Johann Chevalère, Virginie Laurier, Maite Tauber, Anna-Malika Camblats, Denise Thuilleaux and Virginie Postal
When a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment cannot be carried out, a quick and discriminant tool of good psychometric properties can be useful to practitioners. The purpose…
Abstract
Purpose
When a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment cannot be carried out, a quick and discriminant tool of good psychometric properties can be useful to practitioners. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in patients with Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) and to test its reliability for cognitive assessment in a population with intellectual disabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
Thirty-seven adults with PWS took the MoCA. Reliability of the battery was tested using Cronbach’s alphas. The performance of PWS adults in each subtest was then compared to that of a normative population of healthy adults.
Findings
The MoCA was found to be unreliable in PWS. The subtests analyses indicated that the PWS sample underperformed the normative population of healthy adults on most subtests of the MoCA. A sub-sample aged between 17and 29 years showed normal performance on Naming and Memory, and a sub-sample aged from 30 to 39 years showed similar performance on Language, Memory and Orientation relative to age-matched normative healthy adults.
Research limitations/implications
Results showed that the current version of the MoCA, if taken as a whole test for cognitive assessment, does not present with adequate psychometric properties, which the authors interpret as reflecting the heterogeneity in PWS cognitive profiles. If used in PWS, the MoCA may however be useful in examining cognitive functions separately using subtest-based comparisons to normative data.
Originality/value
This research contributes to a better assessment of cognitive profile in PWS and people with learning disabilities by arguing that the use of psychometric tests should depend more on the specificity of the population under evaluation.
Details
Keywords
Patrick Manu, Richard Ohene Asiedu, Abdul-Majeed Mahamadu, Paul Olaniyi Olomolaiye, Colin Booth, Emmanuel Manu, Saheed Ajayi and Kofi Agyekum
Effective procurement of infrastructure is linked to the attainment of the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations. While the capacity of organisations is…
Abstract
Purpose
Effective procurement of infrastructure is linked to the attainment of the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations. While the capacity of organisations is generally thought to be related to organisational performance, there is a lack of empirical insights concerning the contribution of procurement capacity of public organisations towards the attainment of procurement objectives in infrastructure procurement. Thus, it is unclear which aspects of the capacity of public procurement organisations contribute the most to the attainment of procurement objectives in the procurement of infrastructure. This research sought to address this gap.
Design/methodology/approach
The research used a survey of public procurement professionals which yielded 590 responses.
Findings
Exploratory factor analysis of 23 organisational capacity items revealed three components of organisational procurement capacity: “management of the procurement process”; “human and physical resources”; and “financial resources and management”. Multiple regression modelling of the relationship between the components and the attainment of 12 procurement objectives further reveals that there is a significant positive relationship between the three components and all the objectives. However, “management of the procurement process” emerged as the greatest contributor to the attainment of seven objectives, whereas “human and physical resources”, and “financial resources and management” were the greatest contributor to the attainment of one objective and four objectives, respectively.
Originality/value
The study provides strong empirical justification for investment in the development of procurement capacity of public agencies involved in procurement of infrastructure. Furthermore, procurement capacity development of specific capacity components can be prioritised based on the relative contribution of capacity components to the attainment of desired procurement objectives. This should be useful to government policymakers as well as multilateral organisations that fund infrastructure and procurement reforms in various countries.