Explaining older-patient and doctor relationship through negotiation

This thesis attempts to explain the older-patients and doctors’ relationship through negotiation. The relationship between older-patients and their doctors is important because, first, the patient-doctor relationship is basic to the health care system and is a foundation for all patient care; second, populations are ageing and this group often has a higher incidence of chronic illnesses. Therefore, the older patient-doctor consultation becomes of paramount importance in enabling patients and the health care system to manage their illnesses effectively. This thesis describes a negotiation process (from reception, consultation, to outcome) and outcome patterns between older patients and doctors in medical consultation. It could be explained by the symbolic interaction perspective. Simply, both patients and doctors had gone through many internal thoughts and came to each other with a purpose or an expected outcome before the negotiation (i.e. the styles). Then there were gives and takes during the negotiation process (i.e. the consultation process), establishing a final equilibrium of a relationship falling into the 16 negotiation patterns developed. The study has been undertaken three principal methods in addition to reviewing the published literature

Service-Learning as an Independent Course: Merits, Challenges, and Ways Forward

In Hong Kong, service-learning is commonly regarded as a pedagogy for facilitating students’ learning of specific subject knowledge; rarely does it serve as an independent course focusing on developing students’ knowledge and skills of service-learning itself.  At Lingnan University, however, the Office of Service-Learning offers an independent, credit-bearing service-learning course outside of other academic departments. The course aims to equip students with knowledge, skills, and attitudes about service-learning and to prepare them for future engagement in service activities within communities. This article reports on a case study of this independent service-learning course, with particular emphasis on the course development process. Assessment and evaluation data from students are also reported, followed by a discussion of the merits and challenges of implementing such a course, and a consideration of ways forward. The authors argue that the lessons learned from this study can help to inform the design of independent service-learning courses specifically and improve the quality of service-learning courses and programs in higher education in general

A village adoption project in Yunnan, China : sustainable micro-economy pilot : feasibility analysis of agricultural transition from tobacco to walnut planting

This report has been compiled to record and share our experiences and lessons learned from our walnut planting pilot program which is part of a micro-economy stream of our Village Adoption Project in Yunnan. The walnut planting pilot was initiated to assist the sustainability of the micro-economy of Gezhangla Village, Yunnan, by working with the community to evolve its agriculture and reduce its a dependency on tobacco. Jenny Chen, a student of Lingnan University, went to Yunnan for a preliminary study of the development of walnut planting program in Gezhangla Village from 30 December of 2012 to 5 January of 2013 and in the summer of 2013. Later, John Law, the Consultant of Strategy and Consulting of Deloitte China, also went to Yunnan with the service group from 15 to 18 September 2013 to follow up the project. During the trip, he also interviewed a number of farmers, school principals and teachers in the villages to collect more research data. This report was compiled in joint efforts by Deloitte China and Lingnan University, which combines the observations and findings of walnut trees planting obtained during the service trip, and summarizes the development and progress of walnut planting in Yunnan villages. The report provides an overview of the tobacco leaves planting in the related villages. Then it reviews the progress of walnut tree planting in Gezhangla and Yangjia villages, and Gezhangla Primary School, Wanyaoshu Primary School and Shilata Central Primary School, and reviews the opportunities and challenges faced by schools and villages in walnut tree planting. This report also tackles different challenges and provides suggestions, while the conclusion focuses on the overall feasibility of walnut planting in Yunnan villages.https://commons.ln.edu.hk/osl_book/1023/thumbnail.jp

Learning service leadership through service-learning : anxieties, opportunities and insights

Lingnan University (LU) is one of 8 tertiary institutions in Hong Kong that have received sponsorship for undergraduate students to acquire knowledge and develop attributes relating to service leadership. Service leadership may be conceptualized as leadership for service, exercised through distributed authority, aimed at identifying and meeting genuine needs of service recipients. Building on prior experience of embedding service-learning projects into discipline-based credit bearing courses, in term 1, 2012-13, LU introduced service leadership through service-learning into four courses. A predominantly qualitative, critical-incident approach was adopted to study processes of students’ learning on these courses. Data were collected through open-ended team reflection and self-reflection pro-formas, a peer review rubric, and focus group meetings. Findings suggest that service-learning projects can be powerful vehicles for learning and practicing service leadership attributes. Positive learning outcomes reported by students included: increased skills of oral communication, relationship building, time management and problem solving; and greater personal discipline, emotional intelligence, empathy for disadvantaged people and cross-cultural awareness. Students mentioned the importance of mutual care and support in teams, of formative feedback from host agencies/enterprises; of being appreciated by end service recipients; and of turning cultural diversity among team members into a powerful resource. We shall draw on an established model of competence development (Robinson, 1974; Wilhelm, 2011) to analyze students’ reported experiences. In terms of unconscious learning needs, students seemed relatively insensitive to the particular expectations of gatekeepers in their host organization and the constraints that they were facing, and rather than attempting to understand nuances and tensions within the service recipient habitat/ecosystem, they tended to fix their attention on the concerns of end-user service recipients. In terms of conscious learning needs, some teams became aware of the inadequacy of the traditional autocratic leadership paradigm, but appeared not to fully grasp the principles and practices of distributed leadership, while some students noticed service leadership qualities in other team members that they perceived were lacking in themselves. In terms of conscious competence, some students came to recognize their own talents in certain areas through taking initiatives to overcome difficulties. We discuss implications

Service-learning model at Lingnan University : development strategies and outcome assessment

Background: The Service-Learning and Research Scheme (SLRS) is the showcase of Lingnan’s Service-Learning model, which is the manifestation of Lingnan University’s Liberal Arts education and mission “Education for Service”. The scheme was a pilot project, from 2004 to 2005, which led to the development of a Universitywide protocol for Service-Learning at Lingnan University. Aims: This paper highlights the processes and the strategies of incorporating Service-Learning into courses, based on the experiences in Lingnan University. Implementation and evaluation models are suggested to provide a framework for other interested parties to apply Service-Learning in their learning and teaching. Results: This is a descriptive analysis, associating outcome measurement (three outcomes: “ABC” quality– Adaptability, Brainpower and Creativity) through the process of Service-Learning. Evaluation contents and guidelines for doing Service-Learning are developed based on the past experience in doing Service-Learning at Lingnan. The research element procedures offer instructors with guidance as well as a well-defined protocol and evaluation for Service-Learning programs in Lingnan. Conclusion: In consolidating the above experience and in detailing the validity of the Lingnan Model of Service-Learning, a manual is produced documenting our efforts. This is the first manual which can be the protocol of applying Service-Learning in higher education for students’ whole-person development

Exploring indigenous elements of service-learning in a Hong Kong university

Given the expanding development of service-learning in Asia, especially in Hong Kong, there is a need for research to understand how this US pedagogy is being adapted and adapted in Asian settings. The qualitative study explored the indigenous elements of service-learning pedagogy in Lingnan University in Hong Kong whose Office of Service-Learning (OSL) is the largest and most widely recognized service-learning program in Asia. The research questions were: How do Chinese Students, Coordinators and Faculty doing service learning view it? Are there any Chinese values embedded in the service-learning programs in Hong Kong? Data gathering was through 15 semi structured interviews with University members who had participated in service-learning in their respective roles, namely 7 faculty members, 3 service-learning staff coordinators, and 5 senior students. The interviews lasted about 45 minutes each and focused on how participants had heard of service-learning, why they participated in it, what they thought about its fit in a Hong Kong University and with Chinese values and traditions. Initial coding of the data shows mixed results with some viewing it as more western and others viewing it as more indigenous. This seems to reflect the history of Hong Kong with both western and eastern traditions and history. Future research will explore these questions in Universities with more exclusive Chinese traditions. In addition to informing the growing global service-learning movement, this research contributes to the inquiries in learning sciences about geographically and historically influenced styles of cognitive behaviors in doing service-learning