Dialogue Intervention Research Articles

Cost-Effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and a Workplace Intervention for Employees on Sickness Absence due to Mental Disorders.

The aim of this study was to evaluate cost-effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and workplace dialogue intervention (WDI), both as stand-alone interventions and in combination, compared with treatment as usual (TAU), for employees on sickness absence with mental disorders. Employees (n = 352, 78.4% females) on sickness absence were randomized to one of four groups. Cost-utility analyses were conducted from a health care perspective and a limited societal perspective. All groups reported significant improvements in health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) and there were no significant differences in HRQoL or costs between groups. The probability of cost-effectiveness for ACT+WDI was 50% compared with ACT, indicating that both treatment alternatives could be considered equally favorable for decision-makers. TAU and WDI were rejected due to less economic efficiency. Adding WDI to ACT cannot be recommended on the basis of our study results.

Interactive Storybook-Based Intervention Effects on Kindergartners’ Language Development

A dialogic storybook-based intervention integrating dialogic storybook reading with early literacy activities is studied with a longitudinal quasi-experimental study design. The effects of this intervention, in addition to a regular early childhood education (ECE) program, on kindergartners’ vocabulary and phonological awareness development are analyzed for children from different backgrounds. Results indicated that the intervention may be effective in stimulating expressive vocabulary development. With regard to receptive vocabulary and phonological awareness measures, the intervention seems to have a similar effect to using a regular ECE program. The intervention had a similar effect for all children. Findings suggest that an active participation, in which the children are encouraged to talk about language, seems to be beneficial to enhance children’s language use; this aspect might be elaborated in existing or future ECE programs. The intervention can be used to help children from underprivileged families to gain language skills to ensure an optimal start of formal education in Grade 1.

Knowledge Translation Capacity of Arts-informed Dissemination: A Narrative Study

Background: Arts-informed dissemination is an expanding approach to enhancing knowledge translation in the health sciences. Problematic is the minimal evaluation studies and the rare reporting of the influencing factors of knowledge translation. “The 7,024th Patient” is a research-derived art installation created to disseminate findings about patients’ experiences of heart surgery and the importance of humanistic patient-centred care approaches. The current study’s purpose was to explore how arts-informed dissemination (i.e., “The 7,024th Patient”) influenced healthcare practitioners’ delivery of care.Methods: An arts-informed narrative study was guided by the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework. The sample included a multi-disciplinary group of 19 individuals who worked with patients undergoing and recovering from heart surgery. Two interviews were conducted with each participant at the time of viewing the installation and 6 months later. A narrative analysis was conducted using Pictorial Narrative Mapping techniques.Results: Study findings indicated that the arts as a form of evidence provide an experiential and aesthetic encounter, which stimulated reflective practice. Participants’ accounts reflected cognitive and behavioral modifications related to empathy, holistic approaches and relational care. However, the complexities associated with the interpretive process and the influencing knowledge translation elements indicated a need to dialogue about the translation process, including deconstructing the evidence within the context of one’s own practice.Conclusions: Art is not just works of beauty or eccentric paintings. There is an imaginative and aesthetic capacity that can be cultivated with diligence, creativity, and rigour in the world of healthcare research and knowledge translation. Next steps require the examination of the knowledge translation capacity of different art forms with a range of populations and disciplines. Additionally, this study suggests the need to explore arts-informed dissemination that draws upon a more dialogical intervention in which knowledge users are involved in the interpretive processes of knowledge translation.

Strange encounters: a dialogue on cultural geography across the political divide

ABSTRACTDisagreement is a fundamental aspect of scholarly inquiry, yet it is exceedingly rare for scholars on opposite sides of the political spectrum to engage in a sustained dialogue across the political divide. This article seeks to contribute to precisely such a dialogue with specific reference to the field of cultural geography. The discussion featured herein consists of an encounter between “critical” and “conservative” approaches to cultural geography in the form of a back-and-forth exchange of arguments and counter-arguments by the interlocutors. The dialogue covers a wide range of issues, including the cultural politics of essentialism, white supremacy, racial segregation, patriarchy, traditional morality, secularism, justice, authority, friendship, difference-as-strangeness, and the very question of disagreement itself. The broader aim of this dialogical intervention is not to find some sort of common ground that will resolve all differences but rather to explore what those differences are with the hope of opening up a space for more constructive dialogue on cultural geography across the political divide.

Community-Based Parental Dialogic Reading Intervention to Improve Child's Emergent Literacy

Community-Based Parental Dialogic Reading Intervention to Improve Child's Emergent Literacy

Effects of Adapted Dialogic Reading on Oral Language and Vocabulary Knowledge of Latino Preschoolers at Risk for English Language Delays.

In this single-case design study, we examined the effects of an adapted dialogic reading intervention on the oral language and vocabulary skills of four Latino preschool children who were at risk for English language delays. We used adapted dialogic reading strategies in English and two literacy games that included a rapid naming activity and playing with props to retell the stories in the books. Results indicated improvement in both oral language and vocabulary skill knowledge from baseline to intervention for all children. Children also showed improvement from baseline to intervention in their story retells during generalization probes. Limitations and implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Multiple balances in workplace dialogue: experiences of an intervention in health care

Purpose– This paper aims to illuminate and analyse the participants’ experiences of the influences of a dialogue intervention. Cooperation and coordination in health care require planning of dialogically oriented communication to prevent stress and ill health and to promote health, well-being, learning and efficiency in the organisation.Design/methodology/approach– An intervention method based on dialogue theory, with Socratic provocations and concrete workplace examples enhanced authenticity of conversations. A qualitative study, using qualitative content analysis, entailed interviews with 24 nurses, assistant nurses and paramedics, strategically selected from 156 intervention participants.Findings– Two themes emerged, dialogue-learning processes and dialogue-promoting communicative actions. The first includes risk-taking to overcome resistance and fear of dialogue, expressing openly thoughts and feelings on concrete issues and taboo subjects, listening to and reflecting on one’s own and others’ perspectives and problematising norms and values. The second comprises voicing opinions, and regarding one’s own limits; requesting support and room for manoeuvre; and restraining negative emotions and comments in the interest of well-being. Findings depict strengthened awareness and readiness regarding dialogue and multiple balancing of dialogue at work.Research limitations/implications– This study implies further observing and examining of communicative patterns during workplace dialogue.Practical implications– A useful approach to communication development for occupational health and personnel in health care and other workplace contexts.Originality/value– Previously, arenas have been created for dialogue, but close-process studies of dialogue in health-care work are scarce. This study provides insights into how workplace communication can develop towards dialogue.

A pesquisa-intervenção em Psicologia do Trabalho em um aporte que toma o desenvolvimento como método e objeto

<p>O Núcleo de Estudos e Intervenção em Trabalho, Subjetividade e Saúde (Nutras) é um grupo de pesquisa vinculado à Universidade Federal Fluminense. Uma de suas linhas de pesquisa tem como objeto o trabalho como operador de saúde. A principal referência teórica é a corrente da psicologia do trabalho chamada clínica da atividade, fundada na psicologia histórico-cultural de Vigotski, em intercessão com outras teorias como a linguística de Bakhtin (2006) e a ergonomia situada francofônica (WISNER, 1995). Numa abordagem clínica do trabalho, toma o conceito de desenvolvimento como central, utilizando-o como método para uma intervenção dialógica a Oficina de Fotos.</p>

Supporting Use of Evidence in Argumentation Through Practice in Argumentation and Reflection in the Context of SOCRATES Learning Environment

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to examine how students used evidence in argumentation while they engaged in argumentive and reflective activities in the context of a designed learning environment. A Web‐based learning environment, SOCRATES, was developed, which included a rich data base on the topic of climate change. Sixteen 11th graders, working with a partner, engaged in electronic argumentive dialogs with classmates who held an opposing view on the topic and in some evidence‐focused reflective activities, based on transcriptions of their dialogs. Another sixteen 11th graders, who studied the data base in the learning environment for the same amount of time as experimental‐condition students but did not engage in an argumentive discourse activity, served as a comparison condition. Students who engaged in an evidence‐focused dialogic intervention increased the use of evidence in their dialogs, used more evidence that functioned to weaken opponents’ claims and used more accurate evidence. Significant gains in evidence use and in metalevel communication about evidence were observed after students engaged in reflective activities. We frame our discussion of these findings in terms of their implications for promoting use of evidence in argumentation and in relation to the development of epistemological understanding in science.

Dialogic Reading of a Novel for Children: Effects on Text Comprehension

Experimental studies have shown positive effects of dialogic reading of picture books (reading aloud interspersed with prompts and feedback for verbalizations by the listener) on the vocabulary and verbal expression of small children. This study assessed the effect of dialogic reading on the comprehension of a children’s novel by three children aged 7-8 years, using a single-subject reversal design. In Condition A, the text was read without intervention. In Condition B, reading was interspersed with dialogic interventions based on narrative functions. Comprehension was superior in all measures in Condition B for the two participants who underwent the B-A-B design, however, not for the participant who underwent the A-B-A design. We discuss possible interactions of dialogic reading with characteristics of text genre and the need for systematic replications with more sessions and reversals of conditions.

Dialogue and interethnic trust

The growing field of peacebuilding has tried to mitigate interethnic conflicts by creating various sorts of dialogue programs, aiming to build social bonds and bridges between individuals from groups with a history of violent interaction. Yet, little is known of the effect of dialogue initiatives on interethnic relations and peacebuilding. Previous research on dialogue programs has suffered from the serious problem of selection bias: in other words, by not having comparable control groups it has not been possible to separate selection effects (that a program attracts certain types of people) from process effects (that programs have an effect on people). The present study is the first to examine the effects of a dialogue process in a context of political tension and ethnic violence through a randomized field experiment, thereby eliminating this problem. Using a stratified randomization process, participants were selected to a two-term Sustained Dialogue program at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, in 2009–10. Immediately following the dialogue intervention, an attitudinal survey and a behavioral trust game were conducted with a group of 716 participants and non-participants. We found that the program had a positive effect on participants’ attitudes: it worked for decreasing mistrust and increasing the level of trust between people of different ethnic origins. Concurrently, however, participation in the dialogue program increased the sense of importance of ethnic identities as well as the perception of being ethnically discriminated – a somewhat counter-intuitive finding. Participation in dialogue processes had no significant effect on game behavior: participants in Sustained Dialogue were neither more trusting nor trustworthy than non-participants. This study shows the fruitfulness of randomized field-experiments in the area of peace and conflict research and finishes by identifying some important paths for future research.

A Pilot Investigation of Emotion‐Focused Two‐Chair Dialogue Intervention for Self‐Criticism

Self-criticism plays a key role in many psychological disorders and predicts poor outcome in psychotherapy. Yet, psychotherapy research directly targeting self-critical processes is limited. In this pilot study, we examined the efficacy of an emotion-focused intervention, the two-chair dialogue task, on self-criticism, self-compassion and the ability to self-reassure in times of stress, as well as on depressive and anxiety symptoms among nine self-critical clients. Results showed that the intervention was associated with significant increases in self-compassion and self-reassuring, and significant reductions in self-criticism, depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms. Effect sizes were medium to large, with most clients exhibiting low and non-clinical levels of symptomatology at the end of therapy, and maintaining gains over a 6-month follow-up period. Although preliminary, these finding suggest that emotion-focused chair work might be a promising intervention addressing self-criticism. Self-criticism is an important process in a variety of clinical disorders and predicts poor outcome in brief therapy for depression. Yet, little is known about how self-criticism can be effectively addressed in psychological treatment. Practitioners can benefit from increasing their awareness of self-critical processes in their clinical work, and from directly working with emotions in addressing self-criticisim. Emotion-focused two-chair dialogue intervention can be effective in reducing self-criticism, increasing self-compassion, and decreasing depressive and anxiety symptoms, and these improvements are largely maintained six months after therapy.

Effects of Intergroup Dialogue: Public School Teachers and Sexual Orientation Prejudice

Prejudice and hate crimes against lesbians and gay men are prevalent throughout the United States. Prejudice in public school settings is particularly problematic for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) students and LGB parents. Efforts to reduce prejudice for LGB groups have met with limited success. Creating safer and more inclusive school environments is essential. An experimental mixed methods field design tested outcomes of an intergroup dialogue intervention on public school teacher attitudes, feelings, and behaviors toward LGB students and parents. Quantitative results indicate dialogue participation resulted in statistically significant positive changes in attitudes, feelings, and behaviors. Qualitative data analysis confirmed positive changes as a result of dialogue participation.

Negotiation, Exclusion and Durable Peace: Dialogue and Peacebuilding in Tajikistan

AbstractPeace negotiators concentrate their mediation efforts on leaders of armed factions in their pursuit of political agreements to stop a civil war, and they exclude noncombatants and interest groups that can "spoil" the bargaining. This practice of exclusion often creates agreements that fail during implementation. Track two diplomacy efforts can overcome this failure by providing channels to include other interest groups and active parties. In Tajikistan, participants in a sustained dialogue intervention provided crucial influence to the negotiation of a civil war settlement, but the agreement itself only created a greater centralization of political power and institutions that excluded public political participation. However, participation in the dialogue transformed members and even some observers into effective practitioners developing a large number of public associations committed to conflict resolution. Therefore, the Inter-Tajik Dialogue in Tajikistan illustrates a successful strategy for overcoming the dynamics of exclusion that drive political settlements between military leaders. More importantly, sustained dialogue demonstrates possible strategies for building peace by stimulating the development of a more inclusive civic culture.

Final report and future questions regarding a social skills training program for burned adolescents

According to research, the value of cultivating thinking in the context of dialogic teaching is an effective strategic approach to critical thinking. This study applied an extended comparative intervention to six classes of Taiwanese schoolchildren using two types of experimental groups. Two classes of each different age group were engaged in dialogic teaching over a 12-week period with the use of different materials, either the Analects of Confucius or moral dilemma stories. Three further classes served as control groups. The results of a detailed content analysis demonstrated that this dialogic intervention in the class type of the Analects contributed significant gains in the thinking of exploratory talk.

Systems sensitive dialogue intervention

AbstractThe paper presents a general methodology for dialogue interventions. Systems Sensitive Dialogue Interventions are viewed in the light of Gerald Midgley's general presentation of systemic intervention. By focusing on the dialogue philosophy of Martin Buber and the key elements in two popular dialogue methods it is proposed that (a) enhancing individual participants' sensitivity to the unique human system they form is the primary task of a dialogue intervention, (b) when designing dialogical interventions it is useful to use creatively elements from different available dialogical methods and (c) dialogue interventions should be designed in experiential and existential rather than in metaphysical terms. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Prospects for Stability in Tajikistan

In June 2002, Tajikistan achieved five years of increasing stability after a peace agreement formally initiated a transition to national reconciliation. Theories of conflict based only on grievance or those based on fear, incentives and opportunity fail to explain the continued cooperation of opposition forces in the face of government antagonism and obstruction. A focus on the competition between groups defending incompatible frames, or interpretive schemes by which individuals label and identify events and assign values, reveals the important role of intellectuals in connecting rational strategy and grievances. In Tajikistan, the competition between recruitment appeals targeting different identities and interests depended on the capabilities and values of the intelligentsia. The peace agreement implementation process and the activity of international donors and humanitarian organizations created greater autonomy for social activists and those who produce culture. The Dartmouth Conference Sustained Dialogue intervention stimulated the development of a new political culture of tolerance for public debate. In this perspective, the frame of political change through social transformation, community action and education overcame the frame that supported violence.

Evaluation of Counselor Training in Gestalt Methods

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a Gestalt skill‐training group. Results indicated that after training, counselors responded to a client statement of conflict significantly more often with a two‐chair dialogue intervention, and used significantly more of the advanced skills of direct guidance, open question, and nonverbal referent than they did before training.