External Help Research Articles

CATALYSTS FOR SELF-RELIANCE IN WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING BY DELIA OWENS

This research aims to provide an in-depth analysis of self-reliance and its major causes, focusing on the concept proposed by Emerson and other related theories and concepts. The study employs a sociology of literature approach, which is well-suited to examine the social environment of the characters within the literary work. Additionally, the behaviorism perspective is utilized to analyze the behavioral phenomena that arise in relation to self-reliance. According to Savatagi, the causes of self-reliance include social, economic, political, and human agency factors, which set the boundaries for this analysis. Delia Owens' novel Where the Crawdads Sing serves as the primary source for this qualitative descriptive study, with additional books and related publications as secondary sources. The findings indicate that Kya's self-reliance is primarily driven by unsupportive social conditions, which prevent her from becoming dependent on others. Instead, these conditions foster a perception of self-reliance that helps Kya develop into a strong, independent individual who does not rely on external help.

Obstetric Violence (OV) Consequences and Coping Strategies: Insights Through the Voices of Arab and Jewish Women in Israel

This qualitative research amplifies the voices of Jewish and Arab women in Israel, illuminating their experiences with obstetric violence, its consequences, and coping strategies. The premise of this study is the feminist approach that aims to eradicate phenomena related to gender and patriarchal structures affecting women, their bodies, and their health. The research was based on the qualitative-constructivist methodology, by means of thematic analysis of 20 in-depth semistructured interviews. Two main themes emerged: first, consequences (e.g., physical, emotional, spousal relationships, and mistrust) and second, women's coping strategies (e.g., repression, avoidance, garnering inner strengths, resilience, and relying on external help).

The Role of Reserves in Mitigating Sanctions’ Impact on Economic Growth

ABSTRACT As global risks mount, national reserves act as a nation’s frontline defense, guarding economic stability. This study investigates the role of national reserves in mitigating the impact of international sanctions on economic growth, analyzing 131 countries from 2000 to 2022. Using econometric methods, including two-step Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) and fixed effects models, we examine how reserves relative to external debt help buffer economies against sanctions. The findings show that economic sanctions significantly hinder growth, with trade sanctions being the most damaging. Reserves act as a key buffer, particularly in the short term, though their effectiveness decreases over time. Countries with stronger reserve adequacy are better equipped to manage the challenges of sanctions. The study highlights the importance of maintaining robust reserves and implementing broader strategies like economic diversification and structural reforms for long-term resilience. These insights are valuable for policymakers navigating sanctions-related economic challenges.

PERAN MODAL SOSIAL DALAM PELESTARIAN TANAMAN MANGROVE DI DESA TONGKE-TONGKE KECAMATAN SINJAI TIMUR

This research was conducted with the aim of examining the role of social capital in preserving mangrove plants in Tongke Tongke Village, East Sinjai District, Sinjai Regency. This research uses a qualitative descriptive research method with data collection techniques using observation, interviews, and questionnaires. The results of this research show that there are three important indicators in the application of social capital, namely trust, norms, and networking. The application of social capital is considered important for the people of Tongke Tongke Village because the application of trust indicators can form social interactions that can last for a long time, and the application of norms can help the community comply with the rules in managing mangrove forests as a source of life and the existence of a network built by the Tongke Tongke Village government. both internal and external help in preserving mangrove forests which must be maintained by all parties, both government and community. The condition of the mangrove forests in Tongke - Tongke Village, East Sinjai District requires effective forest rehabilitation and integrated management. In integrated mangrove forest management, the role of each stakeholder involved in the management is very necessary. Mangrove forest management in Tongke - Tongke Village involves local communities and the condition of the mangrove forests in the village is starting to improve and some are still experiencing damage, this cannot be separated from the social capital of the local community who manage and utilize the mangrove forests.

Challenges Met by Intermediate Fast-Learner Classes on Communication Skills

This study explored the challenges faced by intermediate fast learner classes in five central schools of the Division of Surigao City in developing communication skills. Through interviews with 15 high-performing and 15 average-performing learners, challenges in reading, writing, speaking, and listening were identified and analyzed using thematic analysis. High-performing students struggle with comprehension, time management, and confidence, while average performers face additional difficulties in complex language and self-doubt. Strategies include resource use, external help, cognitive coping, and emotional regulation. Both groups employ various techniques to improve comprehension, fluency, and active listening

“We Have to Equip Them to Sell It”: How External Activists Help Internal Agents Implement Change

“We Have to Equip Them to Sell It”: How External Activists Help Internal Agents Implement Change

An exploratory analysis of the impact of area-level exposome on geographic disparities in aggressive prostate cancer

Numbers of aggressive prostate cancer (aPC) cases are rising, but only a few risk factors have been identified. In this study, we introduce a systematic approach to integrate geospatial data into external exposome research using aPC cases from Pennsylvania. We demonstrate the association between several area-level exposome measures across five Social Determinants of Health domains (SDOH) and geographic areas identified as having elevated odds of aPC. Residential locations of Pennsylvania men diagnosed with aPC from 2005 to 2017 were linked to 37 county-/tract-level SDOH exosome measures. Variable reduction processes adopted from neighborhood-wide association study along with Bayesian geoadditive logistic regression were used to identify areas with elevated odds of aPC and exposome factors that significantly attenuated the odds and reduced the size of identified areas. Areas with significantly higher odds of aPC were explained by various SDOH exposome measures, though the extent of the reduction depended on geographic location. Some areas were associated with race (social context), health insurance (access), or tract-level poverty (economics), while others were associated with either county-level water quality or a combination of factors. Area-level exposome measures can guide future patient-level external exposome research and help design targeted interventions to reduce local cancer burden.

The Impact of a Digital Game-Based AI Chatbot on Students’ Academic Performance, Higher-Order Thinking, and Behavioral Patterns in an Information Technology Curriculum

In the age of intelligence, information technology (IT) education has become the focus of attention in the education sector. However, traditional teaching methods fall short in motivating students and fostering higher-order thinking and have difficulty providing a personalized learning experience. Although AI chatbots can provide instant feedback as an innovative teaching tool, it is still challenging to fully enhance learner engagement. Based on this, this study developed a digital game-based AI chatbot system to enhance students’ learning experience through digital game-based learning strategies. This study utilized a quasi-experimental design with the experimental group using a digital game-based AI chatbot and the control group using a traditional AI chatbot. A comparison was made between the two groups concerning student learning performance in IT courses, higher-order thinking (including problem-solving, computational thinking, and creativity), learning motivation, and flow experience. In addition, the behavioral patterns of high-achieving and low-achieving students in the experimental group were analyzed. The results showed that the experimental group was significantly better than the control group in academic performance, problem-solving, computational thinking, learning motivation, and flow experience, but there was no significant difference in creativity tendency. Behavioral pattern analysis showed that high-achieving students in the experimental group showed more systematic learning strategies, while low-achieving students relied more on immediate feedback and external help, but both high- and low-achieving groups were able to actively talk to the AI chatbot and actively explore problem-solving strategies in the digital game. Therefore, AI chatbots based on digital games can be effectively used in IT courses to help students construct knowledge and develop higher-order thinking.

Are the media drivers of R&D?

Research exploring how extra-legal institutional aspects might impact corporate investment policy in innovation is still in its early stages. This lack of research is even greater when it comes to studying the role of media attention in corporate innovation. This study extends prior literature by investigating the relationship between media visibility and research and development (R&D) investment in a continental European context. Using a sample of Spanish listed firms in the 2008–2022 period, results indicate that media attention has a positive effect on corporate innovation. The results provide support for arguments that the media reduce agency conflicts, facilitate fundraising, and increase the reputational risk of internal agents as well as the pressure to meet stakeholder demands and the chances of obtaining external help to develop new ideas and projects. Moreover, we show that media attention encourages innovation in companies who are more isolated from stakeholder demands, who face greater agency conflicts, or who suffer from financial difficulties.

The ethical student scale: development of a new measure

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop the “ethical student scale” to understand the underlying factors that lead to the decisions of cheating and plagiarism and where business students are developmentally from a moral perspective and to help academic institutions assess how best to develop ethical education throughout the curriculum. This three-dimensional nine-item scale based on Kohlberg’s moral development model is proposed to serve as a valuable tool for educators who are struggling with identifying the best approach to help their students make ethical choices both within and outside of the walls of their educational institutions and once they join the workforce. Design/methodology/approach Four survey design studies were conducted to determine what factors had previously been identified to both negatively and positively impact the propensity of a university student to engage in cheating and/or plagiarizing (Study 1, N = 179), to preliminarily validate the three dimension nine item scale that emerged from Study 1 (Study 2, N = 87); to test the construct validity of the three-dimensional nine-item scale (Study 3, N = 235); and to test the nine-item scale for convergent, divergent and predictive validity (Study 4, N = 201). The four surveys were administered to undergraduate students at two universities in the Northeast in the USA. Findings To shed light on the underlying factors that lead to the decisions of cheating and plagiarism, the authors propose three factors that are engaged when students make these types of ethical decisions: rules and enforcement as an external control, personal morality as an internal control and social influences as a social control (Kohlberg, 1976). Through four studies, this paper presents a three-dimensional nine-item scale based on Kohlberg’s moral development model to determine the factors that influence the propensity of a university student to engage in cheating and/or plagiarizing. The proposed scale showed strong reliability across the three dimensions. Research limitations/implications The limitations of the scale are that this research was restricted to an academic setting. The relationship between the academic environment, the resulting behaviors of students and the subsequent behavior of these students as managers also needs investigation to determine if business ethics education does have an impact on increasing ethical decision-making. Practical implications The ethical student scale attempts to measure the development stage of students in a university setting and has the potential utility to help higher education institutions better understand the moral development of their students and what drives their decisions to engage in an ethical manner. Being a short yet reliable tool, ethical student scale may help business schools develop programs beyond a single business ethics course to instill ethical decision-making in students. Social implications One of the goals as business educators is to produce ethical managers. The ethical student scale can help us develop a more integrated approach to business ethics education. As the students become managers and leaders in organizations, the social implications for more ethical decision-makers and organizations are widespread and vital to the community and the economy. Originality/value Ethical student scale is an attempt to quantify what types of controls (external, social, or personal) help develop ethical students and ethical managers. Based on Kohlberg’s moral development model, this three-dimensional nine-item scale which shows strong reliability will serve as a valuable tool for educators who are struggling with identifying the best approach to the issue of unethical decisions and behaviors as they try to create strategies to help their students make ethical choices both within and outside of the walls of their educational institutions and once they join the workforce.

Family resilience and vulnerability of patients at diagnosis of lung cancer: A qualitative study.

To explore and analyse the adaptation process of patients and their families at the point of lung cancer diagnosis. Totally 23 operable lung cancer patients were included in this study. Colaizzi's method of phenomenology was employed for data analysis. This study found two different aspects of family adaptation at the diagnosis of lung cancer. For family resilience, three themes emerged: (1) Positive family belief systems (giving meaning to a cancer diagnosis and maintaining a positive/optimistic attitude), (2) Flexible family organizational patterns (maintaining the stability of family structure and function, adjusting the relationship between patients and family members and receiving external support and help) and (3) Good communication and problem-solving strategies (open communication on an equal basis, positive and open expression of emotions and collaborative problem-solving). For family vulnerability, three themes were as follows: (1) Negative family belief systems (negative attitudes and concealment and self-isolation due to stigma), (2) Rigid family organizational patterns (adaptation lost, conflicts between family support and patients' willingness and pressure upon social support) and (3) Unhealthy communication and problem-solving (poor communication, emotional asymmetry of family members and tendency to solve problems alone). The study highlights the existence of the family resilience and family vulnerability at the point of lung cancer diagnosis and provides patient's perspective for understanding family resilience in specific cultural contexts. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews. ChiCTR2300074801.

Cradling disparities: A descriptive qualitative study of maternal experiences of mothers from low-socioeconomic status in the first month postpartum.

To explore the experiences, expectations and needs of mothers from low-socioeconomic status at 1 month postpartum. Descriptive qualitative. Mothers from low-socioeconomic status and irrespective of their parity were invited to participate in one-to-one interviews at 1 month postpartum. Semi-structured interviews were conducted until data saturation. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. Written informed consent was obtained. Twenty mothers participated and six themes were identified: (1) No choice but to find meaning; (2) Father as a major pillar of support; (3) 'Kampung' Spirit; (4) Trials and Tribulations of Transition to Motherhood; (5) Shame, guilt and internalized stigma and (6) Reclaiming the power. This study reflected the unique struggles of mothers from low-socioeconomic status with pregnancy, childbirth and early postpartum and the wider health inequities within Singapore's maternal health system. To provide much-needed support and improved care, the stakeholders within government, healthcare providers and social organizations should consider the niche needs of this community. Nurses need to reflect on their own biases and ensure consistent care delivery regardless of socioeconomic status. When delivering patient education, patient-centred and sincere advice rooted in personal experience can help to establish rapport. This study is the first to explore the experiences of mothers from low-socioeconomic status in the Singapore context. Low-socioeconomic status mothers experienced less autonomy over their health, the care they received and their childcare options. As mothers adjusted to their new roles, they struggled to cope. However, as they were wary of the stigma surrounding poverty and their guilt of not being a 'good mother', they preferred to seek informal support from their family, friends and self-help through learning from social media, as compared to formal, external help. COREQ checklist. No patient or public contribution.

Depression as reversible biopsychosocial break up after schismogenesis

In recent decades, an important amount of biomedical and psychosocial data regarding major depression etiology and treatment has emerged. Despite this wealth of information, a global hypothesis seeking to integrate all available data into a unified explanatory model of depression is still missing. The biopsychosocial model is a precedent in this endeavor. This model proposes a systemic conceptual framework, suggesting that the dynamic interactions of biological, psychological, and social factors constantly condition individuals’ health status. However, it has been criticized for its lack of practical utility when it comes to understanding the onset and potential reversion of depression. Gregory Bateson proposed a systemic, transdisciplinary construct that may be useful for addressing these criticalities: schismogenesis. While this concept has found increasing application across different areas such as politics, ecology, or even psychotherapy, to the best of our knowledge, its use as a biopsychosocial etiology hypothesis for depression remains unexplored. The schismogenesis hypothesis suggests that depression can be considered as a switching process mediated by positive feedback curves, leading to a functional dissociation due to insufficient inhibitory control. Nonetheless, this process can be either reversed spontaneously or through external help, resulting in a rebalancing of the system.

How Do First-Year Engineering Students’ Emotions Change while Working on Programming Problems?

Emotions are a complex multi-faceted phenomenon. To assess the complexity of emotions from different facets, multi-modal approaches are necessary. However, multi-modal approaches are rarely used for assessing emotions, especially in the context of computer programming. This study adopts a multi-modal approach to understand the changes in students’ perception of emotions before and after working on programming problems. Understanding these changes in students’ perceptions may enable educators to devise interventions that help students adjust their perceptions and regulate their emotions as per their skills. We conducted a one-on-one programming session and retrospective think-aloud interview with 17 students from an introductory programming course. During the programming session, students filled surveys and performed four programming tasks. While working on these tasks, students’ eye gaze, video of face and screen, and electrodermal activity data were also collected using a non-invasive device. The data collection for this study was multi-modal, with a mix of both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. Data analysis was primarily qualitative, with additional triangulation of qualitative and biometric data for select exemplars. The findings of this study suggest that students experience changes in emotions because of many reasons, for instance, they encountered repeated errors, they set high standards for their performance, or they could not manage time. For some students, negative emotions changed to positive emotions when they solved errors without any external help or achieved more than what they expected going into the task. Moreover, the triangulation of qualitative and biometric data of two participants provides a fine-grained analysis of their emotions and behaviors and confirmed the change in the perception of their emotions while performing the programming tasks.

Patients' perceptions of post-treatment factors that influenced skill use after cognitive-behavioral therapy for bulimia nervosa spectrum disorders.

Deterioration rate among patients with bulimia-spectrum eating disorders (BN-EDs) after receiving enhanced cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT-E) remains high. Previous studies identified body image concerns, environmental triggers, lack of social support, lack of resources, comorbidity, and discontinued skill use as predictors of deterioration. However, no studies have qualitatively explored patients' perceptions of how these factors influenced their skill use and led to deterioration after receiving outpatient CBT. This study aimed to qualitatively explore (1) what post-treatment factors patients believe contributed to deterioration, and (2) whether patients continued to practice the CBT skills they learned from treatment and identify motivators and barriers to post-treatment skill use. Twelve participants who had previously completed 16 sessions of CBT for their BN-EDs and experienced at least modest treatment responses participated in the qualitative interviews. Four themes were identified from the qualitative interviews. Post-treatment deterioration was primarily driven by decreased skill use due to a perceived sudden loss of accountability and continued body dissatisfaction after treatment ended. Discontinued practice of binge analysis led to decreased awareness of the relationship between poor skill use and ED behaviors. Difficulty accessing resources impeded participants from receiving external help to address challenges in skill practice, thus also contributing to deterioration. Findings suggested that outpatient treatment for BN-EDs patients should emphasize more on body image concern, and deterioration prevention for outpatient CBT-E should focus on building self-accountability to keep practicing skills after treatment ends. This study was the first to qualitatively explore post-treatment factors influencing skill use and deterioration in patients with bulimia-spectrum eating disorders after they completed outpatient CBT. Findings indicated that decreased skill use was a primary driver of post-treatment deterioration, and that relapse prevention for outpatient CBT for BN-EDs should focus on enhancing patients' self-accountability to continue practicing therapeutic skills independently after treatment ended.

The role of direct capital cash transfers towards poverty and extreme poverty alleviation - an omega risk process

Trapping refers to the event when a household falls into the area of poverty. Households that live or fall into the area of poverty are said to be in a poverty trap, where a poverty trap is a state of poverty from which it is difficult to escape without external help. Similarly, extreme poverty is considered as the most severe type of poverty, in which households experience severe deprivation of basic human needs. In this article, we consider an Omega risk process with deterministic growth and a multiplicative jump (collapse) structure to model the capital of a household. It is assumed that, when a household's capital level is above a certain capital barrier level that determines a household's eligibility for a capital cash transfer programme, its capital grows exponentially. As soon as its capital falls below the capital barrier level, the capital dynamics incorporate external support in the form of direct transfers (capital cash transfers) provided by donors or governments. Otherwise, once trapped, the capital grows only due to the capital cash transfers. Under this model, we first derive closed-form expressions for the trapping probability and then do the same for the probability of extreme poverty, which only depends on the current value of the capital given by some extreme poverty rate function. Numerical examples illustrate the role of capital cash transfers on poverty and extreme poverty dynamics.

Problem-solving activity during the foreign language writing process: A proposal for categorisation and visualisation of source use and a new take on fluency in multilingual writing

Writing processes constitute a complex interplay of planning, formulation and revision. Ideas take shape through the activation of previous knowledge and, when permitted, also its synthesis with information from sources that help to complement it and resolve doubts and shortcomings arising during writing. The possibility to use external help can be especially useful to those writing in a foreign language, and questions about the nature of the sources consulted can contribute new insights into language processing in the multilingual mind, as well as expand our notion of fluency. While leaving the target text is often considered a distraction, a ‘breakdown’ in fluency, it is, in fact, a part of language processing and text creation. This article proposes a novel way to use keylogging data from Inputlog (Leijten and Van Waes 2013) to visualise the crosslinguistic nature of solving language and content problems in L3+ writing: creating process graphs to display the temporal dynamics of different types of sources used. The example data comes from a university-level course on Spanish linguistics, where Spanish was a third or subsequent language for the participants. Evidently, the vast majority of their external activity was language-related and brief, and, interestingly, a great part of it recurs to a lingua franca, English. Some social context and reasoning is offered to explain such an observation.

Educational effects of and satisfaction with mixed-reality-based major trauma care simulator: A preliminary evaluation.

Mixed reality (MR) is a hybrid system that projects virtual elements into reality. MR technology provides immersive learning using various real-world tools. However, studies on educational programs using MR are scarce. This study aimed to investigate the educational effects of and satisfaction with an MR-based trauma decision-making simulator. A total 40 of trainees self-selected to participate in this study. All of them participated in the MR trauma simulator for approximately 30 minutes and conducted voluntary learning without any external help. Declarative knowledge, measured using 20 multiple-choice questions, was assessed before and after MR trauma training. To confirm the educational effect, test scores before and after MR trauma training were compared using a paired t-test. Student satisfaction after training was measured using a ten-item questionnaire rated on a five-point Likert scale. A pretest-posttest comparison yielded a significant increase in declarative knowledge. The percentage of correct answers to multiple choice questions increased (from a mean of 42.3, SD 12.4-54.8, SD 13) after the MR-based trauma assessment and treatment training (P < .001). Of the participants, 79.45% were satisfied with the overall experience of using the MR simulator. This study demonstrated a meaningful educational effect of the MR-based trauma training system even after a short training time.

The cultural-historical method and its contributions for the research of the development of writing in all-inclusive schools located in contexts of linguistic diversity

This paper aims to analyse the contributions of the cultural-historical method to the understanding of the process of learning how to write in schools located in contexts characterized by linguistic diversity, considering both educational inclusion of students with special needs, and from multicultural contexts. Vygotsky (1931/2000) states that his method has three principles: 1) Historical analyses; 2) Analyses of contradictions and interruptions in human development; 3) Assumption that science would not be necessary if essence and appearance was correspondent to each other. Vygotsky researched the higher psychological functions, including writing. The development of writing is mediated by special higher psychological functions, which are internal human capacities, such as memory and perception. One of the main approaches of the experimental and genetic method in the cultural-historical theory consists in creating some situations that allow us to observe how some individuals solve specific problems, aiming to observe the zone of proximal development, that is, all that the individual is not able to do alone, but can do with mediation and external help.

Beliefs affecting ART adherence in newly diagnosed HIV-positive participants in Manzini, Eswatini.

Achieving optimal adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is challenging. Consistency in HIV care and treatment is crucial for achieving viral load suppression and preventing HIV-related illnesses, disease progression to AIDS, mortality, drug resistance, and onward transmission. The purpose of this research was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the beliefs that play a role in determining the level of ART adherence among individuals newly diagnosed with HIV. By examining these beliefs, the researchers aimed to identify potential barriers and facilitators to adherence, ultimately contributing to the development of effective interventions and strategies to improve ART adherence. An exploratory qualitative approach was employed in this study, utilising the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as its theoretical framework. To gather insights, in-depth interviews were conducted with 19 participants recruited post diagnosis, who shared their beliefs regarding ART adherence. Thematic analysis identified beliefs, categorised under TPB precursors, namely behavioural outcomes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. Participants emphasised health improvement, treatment effectiveness, and disease prevention as advantages to ART adherence, while disadvantages included fear of lifelong commitment, side effects, and stigma. ART adherence was enhanced by family support but impeded by a number of social factors. Participants expressed confidence in creating personal reminders or seeking external help, but anticipated various challenges. The research has shown that the beliefs affecting ART adherence in individuals recently diagnosed with HIV but not yet on treatment are like those that have been reported to influence adherence in HIV-positive participants currently receiving treatment.