Experiential Learning in Industrial/Organizational Psychology: A Case Study

Experiential learning is considered a powerful tool for learning in college. Community-based research is one type of experiential learning that has been used to learn research skills in a variety of social science disciplines. The current case study was conducted as an experiential learning research project. A team of six students and a professor from a small Midwestern college conducted community-based research with a large agribusiness company headquartered near the college. The goal of the project was to create an effective employee-selection process for this firm and to provide an effective learning experience for students. This included development of a situational judgment test, cognitive ability testing, and personality assessment. The article focuses on steps taken to organize a community- based research project, the steps required to develop an effective selection process, and an evaluation of the experience from students, the community partners, and faculty

Reducing door-to-antibiotic time in community-acquired pneumonia: controlled before-and-after evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis

Background: Practice guidelines suggest that all patients hospitalised with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) should receive antibiotics within 4 h of admission. An audit at our hospital during 1999-2000 showed that this target was achieved in less than two thirds of patients with severe CAP. Methods: An experienced multidisciplinary steering group designed a management pathway to improve the early delivery of appropriate antibiotics to patients with CAP. This was implemented using a multifaceted strategy. The effect of implementation was evaluated using a controlled before-and-after study design over two winter seasons (November-April 2001-2 and 2002-3). Cost-effectiveness analyses were performed from the hospital's perspective. Results: The proportion of patients receiving appropriate antibiotics within 4 h of admission to hospital increased from 33% to 56% at the intervention site, and from 32% to 36% at the control site (absolute change adjusted for differences in severity of illness 17%, p = 0.035). The cost per additional patient receiving appropriate antibiotics within 4 h was £132 with no post-implementation evaluation, and £456 for a limited post-implementation evaluation. Simple modelling from the results of a large observational study suggests that the cost per death prevented could be £3003 with no post-implementation evaluation, or £16 632 with a limited post-implementation evaluation. Conclusions: The intervention markedly improved door-to-antibiotic time, albeit at considerable cost. It might still be a cost-effective strategy, however, to reduce mortality in CAP. Uncertainty about the cost effectiveness of such interventions is likely to be resolved only by a well-designed, cluster randomised trial.</p

Rethinking the evolution of extant sub-Saharan African suids (Suidae, Artiodactyla)

Although African suids have been of scientific interest for over two centuries, their origin, evolution, phylogeography and phylogenetic relationships remain contentious. There has been a long-running debate concerning the evolution of pigs and hogs (Suidae), particularly regarding the phylogenetic relationships among extant Eurasian and African species of the subfamily Suinae. To investigate these issues, we analysed the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences of extant genera of Suidae from Eurasia and Africa. Molecular phylogenetic analyses revealed that all extant sub-Saharan African genera form a monophyletic clade separate from Eurasian suid genera, contradicting previous attempts to resolve the Suidae phylogeny. Two major sub-Saharan African clades were identified, with Hylochoerus and Phacochoerus grouping together as a sister clade to Potamochoerus. In addition, we find that the ancestors of extant African suids may have evolved separately from the ancestors of modern day Sus and Porcula in Eurasia before they colonised Africa. Our results provide a revision of the intergeneric relationships within the family Suidae

‘Just add facilitators and stir’: Stimulating policy uptake in schools

This article presents the evaluation findings of an education policy initiative that involved the employment of facilitators to broker the policy and its implementation. An Australian state's education authority piloted the employment of physical activity facilitators to expedite the implementation of 'Smart Moves' in schools, a policy mandating daily physical activity for all state school students from pre-school to Year 10. The evaluation data was collected through facilitator diaries, semi-structured interviews, reflective writing, network mapping, and a school survey. The introduction of physical activity facilitators to accelerate the uptake of a health promotion policy in schools was highly instructive in terms of the conditions of policy uptake in schools. These facilitators were able to intervene in the value-laden, mandated state activity and shift the discourses to those that were palatable for schools and teachers. Significantly, in Bernsteinian terms, they were bridging the official and pedagogic recontextualizing fields thus acting as contributors to the recontextualization of official policy knowledge despite some school resistance