show teachers, teacher educators and administrators researching to improve their teaching and the educational experience of students and contributing the knowledge they create in the process to a professional educational knowledge base. We clarify the relationship between education and educational research and show how Living Theory is distinguished within other forms of Self-Study research. Consideration is given to the opportunities and challenges of promoting this approach, and other forms of Self-Study research, as ways to improve practice in schools. We show the development of ideas since Whitehead’s contribution 14 years ago, in 2004, to the first International Handbook of Self Study on, ‘What counts as evidence in self-studies of teacher education practices?’. Our emphasis in this chapter is on practising educators, their professional development and gaining academic recognition for the embodied knowledges of master and doctor educators

Measuring maternal, foetal and neonatal mortality: Challenges and solutions.

Levels and causes of mortality in mothers and babies are intrinsically linked, occurring at the same time and often to the same mother-baby dyad, although mortality rates are substantially higher in babies. Measuring levels, trends and causes of maternal, neonatal and foetal mortality are important for understanding priority areas for interventions and tracking the success of interventions at the global, national, regional and local level. However, there are many measurement challenges. This paper provides an overview of the definitions and indicators for measuring mortality in pregnant and post-partum women (maternal and pregnancy-related mortality) and their babies (foetal and neonatal mortality). We then discuss current issues in the measurement of the levels and causes of maternal, foetal and neonatal mortality, and present options for improving measurement of these outcomes. Finally, we illustrate some important uses of mortality data, including for the development of models to estimate mortality rates at the global and national level and for audits