Objectives Driven Participatory Evaluation Model

The ability to complete program evaluations of educational programming is typically restricted by the availability of resources, such as time, money and a trained evaluator. Although not a replacement for trained evaluators, promoting evaluative capacity and evaluative thinking within an organization can help mitigate this gap between talent and resources. Participatory evaluation is purported to increase organizational learning and promote evaluative thinking within an organization (Cousins & Whitmore, 1998). Objectives oriented evaluation is an easily understood evaluation method which provides a refined focus program outcome (Madaus & Stufflebeam, 1989). Using an internal evaluation of a new faculty onboarding course at a private non-profit college system, a mixed methods study was completed to explore the use of a participatory evaluation program evaluation with the use of the program objectives as an advanced organizer. An explanatory sequential design was employed utilizing quantitative findings to collect qualitative data to further explore the participants’ experiences completing the program evaluation. This combined evaluation methodology met the criteria posited in Daigneault and Jacob (2009) and Toal (2009) to be considered participatory in its implementation. It also involved participants in ways which provided them experiences which helped develop evaluative thinking, skills, and beliefs

Advancing Objectives-Oriented Evaluation With Participatory Evaluation Methodology – A Mixed Methods Study

The ability to complete program evaluations of educational programming is typically restricted by the availability of resources, such as time, money and a trained evaluator. A mixed methods study was completed to explore the use of a participatory evaluation program evaluation with the use of the program objectives as an advanced organizer. Participatory evaluation is purported to increase organizational learning and promote evaluative thinking within an organization (Cousins & Whitmore, 1998). Objectives oriented evaluation is an easily understood evaluation method which provides a refined focus program outcome (Madaus & Stufflebeam, 1989). An explanatory sequential design was employed utilizing quantitative findings to collect qualitative data to further explore the participants’ experiences completing the program evaluation. The findings indicated that this combined evaluation methodology met the criteria posited in Daigneault and Jacob (2009) and Toal (2009) to be considered participatory in its implementation. It also involved participants in ways which provided them experiences which helped develop evaluative thinking, skills, and beliefs

Effect of lifestyle factors on Staphylococcus aureus gut colonization in Swedish and Italian infants

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Architecture, Space and Information in Constructions Built by Humans and Social Insects: a Conceptual Review

The similarities between the structures built by social insects and by humans have led to a convergence of interests between biologists and architects. This new, de facto interdisciplinary community of scholars needs a common terminology and theoretical framework in which to ground its work. In this conceptually oriented review paper, we review the terms “information”, “space” and “architecture” to provide definitions that span biology and architecture. A framework is proposed on which interdisciplinary exchange may be better served, with the view that this will aid better cross fertilisation between disciplines, working in the areas of collective behaviour and analysis of the structures and edifices constructed by non-humans; and to facilitate how this area of study may better contribute to the field of architecture. We then use these definitions to discuss the informational content of constructions built by organisms and the influence these have on behaviour, and vice versa. We review how spatial constraints inform and influence interaction between an organism and its environment, and examine the reciprocity of space and information on construction and the behaviour of humans and social insects

Adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease feel ambivalent towards their parents' concern for them

This is a grounded theory study to identify concepts for describing how adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) respond to their parents' concern for them. Ten adolescent boys and seven girls were interviewed. In the analysis four main categories emerged: ambivalence, ability/inability, compliance/resistance and trust/distrust. We found ambivalence to be the most distinctive theme to appear in the way in which these young people described how they felt about their parents' response to their disease. The core category ambivalence was expressed as an oscillation between seeking close contact with one's parents or, sometimes, staving them off, one moment feeling anxiously dependent upon them or turning to them for protection and support and the next, trying to achieve a dialogue with them. The core category comprised three subcategories, ability/inability, compliance/resistance and trust/distrust. The clinical support for young individuals with IBD should include an awareness of the simultaneous existence of conflicting attitudes, reactions and emotions

Avidity progression of dietary antibodies in healthy and coeliac children

In most individuals minute amounts of food proteins pass undegraded across the intestinal mucosa and trigger antibody formation. Children with coeliac disease have enhanced antibody production against gliadin as well as other dietary antigens, e.g. β-lactoglobulin, in cow's milk. Antibody avidity, i.e. the binding strength between antibody and antigen, often increases during antibody responses and may be related to the biological effectiveness of antibodies. The aim of the present study was to determine the avidity of serum IgG antibodies against β-lactoglobulin and gliadin in healthy children during early childhood and compare these avidities to those found in children with coeliac disease. The average antibody avidity was analysed using a thiocyanate elution assay, whereas the antibody activity of the corresponding sera was assayed by ELISA. The avidity of serum IgG antibodies against β-lactoglobulin as well as gliadin increased with age in healthy children, even in the face of falling antibody titres to the same antigens. Children with untreated coeliac disease had IgG anti-β-lactoglobulin antibodies of significantly higher avidity than healthy children of the same age, and the same trend was observed for IgG antigliadin antibodies. The present data suggest that the avidities of antibodies against dietary antigens increase progressively during early childhood, and that this process seems to be accelerated during active coeliac disease

Superantigens and adhesins of infant gut commensal Staphylococcus aureus strains and association with subsequent development of atopic eczema

International audienceBACKGROUND: According to the hygiene hypothesis, insufficient immune activation by microbes increases the risk of allergy development. Staphylococcus aureus, which is part of the skin and gut microbiota of infants in Western countries, produces a variety of T-cell-activating enterotoxins, called superantigens. OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether early (0-2 months of age) gut colonization by S. aureus strains that carry specific superantigens and adhesins was related to subsequent development of atopic eczema in a Swedish birth cohort. METHODS: Staphylococcus aureus was isolated from rectal swabs and cultured quantitatively from faecal samples, with individual strains being tested for carriage of genes for superantigens and adhesins. Atopic eczema was diagnosed at onset of symptoms and at 18 months of age. RESULTS: Although the frequency of early gut colonization by S. aureus was not related to subsequent eczema development, the S. aureus strains that were found to colonize those infants who developed atopic eczema were less likely to carry the gene encoding the superantigen SElM (P = 0\textperiodcentered008) and the gene for elastin-binding protein (P = 0\textperiodcentered03), compared with strains that were isolated from infants who had not developed atopic eczema by 18 months of age. CONCLUSIONS: Gut colonization by S. aureus strains carrying a certain combination of superantigen and adhesin genes was negatively associated with subsequent development of atopic eczema. Such strains may provide stimulation and promote maturation of the infant immune system