Peter J. Pronovost, Sally J. Weaver, Sean M. Berenholtz, Lisa H. Lubomski, Lisa L. Maragakis, Jill A. Marsteller, Julius Cuong Pham, Melinda D. Sawyer, David A. Thompson, Kristina Weeks and Michael A. Rosen
The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical framework that health care organizations could use to decrease preventable healthcare-acquired harms.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a practical framework that health care organizations could use to decrease preventable healthcare-acquired harms.
Design/methodology/approach
An existing theory of how hospitals succeeded in reducing rates of central line-associated bloodstream infections was refined, drawing from the literature and experiences in facilitating improvement efforts in thousands of hospitals in and outside the USA.
Findings
The following common interventions were implemented by hospitals able to reduce and sustain low infection rates. Hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) leaders demonstrated and vocalized their commitment to the goal of zero preventable harm. Also, leaders created an enabling infrastructure in the way of a coordinating team to support the improvement work to prevent infections. The team of hospital quality improvement and infection prevention staff provided project management, analytics, improvement science support, and expertise on evidence-based infection prevention practices. A third intervention assembled Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program teams in ICUs to foster local ownership of the improvement work. The coordinating team also linked unit-based safety teams in and across hospital organizations to form clinical communities to share information and disseminate effective solutions.
Practical implications
This framework is a feasible approach to drive local efforts to reduce bloodstream infections and other preventable healthcare-acquired harms.
Originality/value
Implementing this framework could decrease the significant morbidity, mortality, and costs associated with preventable harms.
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To describe the use of digital video as a tool for preservice teachers to examine their own literacy learning (rather than teaching) practices in order to document the potential…
Abstract
Purpose
To describe the use of digital video as a tool for preservice teachers to examine their own literacy learning (rather than teaching) practices in order to document the potential benefits of developing observation skills and metacognitive awareness.
Methodology/approach
During a literacy methods course, preservice teachers engaged in literature discussions. They then analyzed video of discussions to identify their processes, the effectiveness of their talk, and areas needing improvement. Content analysis was then performed on discussions, responses, and reflections about video as a learning tool.
Findings
The preservice teachers engaged in varied discussions, subsequently evaluating their practices in sophisticated, contextualized, and personally relevant ways. They articulated multiple benefits of video to enhance their roles as both learners and teachers. While examining their learning practices, they frequently shifted focus to teaching.
Practical implications
Digital video allows preservice teachers to reflect independently, generate theory about practice, and compare their practices to those of others, both peers and students. By analyzing their own learning, teachers can develop empathy toward students, discover the relative benefits of assignments, and model personal learning.
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Cori Ann McKenzie and Geoff Bender
This paper encourages teachers and scholars of English Language Arts to engage deliberately with literary ambiguity.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper encourages teachers and scholars of English Language Arts to engage deliberately with literary ambiguity.
Design/methodology/approach
Through close attention to ambiguous moments in commonly taught texts, the essay argues that explicit attention to ambiguity can support four enduring goals in the field: fostering social justice, developing students’ personal growth, cultivating dispositions and skills for democracy and engendering disciplinary literacy skills.
Findings
The readings suggest the following: first, wrestling with ambiguities in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird may foster critical orientations needed in the fight for social justice; second, ambiguities in Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese may support students’ personal development; third, questions generated by Walter Dean Myers’ Monster invite readers to practice skills needed for democracy; finally, exploring divergent interpretations of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak may develop students’ disciplinary literacy skills.
Originality/value
In an era marked by standardization and accountability, it may be difficult for teachers and scholars to linger with literary ambiguity. By underscoring the instrumental potential of literary ambiguity, the essay illustrates why and how teachers might reject this status quo and embrace the indeterminacy of literary ambiguity.
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Diana D. Woolis and Gail O. Mellow
Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC) offers transformative use of social media – a Guided Digital Environment – a unique set of online tools and processes to capture…
Abstract
Global Skills for College Completion (GSCC) offers transformative use of social media – a Guided Digital Environment – a unique set of online tools and processes to capture, consolidate, and advance the effective faculty classroom work. The ambition of GSCC is to achieve a quantum increase in the historically low pass rates of basic skills students in American community colleges. The goal is to produce a rate increase so dramatic, consistently 80%, that it is “visible to the naked eye.” This increased success rate in basic skills would have the effect of accelerating remediation and increasing the probability of college completion. We believe community college basic skills faculty possess all the wisdom necessary to figure out how to improve these rates, given the right tools. In this chapter we describe the GSCC project, the Guided Digital Environment and the Tools and Routines provided to faculty to allow them to be research-practitioners in the project, and the research we drew on to build it. We include early information and observations on the essential design elements for identifying effective basic skills pedagogy. We also describe the innovative technological tools used to create an engaged community and leave a digital trail for analysis. GSCC is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through a grant to the League for Innovation as part of its goal to double the number of young adults in the United States with a postsecondary credential by 2020.
Libraries of all types have often been called on to take on challenges ranging from information literacy and developing a reading culture to promoting social justice. In recent…
Abstract
Purpose
Libraries of all types have often been called on to take on challenges ranging from information literacy and developing a reading culture to promoting social justice. In recent literature they have been challenged to contribute to the development of informed and educated nations – a big issue in developing countries. Sometimes even to empower people. The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness for this call as important for developing as well as developed nations and the numerous issues, role players and lenses they need to bear in mind. As an opinion piece it can merely scratch the surface of raising awareness.
Design/methodology/approach
This contribution builds on the literature of library and information science, education and politics to present an exploratory viewpoint and a nascent model to support further work. It intentionally touches on a diversity of issues that may seem at odds with each other, but that in the opinion reflect the enormous scope to address and diversity of individual, institutional and global input and lenses that can make a difference.
Findings
Many obvious approaches to achieve the object of an informed and educated nation with empowered individuals can be noted such as focusing on information literacy, digital literacy and information fluency. However more awareness is required of the need to take a holistic view of issues to focus on such as tolerance and ethics, and the information behaviour and information practices of people in various contexts, and how changes in the awareness of needs to address and the need to seek information and support from diverse sources, can contribute. A first step would be to note the diversity that might contribute towards a holistic view of a global problem to which libraries can contribute.
Originality/value
There are limited publications on the topic in the library and information science literature although “developing an informed and educated nation” features in the mission and vision plans of some countries, and empowerment is sometimes specifically noted in publications on user education and information literacy. This paper offers an exploratory viewpoint to raise awareness to consider various approaches and threads to the topic and to not think only in terms of education and information literacy, but to recognise the full role libraries and librarians can play – also in reaching out to other role players such as users, governments and grant providers.
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Film provides an alternative medium for assessing our interpretations of cultural icons. This selective list looks at the film and video sources for information on and…
Abstract
Film provides an alternative medium for assessing our interpretations of cultural icons. This selective list looks at the film and video sources for information on and interpretations of the life of Woody Guthrie.
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Ji Miracle Qi, Yi Peng, Graham H. Lowman and Xingliang He
Employee gratitude is often associated with positive customer-related benefits. However, our understanding of employee gratitude is notably underdeveloped within the service…
Abstract
Purpose
Employee gratitude is often associated with positive customer-related benefits. However, our understanding of employee gratitude is notably underdeveloped within the service literature. To address this issue, this study aims to position employee gratitude within the service profit chain (SPC) framework as a complementary mediator. Further, the authors empirically examine service climate as a central antecedent to employee gratitude and employee customer-oriented behavior as an outcome that triggers an internal and external reciprocal social exchange.
Design/methodology/approach
The examination of the research questions was done across two studies, using employee self-reported data (Study 1) and employee–customer dyadic data (Study 2). In Study 1, the authors investigate how employee gratitude mediates the relationship between service climate and customer-oriented behavior, with employee interpersonal influence functioning as a moderator. In Study 2, the authors examine how customer-oriented behavior, an outcome of Study 1, influences customer satisfaction and customer avoidance, with customer gratitude functioning as a mediator.
Findings
Results from both Study 1 and Study 2 support the proposed relationships. These studies contribute to the service literature by evaluating how and why employee gratitude functions as a significant factor in determining employee and customer behavior within the service context.
Originality/value
This work enriches the gratitude literature by empirically testing a novel theoretical perspective on employee and customer gratitude in service encounters. In doing so, the authors provide a more nuanced understanding of how internal and external processes are connected and potentially reinforced in SPC.
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Shang Zhang, Jie Duan and Riza Yosia Sunindijo
The COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding control measures have harmed the mental health of professionals working in the construction industry. Existing research has also…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding control measures have harmed the mental health of professionals working in the construction industry. Existing research has also indicated that demographic characteristics are leading variables causing differences in individual’s perceptions on mental health and psychosocial hazardous factors. Combining these, this research aims to compare the differences and similarities of the perceived mental health outcomes and psychosocial hazards among construction professionals with different demographic characteristics during the pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a questionnaire survey, data were collected from 531 construction professionals working in Chinese construction companies, which were analyzed quantitatively using mean score comparative analysis, Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal–Wallis H test, as well as Spearman’s correlation analysis.
Findings
The results indicate that construction professionals with different ages, years of working experience and positions are exposed to different psychosocial hazards, resulting in different mental health conditions during the pandemic. Age and years of working experience are also strong predictors of the level of depression and anxiety experienced by construction professionals; that is, mental ill health tends to decrease with the increase of age and experience. Male department/unit heads, working in a company office environment for a private company and aged 31–40 years old with 11–20 years of working experience, tend to have the best mental health condition. In contrast, psychosocial hazards are more likely to produce the most serious impact on male site-based construction professionals working for a state-owned company, either with less than one year of working experience or in a senior management position.
Originality/value
Despite the significant contribution of the construction industry to the global economy, the differences and similarities of the mental health outcomes and psychosocial hazards among construction professionals with different demographic characteristics during the pandemic remain unknown. This research, therefore, reveals the mental health outcomes and psychosocial hazard impacts among different types of construction professionals during the pandemic. Specifically, this research unveils the important personal characteristics which are closely associated with poor mental health and the stronger impacts of psychosocial hazards on the mental health of construction professionals during the pandemic. The results are valuable for governments and construction companies to formulate targeted mental health intervention strategies during future public health emergencies.
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Sheikh Asadullah and Indra Gunawan
International studies have emphasised the importance of effective teaching for student learning. However, few studies have investigated teaching practices in Bangladesh. The…
Abstract
Purpose
International studies have emphasised the importance of effective teaching for student learning. However, few studies have investigated teaching practices in Bangladesh. The purpose of the study set out to explore the mathematics teaching behaviour of secondary school level of Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
A convenient sampling strategy was used to collect 502 grade nine students’ perceptions from 15 mathematics classes within Dhaka Metropolitan City (DMC). A valid and reliable student questionnaire was used where the students rated their mathematics teachers' teaching behaviours identified in the dynamic model of educational effectiveness (DMEE).
Findings
The findings from the quantitative analysis of the student evaluations revealed that the mathematics teachers demonstrated structuring, modelling, questioning, teacher–student interactions and teacher dealing with misbehaviours in their daily classroom teaching.
Research limitations/implications
A small sample of mathematics classes were chosen in the study; hence, the findings may not be totally representative nor generalisable to the population of secondary mathematics teachers within Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Practical implications
The study conducted in Bangladesh contributes to the international dimension to educational effectiveness research. The findings from the study provide partial support for teaching factors and dimensions in DMEE (Creemers and Kyriakides, 2008), and emphasise the need for further studies, particularly in cross-cultural contexts.
Originality/value
This is the first study to evaluate teaching behaviours of secondary mathematics teachers through students’ perceptions in Bangladesh. It contributes important insights about teaching behaviours to inform the development of evidence-based policy and practice on quality teaching in the region.