Contextualizing Learning: Becoming A Tourism and Hospitality Professional

Over three years, a final semester, undergraduate project-based tourism and hospitality course was successively refined using action research processes. The course required students to integrate and put into practice learnings from all courses. Each offering of the course required students to develop, implement and evaluate a tourism and hospitality project specifically related to their interests. The majority of students developed projects in conjunction with industry partners, a few with hypothetical industry partners, and several with themselves as entrepreneurs. Initially, role-play was variously used to engage students in experiential profession-based learning. By the third year of offering, role-play was replaced by simulation. Students became a community of practice, wherein each week’s face-to-face contact involved a focused round-table departmental meeting. During meetings, there was a strong emphasis on intrapersonal, interpersonal and oral communication skill development. Project assessment involved 5-minute pitches, a written proposal, ethics “test”, an oral presentation and a written report. Students were required to self-evaluate all assessment tasks. In addition, students anonymously voted and provided written feedback on the best project pitch, as well as written feedback on all oral presentations. Student involvement in self and peer assessment aided personal reflection and constructive feedback with respect to professional practice.

Tourism and hospitality research: Supporting a shift to holistic, situated and multiple world-views research agendas

In order to forge ahead within global and glocal contexts of challenging growth, tourism and hospitality research needs to shift from a reliance on limited dimensional, objective and western-centric research to holistic, situated and multiple worlds-focused research endeavors. Such a shift would embrace the development of multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary research teams and serve to reconnect tourism and hospitality research to broader growth related global, environmental, cultural and societal issues. While the beginning decades of the twenty-first century have been punctuated with a growing number of researchers who are attempting to advance such a shift; more needs to be done. Researchers regardless of their experience need to become more familiar with, appreciative of and engage with the various theoretical paradigms, methodologies and methods that inform research.  Further, to support the development of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams, intrapersonal and interpersonal researcher abilities and capabilities need honing and refining in conjunction with development of personal knowledge and skill sets of researchers regarding team roles, cross-cultural communication, power and politics.  Relatedly, the education of future tourism and hospitality researchers also needs to involve the development of similar knowledge, skills, and competencies

A reflection on using mind maps as a tool for grounded theory analysis

Qualitative data analysis can be a daunting task, especially for novice researchers, and there is no one way to approach this as research topics and approaches are multiple and diverse. Over recent decades, qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) such as NVivo or Leximancer have been developed to support researchers with this task. However, different software tools provide different functionalities and, at times, may limit empirical material/data analysis or can be difficult to learn in the first place. Further, utilising grounded theory with its different coding phases can add another challenge for novice researchers. This paper presents a reflection by a novice researcher on exploring different tools for qualitative empirical material analysis and an illustration of using a mind mapping software to refine concepts and codes within a grounded theory research project. By sharing this research experience, it is hoped to provide other (novice) researchers with insights into how to creatively approach research challenges and how mind maps can be used in new ways as a research tool

Partnering for real world learning, sustainability and tourism education

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to study how real world learning was used to engender and enhance sustainability principles and practices with 11 micro-, small- and medium-tourism business enterprises and 101 university tourism students enrolled across three university courses. Design/methodology/approach – Action research processes were used to focus curricula on “education about and for sustainability”. A participatory paradigm informed the action research processes. The key methodology was qualitative. Empirical materials were generated through lived experiences, reflexive team conversations, team journals, reflexive journals and student learning materials. Reflexive conversations and reflective dialogue framed interpretations. Findings – The action research process found that pedagogies, andragogies and ethnogogies that emphasize social processes of meaning making and sensemaking enhance and engender “education about sustainability” and “education for sustainability”, especially when coupled with real world learning as a platform for social and profession-building processes between university students, course teaching staff and industry, in this case, micro-, small- and medium-tourism entrepreneurs. Research limitations/implications – The qualitative findings of this action research study are specific to the participants involved. Generalizability to other university and business settings and goodness of fit require further study. Practical implications – Insights are provided with regard to implementing real world learning in university undergraduate and postgraduate courses by partnering with industry and focusing on education for sustainability (EfS). A demonstration of the effectiveness of action research as a tool for changing curricula is provided. Social implications – Learning is a social process of meaning making. Time for real world social interaction is critical for learning. Partnering with industry complements student learning and facilitates the translation of theory into practice. Originality/value – EfS is engendered and enhanced when learning-teaching engagements are predicated on real world settings, circumstances and experiences.Griffith Business School, Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel ManagementNo Full Tex

Aquilegia, Vol. 15 No. 3, May-June 1991: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1058/thumbnail.jp

Aquilegia, Vol. 14 No. 5, September-October 1990: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1054/thumbnail.jp

Aquilegia, Vol. 15 No. 5, September-October 1991: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1060/thumbnail.jp

Evaluation of the IgG antibody response to SARS CoV-2 infection and performance of a lateral flow immunoassay: cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis over 11 months

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the dynamics and longevity of the humoral immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and assess the performance of professional use of the UK-RTC AbC-19 Rapid Test lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) for the target condition of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein IgG antibodies. DESIGN: Nationwide serological study. SETTING: Northern Ireland, UK, May 2020–February 2021. PARTICIPANTS: Plasma samples were collected from a diverse cohort of individuals from the general public (n=279), Northern Ireland healthcare workers (n=195), pre-pandemic blood donations and research studies (n=223) and through a convalescent plasma programme (n=183). Plasma donors (n=101) were followed with sequential samples over 11 months post-symptom onset. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels in plasma samples using Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG/IgA/IgM, Abbott SARS-CoV-2 IgG and EuroImmun IgG SARS-CoV-2 ELISA immunoassays over time. UK-RTC AbC-19 LFIA sensitivity and specificity, estimated using a three-reference standard system to establish a characterised panel of 330 positive and 488 negative SARS-CoV-2 IgG samples. RESULTS: We detected persistence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies for up to 10 months post-infection, across a minimum of two laboratory immunoassays. On the known positive cohort, the UK-RTC AbC-19 LFIA showed a sensitivity of 97.58% (95.28% to 98.95%) and on known negatives, showed specificity of 99.59% (98.53 % to 99.95%). CONCLUSIONS: Through comprehensive analysis of a cohort of pre-pandemic and pandemic individuals, we show detectable levels of IgG antibodies, lasting over 46 weeks when assessed by EuroImmun ELISA, providing insight to antibody levels at later time points post-infection. We show good laboratory validation performance metrics for the AbC-19 rapid test for SARS-CoV-2 spike protein IgG antibody detection in a laboratory-based setting

Conspicuous consumption of the elite: Social and self-congruity in tourism choices

This paper relies on social and economic psychology to explore how the travel choices of Portuguese citizens, with different status levels in their daily lives, perceive and adopt different conspicuous travel patterns because of public exposure. To account for the moderated role of public exposure on conspicuous travel patterns, 36 Portuguese citizens were interviewed. Q-methods were applied to explore the varying senses of conspicuous travel choices among citizens with different levels of public exposure, both individually and relative to each other. Complementary qualitative methods were applied, in order to explore how the interviewees construct tourism conspicuous meanings that match their social or self-representations. The results suggest that social contexts moderate the ways in which individuals perceive and experience conspicuous travel. Further, the results show that public groups with higher exposure tend to prefer subtle signals of conspicuousness, in order to differentiate themselves from the mainstream