Housing Accessibility Methodology Targeting Older Poeple - Reliable Assessments and Valid Standards

Older people have more functional limitations than younger people and they form a segment of the population that is more dependent on mobility devices than other age groups. Since they spend most of their time at home, their dwelling is an important environmental arena for performing everyday activities. Barriers in the environment can limit or hinder activity performance. Therefore, older people are sensitive to the accessibility of the environment. To ensure housing accessibility, it is critical that professionals are provided with valid and reliable assessment instruments to identify accessibility problems before the planning of housing intervention strategies. It is also critical that housing standards addressing accessibility intended to accommodate people with functional limitations are valid in the sense that their definitions truly support accessibility. However, there is a paucity of valid and reliable assessment instruments targeting housing accessibility, and in-depth analysis of factors potentially impacting on reliability in complex assessment situations is remarkably absent. Moreover, the knowledge base informing the housing standards appears to be vague. We may therefore reasonably question the validity of the housing standards addressing accessibility. This thesis addresses housing accessibility methodology in general and the reliability of assessment and the validity of standards targeting older people with functional limitations and a dependence on mobility devices in particular. The overarching aim of the thesis was to develop and explore methods applicable for improving housing accessibility assessments and to explore feasible approaches to create housing standards that truly support accessibility and accommodate older people. A main methodological contribution of the present thesis is the development of the content-valid Nordic HE instrument which is deemed sufficiently reliable in Nordic countries, and the recommendations for in-depth examination of inter-rater agreement for the improvement of reliability. A second main contribution of the present thesis is that it explores the consequences of the housing standard definitions in terms of accessibility and provides estimates of the proportion of dwellings considered accessible and the proportion of persons defined as having accessibility problems. Collectively, these results have the potential to improve and influence research, practice and policy in a global context for the benefit of the health and well-being of older people with functional limitations. Moreover, the results provide new knowledge and invite reflections on central concepts and methodology relevant to psychometrics and research on person-environment fit

Introduction to thematic section: Challenges to the perfect machine-translation situation

The purpose of the thematic section is to gauge the temperature of MT today by tapping into a selection of critical discussions, thereby shedding light on some challenges to a perfect machine-translation (MT) situation

Undervisning - forventninger og fortolkning

Første gang publiceret i UNEV nr. 8: Tilrettelæggelse af efter- og videreuddannelse på universitetet, nov. 2006, red. Sanne Almeborg og Tom Nyvang.ISSN 1603-5518. Artiklen sætter fokus på temaerne forventning og evaluering i relation til undervisning. Ud fra en systemteoretisk tilgang beskrives, hvordan den samme undervisning iagttages og evalueres vidt forskelligt alt afhængigt af deltagernes forventninger til og forestillinger om undervisning. Det betyder at udsagn som god/dårlig undervisning ikke siger noget om den aktuelle interaktion, men om hvorvidt interaktionen indfrier eller skuffer den specifikke deltages forventning. Dette har to implikationer. For det første at kommunikation om deltagernes, såvel studerende som undervisere, forventninger til deltagelse i undervisning er et vigtigt aspekt af undervisningen. Der må med andre ord kommunikeres om undervisningskommunikationen. For det andet at evalueringer, som skal danne grundlag for kvalitetsudvikling af uddannelse og undervisning, må iagttage samtlige deltageres bidrag til den konkrete undervisning, samt gennem konditionering angive, hvilken forventningshorisont, der ønskes som referencepunkt for evalueringen

Danish Health Professional Students' Attitudes Toward Addressing Sexual Health:A Cross-Sectional Survey

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Introduction Danish health professional (HP) students' attitudes toward addressing sexual health are unknown. Aim To investigate Danish HP students' attitudes toward addressing sexual health in their future professions, and to assess differences in perceived competences and preparedness between professional programs. Methods A Danish national survey of nursing, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy students was conducted. Totally, 1,212 students were invited to respond to an online questionnaire “The Students' Attitudes toward Addressing Sexual Health.” Main Outcome Measure The main outcome measures investigated were Danish HP students' attitudes toward addressing sexual health in their future professions, and differences in perceived competences and preparedness depending on the professional program. Results A total of 584 students (48%; nursing 44%, occupational therapy 70%, physiotherapy 43%) responded. Mean total score ranged between 63.7 and 66.3 (±8.3–8.8) classifying students in the low-end of the class: “comfortable and prepared in some situations.” No clinically relevant differences were determined between the professional programs with respect to perceived competences and preparedness to address sexual health. Conclusion In the field of addressing sexual health, most Danish HP students reported positive attitudes and a need for basic knowledge, competences, communication training, and education.publishedVersio