Acute psychiatric ward rules: a review of the literature

This literature review forms a background element of a comparative study of two acute psychiatric wards in the East End of London. The research focused on ward rules as a means of investigating the relationship between the flexibility/inflexibility of ward nursing regimes and patient outcomes. Previous studies identified a relationship between ward rules and patient aggression. Other studies identified a link between absconding by inpatients and nurses’ attitudes towards rule enforcement. However, an in-depth exploration of psychiatric ward rules from the perspective of nurses and patients has not been undertaken previously

Development of a best practice statement on the use of ankle-foot orthoses following stroke in Scotland

A National Health Service Quality Improvement Scotland (NHS QIS) scoping exercise in 2007 identified the use of ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) following stroke as a clinical improvement priority, leading to the development of a best practice statement (BPS) on AFO use after stroke. This paper outlines the development process of the BPS which is available from NHS QIS. The authors were involved in the development of the BPS as part of a working group that included practitioners from the fields of orthotics, physiotherapy, stroke nursing and bioengineering, and staff of NHS QIS and a patient representative. In consultation with an NHS QIS health services researcher, the authors undertook a systematic literature review to evidence where possible the recommendations made in the BPS. Where evidence was unavailable, consensus was reached by the expert working group. As the BPS was designed for the non-specialist and non-orthotic practitioner the authors also developed educational resources which were included within the BPS to aid the understanding of the principles underpinning orthotic design and prescription. The BPS has been widely distributed throughout the health service in Scotland and is available electronically at no cost via the NHS QIS website. At part of an ongoing evaluation of the impact of the BPS on the quality of orthotic provision, NHS QIS has invited feedback regarding successes and challenges to implementation

Why We Can't Wait -- A Case for Philanthropic Action: Opportunities for Improving Life Outcomes for African American Males

This report examines programs and initiatives that impact the life outcomes of African-American males, gathers reflections from the field, and assesses needs and opportunities according to scholars, policy makers, advocates, and organizational leaders. The report documents its findings and recommendations in three categories: academia/research, practitioners/civil society, and public policy/advocacy

Disempowerment and resistance in the print industry? Reactions to surveillance-capable technology

This article offers a critique of recent characterisations of the effects of electronic technologies in the workplace. It presents detailed case study evidence that calls into question a number of common theoretical assumptions about the character of surveillance at work and the responses of employees to it

Grades and Graduation: A Longitudinal Risk Perspective to Identify Student Dropouts

Studies of student risk of school dropout have shown that current predictors of “at-risk” status do not accurately identify a large percentage of students who eventually dropout. Through the analysis of the entire grade 1-12 longitudinal cohort-based grading histories of the class of 2006 for two school districts in the United States, this study extends past longitudinal conceptions of dropout to a longitudinal risk perspective, using survival analysis, life tables and discrete-time hazard modeling to appropriately account for student graduation, transfer or dropout. The risk of dropout began in grade 7, with the most hazardous years at grades 8 and 11. A novel calculation of teacher assigned grades, non-cumulative GPA, is identified as a strong predictor of student dropout

Ask and Ye Shall Receive? Automated Text Mining of Michigan Capital Facility Finance Bond Election Proposals to Identify which Topics are Associated with Bond Passage and Voter Turnout

The purpose of this study is to bring together recent innovations in the research literature around school district capital facility finance, municipal bond elections, statistical models of conditional time-varying outcomes, and data mining algorithms for automated text mining of election ballot proposals to examine the factors that influence the probability of school districts in the state of Michigan passing or failing capital facility finance bond elections from 1998-2014. Automated text mining is a data mining technique that identifies latent topics from a corpus of documents. We used an unsupervised correlated topic model to analyze the full text wording of all 1,210 school district capital facility bond election ballot proposals in Michigan over 16 years. The model identified 9 different latent topics across the bonds, including requests to purchase new buildings, renovations, and athletic facilities. Interestingly, equipment purchases appear to be a distinct category of bond proposal topics. We then examined the independent effect of the bond topics on the probability of passing the bond and voter turnout using modeling techniques and control variables from the recent literature. Bonds that focused exclusively on athletic facilities were 4.35 times less likely to pass than bonds that request new construction or omnibus ballot proposals. This work extends previous research to show that capital facility bond proposals that pass the most often include all facility needs in a single ballot proposal, are the first attempt at the polls, are at the top of the ballot, and request lower amounts of spending

Report Card Grades and Educational Outcomes

Over the last 100 years, researchers have criticized teacher-assigned grades as subjective and unreliable measures of student academic achievement (Allen, 2005; Banker, 1927; Carter, 1952; Evans, 1976; Hargis, 1990; Kirschenbaum, Napier, & Simon, 1971; Quann, 1983; Simon & Bellanca, 1976), referring to them as "hodgepodge" (Brookhart, 1991) or "kitchen sink" practices (Cizek, 2000; Cizek, Fitzgerald, & Rachor, 1995–1996). When teachers are asked what they are assessing with their grades, they consistently say not only student academic knowledge and achievement but also student persistence, behavior, participation, and effort (Henke, Chen, Goldman, Rollefson, & Gruber, 1999; Randall & Engelhard, 2009, 2010). Mixing academic and nonacademic information in one grade results in a measure that is hard to interpret. However, as Cross and Frary (1999) note, "We must ask, if hodgepodge grading is so deplorable, why haven't students, parents and administrators or the general public called for reform? It may well be that they share a common understanding that grades often do, in fact, represent a hodgepodge of attitude, effort, conduct, growth, and achievement and that is what they expect and endorse". (p.70) Despite 100 years of research on the subjective nature of grades, mixed grading practices continue unabated alongside the rise of standardized testing responsibilities (Busick, 2000; Farr, 2000; Trumbull, 2000). The research shows that grades can be useful indicators of a host of factors besides academic progress (Bisesi, Farr, Greene, & Haydel, 2000; Folzer-Napier, 1976; Linn, 1982); as Swineford (1947) noted in a study on middle and high school grading practices, "the data clearly show that marks assigned by teachers in this school are reliable measures of something but there is apparently a lack of agreement on just what that something should be" (p.47). Indeed, over the past 100 years, a strong line of research has attempted to understand the different components represented by grades as a means to inform decision making in schools and classrooms (Bowers, 2009; Parsons, 1959). Additionally, a persistent finding across this literature is that while standardized test scores have low criterion validity for overall schooling outcomes, such as graduation from high school and admission to post-secondary institutions, grades have consistently been the strongest predictors of K–12 educational persistence, completion, and transition from high school to college (Atkinson & Geiser, 2009; Bowers, Sprott, & Taff, 2013). In this chapter, I will review the quantitative research over the past 100 years regarding what this "something" is that teacher-assigned grades represent beyond the fundamental academic skills assessed by standardized test scores. I will also examine recent research in this area over the last few decades showing that teacher-assigned grades and marks assess not just student achievement but also persistence, behavior, and substantive engagement in the schooling process. Finally, I will review the research on how grades align to educational outcomes

Towards Measures of Different and Useful Aspects of Schooling: Why Schools Need Both Teacher Assigned Grades and Standardized Assessments

Summative assessments in classrooms typically result in teacher assigned grades. Grades are well known to be highly predictive of high school graduation, college enrollment and college completion, but there has been little research that explains why. In the psychometrics literature there is a persistent perception that while standardized test scores are objective measures of fundamental academic knowledge, grades are more subjective assessments that may vary school-by-school. This chapter examines the extent to which grades in high school include teacher perceptions of student effort, participation and behavior that is a different and useful measure for schools beyond what can be provided by standardized test scores, and to what extent grades vary between schools. The chapter is organized into three related sections: a review of the literature on the relationship of grades to standardized tests, an example analysis of a large high school student dataset, and, finally, a comparison of the findings from the literature and the analysis to discuss how grades are a useful yet multidimensional assessment of academic knowledge and engaged participation in the schooling process, with the latter being highly related to overall student life outcomes