Complexity Of Participation Research Articles

Measuring kindergarteners' motivational beliefs about writing: a mixed-methods exploration of alternate assessment formats.

There have been a handful of studies on kindergarteners' motivational beliefs about writing, yet measuring these beliefs in young children continues to pose a set of challenges. The purpose of this exploratory, mixed-methods study was to examine how kindergarteners understand and respond to different assessment formats designed to capture their motivational beliefs about writing. Across two studies, we administered four assessment formats - a 4-point Likert-type scale survey, a binary choice survey, a challenge preference task, and a semi-structured interview - to a sample of 114 kindergarteners engaged in a larger writing intervention study. Our overall goals were to examine the benefits and challenges of using these assessment formats to capture kindergarteners' motivational beliefs and to gain insight on future directions for studying these beliefs in this young age group. Many participants had a difficult time responding to the 4-point Likert-type scale survey, due to challenges with the response format and the way the items were worded. However, more simplified assessment formats, including the binary choice survey and challenge preference task, may not have fully captured the nuances and complexities of participants' motivational beliefs. The semi-structured interview leveraged participants' voices and highlighted details that were overlooked in the other assessment formats. Participants' interview responses were deeply intertwined with their local, everyday experiences and pushed back on common assumptions of what constitutes negatively oriented motivational beliefs about writing. Overall, our results suggest that kindergarteners' motivational beliefs appear to be multifaceted, contextually grounded, and hard to quantify. Additional research is needed to further understand how motivational beliefs are shaped during kindergarten. We argue that motivational beliefs must be studied in context rather than in a vacuum, in order to work toward a fair and meaningful understanding of motivational beliefs about writing that can be applied to school settings.

The Double Effects of Standardized Testing on Students and Environment

With the widespread use of standardized tests today, much of the understanding and research on standardized tests is based on specific effects and aspects. This paper discussed how standardized testing affects students as well as the surrounding community, including teachers and schools. By integrating the findings and analyses of previous studies, this paper argues that the effects of standardized tests are two-sided. There are serious negative effects caused by the standardized tests, such as test anxiety, teaching to the test, achievement gap, but it has positive effects on student learning too, such as making self-assessment, improve self-efficacy, and reducing forgetting. The reason to write this paper is because it will give decision-makers, researchers, and educators a better understanding of standardized tests and will aid them in using them more effectively. Previous studies had limitation in considering the complexity of participants and lacked new data in certain area. Future research could consider how to balance the benefits and negative effects of standardized tests in real-world teaching and learning settings, and better use standardized tests while pursuing educational equity.

Evaluating the implementation of a multidisciplinary lifestyle intervention for people with severe mental illness in sheltered housing: effectiveness-implementation hybrid randomised controlled trial

Lifestyle interventions can improve health-related outcomes for people with severe mental illness (SMI), but few studies evaluate this potential in everyday settings. After a successful approach in routine inpatient mental healthcare (MULTI), we sought to replicate this multidisciplinary lifestyle-enhancing support in people with SMI living in sheltered housing (MULTI_sh). To evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of MULTI_sh (trial registration: NCT03157557). In an effectiveness-implementation hybrid cluster-randomised controlled trial, six municipalities with sheltered housing facilities in The Netherlands were randomly assigned to MULTI_sh (n = 3) or treatment as usual (TAU, n = 3). After 12 months, we evaluated effects on metabolic health, sedentary behaviour/physical activity (ActiGraph GT3X+), quality of life (EuroQol 5D, WHOQoL-Bref) and psychopathology (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale Expanded Version) using multiple regression, adjusting for baseline values and municipalities (intention to treat and per protocol). In addition, implementation fidelity and barriers/facilitators were evaluated (Measurement Instrument for Determinants of Innovation). Of 177 eligible patients, 74 (42%) could be included in the analyses. Health outcomes did not substantially improve with MULTI_sh (n = 45) compared with TAU (n = 29). MULTI_sh was not implemented as intended. Most patients and all healthcare professionals believed that patients' lifestyle should be part of treatment, but implementation was primarily (in)directly hindered by organisational factors (e.g. staff shortages, complexity of participation, lack of time and difficulty getting patients involved). MULTI_sh was not implemented as intended and no clinical health improvements were found. Organisations are decisive in the success or failure of the implementation of lifestyle interventions for people with SMI. More intensive implementation strategies on this level are warranted in sheltered housing.

BOURDIEU MIGHT UNDERSTAND: INDIGENOUS HABITUS CLIVÉ IN THE AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY

ABSTRACT Bourdieu’s concept of habitus clivé illuminates Indigenous Australians’ experiences in tertiary environments for both Aboriginal students and Aboriginal staff. Habitus formed through family, schooling and social class is also shaped by urban, regional or rural upbringing, creating a durable sense of self. Aboriginal people in Australia live in all of these places, often in marginalised circumstances. Bourdieu’s more specific concept of habitus clivé, or divided self, is less well known than habitus, but offers value in giving expression to Indigenous people’s experiences within a dominant White society. The complexity of participation and educational change is explored here through the experiences of three authors’ intersecting positionalities within the Australian academy. Developing more nuanced scholarly language reduces the imposition of perspectives that see Indigenous people as objects within western frameworks. Scholarly understanding and respect for Australia’s first peoples’ concepts and cultural practices would engage more appropriately and fairly with Aboriginal knowledge and society. Habitus clivé chronicles one version of habitus that can be changed or be reconfirmed but not easily or by fiat. Understanding the concept can be learned, however. Educational opportunity, glorified in today’s higher education, means little for Aboriginal people without long-term strategies addressing existentially and culturally split habitus.

Developing a Comprehensive Mixed Methods Evaluation to Address Contextual Complexities of a MOOC

Abstract: Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are gaining popularity, yet they are rarely evaluated using mixed methods that consider the complexity of participants’ demographics, geographic spread, and MOOC design and curricula. In this article, we critically reflect on evaluating the Mixed Methods International Research Association (MMIRA) MOOC. A literature review on MOOCs and how they are evaluated is presented along with a logic model. After a description of the MMIRA MOOC and the multi-phase mixed methods evaluation design, the logic model is used to reflect on conducting a mixed methods evaluation. We conclude with the challenges experienced when evaluating amidst a MOOC’s complexities.

Investigating international students’ attitudes toward local teachers’ L1 use and learning practices in English-medium instruction in Germany: a Chinese case study

ABSTRACT Although there is a body of research on the teacher first language (L1) use in English-medium-instruction (EMI) classrooms, very little research has probed into how international students perceive local teacher L1 use and their learning practices in the English as a lingua franca (ELF) context. To address the gap, the present case study explored a cohort of Chinese international students’ attitudes toward German-native teacher’s L1 use in EMI classes at two universities in Germany. A mixed-methods approach was adopted through a student questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with Chinese postgraduate students from different majors. Results of quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed the attitudinal complexities of participants toward local teachers switching to German in EMI. Besides, Chinese students employed different learning strategies to deal with language-related challenges. Notably, participants highlight English as the most effective lingua franca. Nonetheless, they allow German to be conditionally used in certain circumstances without causing comprehensibility problems, such as telling German jokes, chatting with German students, or talking about trivial topics. Furthermore, the multifaceted understanding of language uses by Chinese international students offers insights to conceptualisations of language and EMI policies.

Long Term Participation Outcomes for Severe Acquired Brain Injury in Childhood – An Expanded Scoping Review

ABSTRACT Introduction: Participation in childhood Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) lacks clarity in definition and determinants influencing long-term outcome. This paper aims to investigate and identify the factors that impact long-term outcomes, and prioritize the measures that focus on and endorse children, young people, and their family’s concept of participation. Methods: A scoping review was carried out using research literature and non-research data sources including data review, child/family interviews, and expert consultation. Results: Six peer-reviewed papers sourced. Families reported that participation for the whole family is important and recovers in a non-linear manner after rehabilitation. Experts agreed the priority and complexity of participation following severe ABI. Conclusion: Review highlights that regaining participation through the attendance at, and the engagement in life situations, for children after severe ABI, is important, complex and is affected by many factors. Future research requires a flexible approach to understand participation and inform future targeted interventions.

A large group decision-making method based on a generalized Shapley probabilistic linguistic Choquet average operator and the TODIM method

The probabilistic linguistic term set (PLTS) is an effective tool for properly modelling the uncertainty and complexity of participants’ linguistic preferences. Considering that some participants do not give evaluation information in the large group decision-making (LGDM) problem, PLTS can express many participants’ preferences with incompleteness more appropriately. Due to the existence of interest subgroups and non-independent criteria in the LGDM problem, this paper proposes a new probabilistic linguistic LGDM method to analyse the interactions among interest subgroups and the interrelationships among criteria. First, a transformation model that converts many scattered linguistic terms into probabilistic linguistic term sets (PLTSs) is proposed, and it can keep participants’ true feelings as complete as possible. Then, the probabilistic linguistic Choquet average (PLCA) operator and the generalized Shapley probabilistic linguistic Choquet average (GS-PLCA) operator are proposed to aggregate the PLTSs from different subgroups for different alternatives with respect to various criteria. These proposed operators can appropriately handle the games played among the different interest subgroups. Moreover, the generalized Shapely probabilistic linguistic TODIM (GS-PLTODIM) method is developed, and it considers the heterogeneous relationships among the criteria. In addition, the novel LGDM method is constructed based on the GS-PLCA operator and the GS-PLTODIM method to solve LGDM problems with interacting subgroups and interrelated criteria. Last, as one of the LGDM problems, the Beijing subway pricing case is used to illustrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed LGDM method compared to some other existing methods. The proposed LGDM method will be shown to be applicable not only to this case but also to other LGDM problems.

The complexity of educational elitism: moving beyond misrecognition

Critical, and in particular Bourdieusian, sociology of education is often suspicious about educators when they describe their ideal students. It tends to see these descriptions as euphemisations, so that apparently intellectual assessments are really elitist evaluations about students’ class positions. However, this way of thinking about educators can lead to reductive accounts in which actors are completely blind to the real meaning of their beliefs, which must be unveiled by sociologists. In this article I utilise Luc Boltanski’s pragmatic sociology to offer an alternative model of educators’ accounts, in which there is no real meaning to be unveiled, but rather a complex mix of meanings held in educators’ minds at once. Analysing interview data with those teaching on new liberal arts degrees in English universities, I demonstrate what can be gained by staying with the complexity of participants’ own accounts, rather than mining them for one fundamental truth.

The Enabling Environment for Participation in Water and Sanitation: A Conceptual Framework

Participatory approaches are an important component of institutional frameworks for the governance of water resources and services. Studies on public participation in water management provide evidence for the outcomes of public participation and insights into the types of methods and the contexts under which participation can be meaningful. However, participatory processes are complex, and there is no single method by which to interpret, approach and implement them. This paper explores elements from the theory and practice of participation, applied to the management of water resources and water and sanitation services. Based on an in-depth literature review, we analyze the forms of participation in water and sanitation, their outcomes, as well as the contextual factors and procedural elements of participatory processes that affect their success. Contextual factors are those that are largely outside of the control of agencies or participants (e.g., demographics, history, and culture) or those that can only be influenced by management and institutional decisions in the mid- and long-term (e.g., the legal and institutional framework); while procedural elements are those over which agencies and participants have considerable control when designing and executing participatory efforts (e.g., representativeness and inclusivity, access to information, and opportunity to influence). We propose a framework that interrelates and integrates both contextual factors and procedural elements of participation. It, includes three additional aspects that are influenced by, and in turn influence, the context and the process: existing capacities for implementation of meaningful participatory processes, the resources that are allocated to them, and attitudes towards participatory processes. The framework helps conceptualize what we call the enabling environment for active, free, and meaningful participation in the delivery of water and sanitation services. By breaking down the complexities of participation, the framework supports practitioners and decision-makers to better design and implement participatory processes in water resources and water and sanitation services.

Large-scale assessment as professional development: teachers’ motivations, ability beliefs, and values

ABSTRACTIn this study, conducted in the United States, the authors examined the motivational characteristics of teachers in the context of a large-scale performance assessment program. Teachers received professional development through their participation in the assessment program by writing items, reviewing items, and reviewing scoring criteria. An expectancy-value theory framework and embedded mixed-methods design were used to examine teachers’ (n = 119) motivations, ability beliefs, and values related to their professional development. Survey results showed that teachers generally had a high degree of intrinsic motivation for and associated social and pedagogical utility value with the professional development. Teachers reported positive ability beliefs, a high degree of usefulness, importance, and interest associated with the professional development, and positive changes to instruction and assessment. Results of multiple regression analyses showed teachers’ intrinsic motivations and ability beliefs predicted changes to instruction and assessments. Interview results illustrated the ways in which knowledge gained from involvement in the assessment program translated to practice. Results provided insight into the complexity of participants’ values, identifying factors that enabled or constrained changes to instruction and assessments.

Art, Nightlife and the Complexities of Participation: New York’s Area (1983–87)

Abstract Art and nightlife have intermixed in many cabarets and nightclubs throughout the modern era, and this project focuses on the New York nightclub Area (1983–87). Inspired by surrealism, neo-dada and pop art, Area’s owners acted as artistscurators, as they reinvented their club approximately every five to six weeks by demolishing and rebuilding it based on quirky themes including ‘Suburbia’, ‘Confinement’ and ‘Natural History’. Sculptures, films, photographs, performance art projects, installations and dioramas were featured, and artists included Karen Finley, Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. Such a club questioned issues related to curating living persons and the stereotypical notions of patronage and spectatorship. This social historical analysis, which touches upon gender and queer theory, examines the ethics of participation and how Area exemplified the intermixing of art and nightlife in New York’s nightclubs.

A Machine Learning Approach for Mechanism Selection in Complex Negotiations

Automated negotiation mechanisms can be helpful in contexts where users want to reach mutually satisfactory agreements about issues of shared interest, especially for complex problems with many interdependent issues. A variety of automated negotiation mechanisms have been proposed in the literature. The effectiveness of those mechanisms, however, may depend on the characteristics of the underlying negotiation problem (e.g. on the complexity of participant’s utility functions, as well as the degree of conflict between participants). While one mechanism may be a good choice for a negotiation problem, it may be a poor choice for another. In this paper, we pursue the problem of selecting the most effective negotiation mechanism given a particular problem by (1) defining a set of scenario metrics to capture the relevant features of negotiation problems, (2) evaluating the performance of a range of negotiation mechanisms on a diverse test suite of negotiation scenarios, (3) applying machine learning techniques to identify which mechanisms work best with which scenarios, and (4) demonstrating that using these classification rules for mechanism selection enables significantly better negotiation performance than any single mechanism alone.

Feminist approaches to Anorexia Nervosa: a qualitative study of a treatment group

BackgroundEating disorders (EDs) are now often approached as biopsychosocial problems. But it has been suggested by scholars interested in sociocultural factors that all is not equal within this biospsychosocial framework, with the ‘social’ aspects of the equation relegated to secondary factors within ED treatment contexts. Although sociocultural influences are well-established as risk factors for EDs, the exploration of whether or how such perspectives are useful in treatment has been little explored. In responding to this context, this article seeks to discuss and evaluate a 10 week closed group intervention based on feminist approaches to EDs at a residential eating disorder clinic in the East of England.MethodsThe data was collected via one-to-one qualitative interviews and then analysed using thematic discourse analysis.ResultsThe participants suggested that the groups were helpful in enabling them to situate their problem within a broader cultural and group context, that they could operate as a form of ‘protection’ from ideologies regarding femininity, and that a focus on the societal contexts for EDs could potentially reduce feelings of self-blame. At the same time, the research pointed to the complexities of participants considering societal rather than individualised explanations for their problems, whilst it also confronted the implications of ambivalent responses toward feminism.ConclusionsHighly visible sociocultural factors in EDs – such as gender - may often be overlooked in ED clinical contexts. Although based on limited data, this research raises questions about the marginalisation of sociocultural factors in treatment, and the benefits and challenges including the latter may involve.

Editorial

Editorial

Managed Migration of Coast Redwoods: Subjectivity of Stakeholders in Oregon’s Land Use Planning Community

The Earth’s climate is changing at a faster pace than the slow natural adjustment rates of most species to their rapidly shifting habitat conditions, especially for long-lived tree species, such as the iconic coast redwood Sequoia sempersqvirens. This may leave some species stranded in less than optimal environments, resulting in population extinctions and/or the need for human-assisted migration. However, the implementation of assisted migration does not come without economic, legal, political, ecological, and ethical issues. One of the most important and complex social questions regarding assisted migration is that of the land use planning community in the area being considered. This article explores the subjective beliefs among these stakeholders regarding managed migration of coast redwood trees into suitable habitats in Oregon. Q-methodology was used to structure the complexity of participants’ subjective beliefs into a few manageable themes to reveal broader socio-economic and environmental perspectives and shared ways of perceiving and valuing the relationship between social, economic, and environmental concerns. The findings of this study suggest two main factors 1) positively ranked values that align on new perspectives of utilitarian ecological values, and 2) positively ranked values that align on a land based communitarian perspective. This convergence suggests an ecologically aware land management ethos as opposed to the view of favoring human’s dominion over nature, and therefore bolsters the potential for the future success of managed migration of coast redwoods into suitable habitats in Oregon given the state’s existing land use policy.

Realising the dream of becoming a nurse: Underrepresented BSc nursing students experiences

BackgroundThis paper describes the experiences of underrepresented BSc nursing students in realising the dream of becoming a nurse in one university. In the past ten years, pre-registration nurse education has become established within higher education in Ireland. This development includes promoting access and inclusion of students from traditionally underrepresented groups in higher education. A third of nursing students currently access places on programmes through routes specifically designed for underrepresented groups. MethodsA qualitative descriptive study design provided an opportunity for student voices to be heard. Ethical approval was sought and granted. Eleven students were interviewed nearing completion of a four year BSc Nursing programme. Data analysis followed a thematic approach, in generating themes. FindingsThree themes emerged from the data: taking the first steps; finding a way and getting through. Findings highlight participants' challenges in balancing study, clinical practice and family life in achieving and realising their dream of becoming a nurse. ConclusionThis study illustrates the nature and complexities of participants' experiences throughout the BSc Nursing programmes towards becoming university graduates, eligible for registration as a nurse. Students from underrepresented groups bring rich and diverse life experiences in preparation for and becoming caring practitioners. It highlights the individuality within participants' experiences and draws attention to the value of personalised support for students. An opportunity to encourage the development of emotional intelligence needs to be fostered within nurse education programmes. Creating positive learning environments is critical to supporting student understanding of compassionate patient centred care. Findings have relevance for global curriculum design and structures to support individual student centred engagement. Further research is required to consider how best to support students from underrepresented groups.

Opting out: a single-centre pilot study assessing the reasons for and the psychosocial impact of withdrawing from living kidney donor evaluation

Understanding why individuals opt out of living donation is crucial to enhancing protections for all living donors and to identify modifiable barriers to donation. We developed an ethical approach to...

Applying math onto mechanisms: mechanistic knowledge is associated with the use of formal mathematical strategies

It is notoriously difficult for people to adaptively apply formal mathematical strategies learned in school to real-world contexts, even when they possess the required mathematical skills. The current study explores whether a problem context’s mechanism can act as an “embodied analogy” onto which abstract mathematical concepts can be applied, leading to more frequent use of formal mathematical strategies. Participants were asked to program a robot to navigate a maze and to create a navigation strategy that would work for differently sized robots. We compared the strategy complexity of participants with high levels of mechanistic knowledge about the robot against participants with low levels of mechanistic knowledge about the robot. Mechanistic knowledge was significantly associated with the frequency and complexity of the mathematical strategies used by participants, suggesting that learning to recognize a problem context’s mechanism may promote independent mathematical problem solving in applied contexts.

Including students as co-enquirers: Matters of identity, agency, language and labelling in an International participatory research study

This paper takes the reader through the methodological development of an international study, which involved 8 academics and 373 students in Departments of Education from 6 universities in Europe, New Zealand and the USA. It explores the uses, benefits and critical tensions within participatory research methodology when used in a study addressing questions of undergraduate student diversity and inclusion. Issues when linking the views and interests of the various project parties, a core element of participatory research, are considered. Alongside this is a discussion on how this led to shifts in participant role identities, a reconfiguration of research ownership and insights into the complexities of participants’ education. The work addresses a niche area in terms of participants as co-researchers, in particular matters of identity, agency, language and labelling, thus adding to developments in this field.