Instrumental Reasons Research Articles

Diversity in IRB Membership: Views of IRB Chairpersons at U.S. Universities and Academic Medical Centers

Background Diversity in Institutional Review Board (IRB) membership is important for both intrinsic and instrumental reasons, including fairness, promoting trust, improving decision quality, and responding to systemic racism. Yet U.S. IRBs remain racially and ethnically homogeneous, even as gender diversity has improved. Little is known about IRB chairpersons’ perspectives on membership diversity and barriers to increasing it, as well as current institutional efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within IRB membership. Methods We surveyed IRB chairpersons leading U.S. boards registered with the Office for Human Research Protections. Here, we focus exclusively on responses from a subset of 388 chairpersons of IRBs at universities and academic medical centers (AMCs). Results Board chairs were predominantly white and evenly split between men and women. Only about half reported that their boards had at least one member who is Black or African American (51%), Asian (56%), or Hispanic (48%), with 85% of university/AMC boards comprised entirely (15%) or mostly (70%) of white members. Most IRB chairpersons (64%) reported satisfaction with the current diversity of their membership. Participants largely agreed that considering diversity in the selection of IRB members is important (91%), including to improve the quality of IRB deliberation (80%), with an emphasis on racial/ethnic (85%) and gender diversity (74%). Most participants (80%) reported some type of active DEI effort regarding board membership at their university/AMC and just over half (57%) expressed satisfaction with these efforts. Conclusions Our national survey found that although university/AMC IRB chairpersons report valuing diversity in board membership, it may be lacking in key areas. Going forward, it will be important to specify clear reasons for diversity in the IRB context, as well to establish targets for acceptable levels of board diversity and to match DEI efforts to those targets.

An examination of diversity rationales: How instrumental and moral diversity rationales create minority spotlight

AbstractPast research has demonstrated that organizations rationalize their commitment to diversity for instrumental or moral reasons that are differentially preferred by marginalized and privileged groups. Across four studies, the present research contends that privileged group members view instrumental diversity contexts as affording them educational opportunities and view moral diversity contexts as expecting them to afford (meta‐affordances) marginalized group members inclusion, both resulting in a minority spotlight. Moreover, marginalized group members view these diversity rationales through an inverse lens with moral diversity contexts affording them inclusion and instrumental diversity contexts resulting in education meta‐affordances and anticipated minority spotlight. The present findings advance research on implications of diversity rationales, particularly their effect on the attention privileged groups pay to marginalized groups, and marginalized groups’ (accurate) anticipation of this attention.

Managing community engagement in research in Uganda: insights from practices in HIV/AIDS research

BackgroundCommunity engagement (CE) in research is valuable for instrumental and intrinsic reasons. Despite existing guidance on how to ensure meaningful CE, much of what it takes to achieve this goal differs across settings. Considering the emerging trend towards mandating CE in many research studies, this study aimed at documenting how CE is conceptualized and implemented, and then providing context-specific guidance on how researchers and research regulators in Uganda could think about and manage CE in research.MethodsWe conducted qualitative interviews and focus group discussions involving forty-one respondents who were experienced in HIV/AIDS biomedical research involving CE. Thirty-eight of these were directly or indirectly associated with Uganda’s leading research institution in the field of HIV/AIDS. They included Principal Investigators, Community Liaisons Officers, Research Ethics Committee members and Community Advisory Board Members. Three respondents were from Uganda National Council for Science and Technology. Data were collected between August 2019 and August 2020, using audio-taped focus group discussions and key informant interviews, transcribed and analyzed manually to generate themes and subthemes.ResultsThree major themes emerged: goals or value of CE; the means of CE, and, the evaluation of CE. Goals or value of CE generated four subthemes representing the overarching goals of CE: (1) Promote communities’ agency; (2) Generate and sustain trust; (3) Protect and promote communities’ rights and interests; and, (4) Help studies optimize participation in the form of enrolment and retention of participants. What usually comes under the nomenclatures of methods, strategies, and approaches of CE, such as town-hall meetings, sports events, drama, and the like, should simply be understood as the means of CE, and it is not desirable to hold pre-conceived and fixed ideas about the best means to conduct CE in research since a lot depend on the context. Finally, the study found that despite CE’s critical importance, which suggests the need to track and evaluate it, CE is currently intermittently evaluated, and for inadequate motivations.ConclusionsExisting guidance on how to conduct robust CE in research is no substitute for creativity, flexibility, and reflexivity on the part of both researchers and research regulators.

The immigrant perspective: Eastern-European parental discourses about the value of French, plurilingualism and plurilingual literacy practices

ABSTRACT Parental involvement is a crucial, but often, neglected factor for success in learning languages. A growing number of Canadian students from immigrant families attend French Immersion programs and bring additional languages to the classroom. Yet, the role of Eastern-European immigrant parents in their children’s French Immersion education, their beliefs about speaking multiple languages, and developing literacy practices at home across multiple languages are under-researched. Rooted in a plurilingual framework to examine parental beliefs and practices, this paper uses critical discourse analysis to present data collected via interviews and journals. The data show that immigrant parents demonstrate awareness and a rich variety of beliefs about their children’s plurilingual learning; they value French for instrumental reasons; and offer individual solutions for plurilingual literacy development. Implications for educators include valuing parental ‘funds of knowledge’ and acknowledging how neoliberal educational policies widen the gap between plurilingual homes and bilingual classrooms.

Understanding the complexity of children’s everyday mobilities: non-instrumental aspects in sustainable transport and planning policy making in Australia

ABSTRACT There is a growing body of research recognising the complexity surrounding children’s mobilities influenced by multifaceted and relational factors. This is critical in the provision of an evidence base to better inform transport policies aimed at reducing private car usage in countries such as Australia where the private car dominates the everyday mobilities of families with school-aged children.This paper draws on quantitative and qualitative survey data from 296 children aged 9 to 18 and 84 parents living in Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia and investigates children’s travel behaviour for accessing their daily educational destinations (both school and extra-curricular activities). The paper utilises concepts such as “transport rationales” and “household elasticity” with an aim to determine the non-instrumental and relational configurations in children’s mobility. The findings reveal that children’s everyday mobilities and the decision-making behind the significant use of cars to transport children in Australia are highly complex and are based on more than instrumental reasons such as affect, care and comfort. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of Australian policies to address the high level of private car usage to transport children to their daily destinations.

Winds of change? Academics’ views on the introduction of quality management in Kazakhstan

PurposeAcademics’ perceptions of the motives of the introduction of quality management are still rarely investigated, particularly in Central Asian countries. Thus, this paper aims to understand the internal dynamics of organisational change within higher education institutions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents evidence from an online survey of academics from three Kazakh national universities. Their perceptions are presented with a quantitative descriptive approach using means and standard deviations.FindingsThe results show that academics perceive institutional (e.g. regulations, professional standards, existing norms, etc.) and instrumental explanations (e.g. institutional learning, improvement, intra- and inter-organisational competition, etc.) of the introduction of quality management as equally important. This contradicts existing evidence from surveys of other groups within higher education institutions.Originality/valueIn addition to evaluating the literature, the paper combines institutional and instrumental reasons for the introduction of quality management in Kazakh universities. Taking a perspective centred on academics, the results indicate that scholars’ assessments reveal a comparatively low variance regarding the importance of quality management. Based on these results, the paper suggests that empirical studies need to be broadened with comparative perspectives from different organisational contexts, groups and administrative traditions.

What Motivates Households with Very Small and Small Farms in Wales?

SummaryIn the UK, as in many EU countries, farm businesses are mostly operated by households rather than as other institutional forms. These are not only economic units – they have social dimensions too. Household members will have personal aims and preferences, shaped by psychology and experiences, that are reflected in behaviour. In Wales there is special interest in the motives of operators of farms classed as economically Very Small or Small, as these account for 87 per cent of all Welsh farms and thus carry social and political weight in agricultural and rural matters; they also occupy 60 per cent of the agricultural land area. Using questions developed from a review of literature (and especially work published by Ruth Gasson), a survey in early 2021 of over 400 farm households found that respondents overwhelmingly reported intrinsic factors as very important reasons for them being in farming, a categorisation that included motives such as enjoyment of the various production activities of farming, providing a healthy outdoor life, and giving them independence and control. In contrast, less than a third cited instrumental reasons, such as generating an income for living, and this was weakest among the operators of Very Small farm businesses. Social and expressive reasons for being in farming took intermediate positions. The dominance of intrinsic motivations was confirmed when scoring also took account of lower levels of importance cited by respondents. Understanding motives can lead to better explanations for how farm households respond to policy signals, such as are associated with the UK leaving the EU (‘Brexit’) and the replacement of the Common Agricultural Policy with a national one in Wales. Over three‐quarters of these farmers see environmental conservation as extremely or very important to their futures, which suggests that this element of the post‐Brexit Welsh agricultural policy will meet a welcoming response.

Multilateralism and public support for drone strikes

The use of armed drones has emerged as a principal counterterrorism tool for western militaries, especially France and the United States. While France submits its strikes to the United Nations for approval, the United States typically does not. Does this difference matter for public support and perceptions of legitimacy? To better understand these dynamics, we fielded original survey experiments across nationally representative samples in France and the United States totaling in over 1800 respondents. Our results reflect that international approval is associated with both higher public support and greater perceived legitimacy for a strike. Further, we find that respondents emphasize international law as the basis for support and legitimacy, suggesting a cross-national belief in multilateralism for normative rather than strictly instrumental reasons. These relationships are moderated by the identity of the country conducting a hypothetical strike, implying both an “othering” effect and the emergence of distinct models of strikes across countries that deserve more study amid the ongoing proliferation of armed drones. Video Abstract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YevyaKThae0

Do Criminal Offenders Have a Right to Neurorehabilitation?

Soon it may be possible to promote the rehabilitation of criminal offenders through neurointerventions (interventions which exert direct physical, chemical or biological effects on the brain). Some jurisdictions already utilise neurointerventions to diminish the risk of sexual or drug-related reoffending. And investigation is underway into several other neurointerventions that might also have rehabilitative applications within criminal justice—for example, pharmacotherapy to reduce aggression or impulsivity. Ethical debate on the use of neurointerventions to facilitate rehabilitation—henceforth ‘neurorehabilitation’—has proceeded on two assumptions: that we have instrumental reasons for employing neurorehabilitation (e.g. because it helps protect the public from crime); and that its permissibility depends upon whether its use unjustifiably infringes offenders’ rights. This paper defends a different, hitherto neglected thought. I argue we have rights-based reasons to offer neurorehabilitation to offenders—in other words, that offenders have a moral right to neurorehabilitation. I identify three considerations which support a moral right to conventional rehabilitative interventions—(1) as a countermeasure to the debilitating side-effects of punishment; (2) as a derivative right of the right to hope for renewed liberty; and (3) as compensation for structural injustice. I argue these considerations extend to support a moral right to neurorehabilitation in the following instance: when neurorehabilitation would be part of the most effective package for facilitating rehabilitation, and can be carried out at reasonable cost. I then defend my argument against potential objections, including the objection that neurorehabilitation is a bad option for offenders to have and the charge of over-medicalisation.

Role of pregaming motives in accounting for links between maladaptive personality traits and drinking consequences.

College students are at heightened risk of engaging in unhealthy alcohol use that leads to negative consequences (e.g., motor vehicle accidents, poor academic performance). Understanding how individual differences, such as maladaptive personality traits, contribute to that risk could improve intervention efforts. A potential pathway through which personality confers risk for consequences is by influencing students' motivation to drink. In this study of 441 college students, we investigated whether different motivations to pregame, a particularly risky and common drinking practice on college campuses, accounts for links between maladaptive traits and alcohol-related consequences. Results of bivariate analyses showed that all pregaming motives and maladaptive traits (except detachment) were strongly correlated with negative consequences. In path analytic models that adjusted for shared variance between pregaming motives and between maladaptive traits, results showed that traits had indirect effects on total drinking consequences via individual differences in pregaming motives as well as direct effects that were independent of motives. Specifically, antagonism, disinhibition, and negative affectivity predicted more drinking consequences via stronger motives to pregame for instrumental reasons over and above the general motivation to pregame, whereas detachment predicted fewer consequences via weaker instrumental pregaming motives. Antagonism and disinhibition were also associated with more drinking consequences, and detachment with fewer consequences, over and above pregaming motives and general personality problems. Our study indicates that one way maladaptive personality traits may shape alcohol-related consequences in college students is by associations with their motivations to pregame. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A Mixed-Method Examination of Coaches’ Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Toward Athletes

Athletes often upregulate and downregulate pleasant or unpleasant emotions to feel or perform better (i.e., for hedonic or instrumental reasons). In addition to athletes regulating their own emotions, interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) also occurs in sports, wherein individuals attempt to regulate the emotions of others. Although previous research has examined IER between teammates, studies have rarely considered coaches’ efforts to regulate athletes’ emotions. The current mixed-method study explored coaches’ beliefs about athletes’ emotions and engagement in IER. Analysis of quantitative survey data (N = 208) and qualitative interview data (n = 10) from competitive level coaches (Mage = 44.0 ± 13.2 years) revealed that coaches perceived both benefits and detriments of various emotions, and coaches’ beliefs about emotions influenced the ways they attempted to regulate athletes’ emotions. Most coaches reported frequently engaging in affect-improving IER. Although the coaches generally opposed the idea of intentionally worsening athletes’ emotions, sometimes their feedback to athletes had the effect of worsening their emotions. Coaches also emphasized the need to consider athletes’ individual differences when engaging in IER. The current findings highlight the relevance of coaches’ IER, suggest several directions for future research, and offer useful considerations for coaches and coach education programs.

Fragmented Pragmatism: On Sungmoon Kim’s Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Fragmented Pragmatism: On Sungmoon Kim’s Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Confucian Democracy in East Asia: A Discussion of Sungmoon Kim’s Democracy After Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy

Confucian Democracy in East Asia: A Discussion of Sungmoon Kim’s <i>Democracy After Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy</i>

Restructuring of Finnish Trade Unions – the Growing Importance of Women

The membership profile of Finnish trade unions has changed from male-dominated industrial workers to female-dominated service and public sector workers who are more highly educated. The Finnish labour market is strongly divided into female and male occupations and sectors, and these intersectional differences play an important part in the differentiation of developmental paths. The erosion of membership is mainly due to the rapid growth of the independent unemployment fund (YTK) competing with unemployment funds associated with trade unions. YTK has been much more successful in recruiting private sector male workers than women. Men’s decisions not to join the union are related to the shift in the motivation to unionise from social custom to instrumental reasons. Along with the gender majority shift, union identification has changed, and unions need to carry out ‘identity work’ to attain members. The shift in gender proportions has also had consequences for the collective bargaining system.

An instrumentalist unification of zetetic and epistemic reasons

ABSTRACT Inquiry is an aim-directed activity, and as such governed by instrumental normativity. If you have reason to figure out a question, you have reason to take means to figuring it out. Beliefs are governed by epistemic normativity. On a certain pervasive understanding, this means that you are permitted – maybe required – to believe what you have sufficient evidence for. The norms of inquiry and epistemic norms both govern us as agents in pursuit of knowledge and understanding, and, on the surface, they do so in harmony. Recently, however, Jane Friedman (2020, “The Epistemic and the Zetetic.” The Philosophical Review 129: 501–536) has pointed out that they are in tension with each other. In this paper, I aim to resolve this tension by showing that reasons for acts of inquiry – zetetic reasons – and epistemic reasons for belief can both be understood as flowing from the same general normative principle: the transmission principle for instrumental reasons. The resulting account is a version of epistemic instrumentalism that offers an attractive unity between zetetic and epistemic normativity.

Varieties of Sugar Dating in Sweden: Content, Compensation, Motivations

Abstract With the emergence and global proliferation of “sugar dating” websites, the phenomenon of sugar dating is increasingly on the public agenda. Sugar dating is described by these sites as dating arrangements based on an exchange of intimacy and companionship for financial or other forms of support. Given that sex is often part of the arrangements, claims are widespread, yet disputed, that sugar dating is a form of prostitution. Based on interviews and a survey questionnaire, this article maps the practice of heterosexual sugar dating in Sweden as described by “sugar babies” and “sugar daddies” themselves. It shows a striking diversity in regard to what sugar dating means for participants, both in terms of what they do when sugar dating and in terms of how money and/or other material goods are involved in arrangements. A further key difference between sugar dating arrangements is whether “sugar babies” enter them for purely instrumental reasons or enjoy them in and of themselves. Although not all kinds of sugar dating include sex, we argue that sugar dating sites should be seen as key actors in the expansion of the sex (and intimacy) industry, drawing on and articulating pre-existing tendencies within it.

Trade union community membership: exploring what people who are not in paid employment could contribute to union activism

The industrial relations literature tends to argue that workers join trade unions primarily for instrumental reasons, for example, to obtain assistance if there is a problem at work. But this clearly does not apply to people who are not in work. It is in many ways counterintuitive to join a trade union when one is not an employee or in paid employment, looking for a job, or retired. Generally, there is little material benefit in doing so. Others have noted, however, that personal values, particularly associated with the ideological left, can cultivate a predisposition toward joining a union that is not based on a purely material calculus. Nevertheless, this analysis is usually applied to workers. The research reflected in this article aims to understand the motivation of people who are not in paid employment, such as jobseekers/unemployed, students and retirees, to join labour unions and become active within them. It does so through a case study of the United Kingdom’s largest private sector union, Unite, and considers the contribution to, or rationale for, union activism within community membership and the possibilities for rethinking trade unionism beyond its traditional workplace base.

Grand challenges in developing countries: Context, relationships, and logics

Grand challenges in developing countries: Context, relationships, and logics

Dentistry pathways of coronaviruses transmission: a review.

The nCoV-19 in a short period of time, in lower than two months has been spread as a pandemic in all over the world. This novel type of Coronavirus which shows itself with coughing, sneezing, fatigue and respiratory symptoms which is similar to cold illness has killed more than 100,000 people. However, many protocols have been established to minimize the number of infected people, but without any border and regardless the nationality, this virus has been spread in all countries. In this review, with broad mechanistic and interdisciplinary consideration the dentistry pathways of transmission, physiology, effective and available drugs and their biological inhibiting pathways have been discussed. Among many reasons that have caused higher rate of spreading, the dental services and surgeries involve to professional-patient close contacts could be seen as one of the probable pathways of transmission for this virus. According to the more recently reported literatures, the blueprint of many individual and instrumental reasons in dentistry, could be observed in nCoV-19 infection and spreading which raise the concern of the professionals about the efficiency of conventional antiviral methods. So, results of many studies attributed to the facts that the superhydrophobic antiviral materials and surfaces are potential candidates for designing dentistry instruments with more antiviral properties.

The Sequence of Isomorphism—: The Temporal Diffusion Patterns of Quality Management in Higher Education Institutions and Hospitals

Isomorphism has been widely used to describe why trends penetrate entire organizational fields. However, research so far has neglected the temporal aspects of such diffusion processes and the organizational reasons underlying the introduction of new management tools. We argue that during reform waves, the reasons for adopting the new tools differ over time. Using comparative data from two surveys on quality management in the field of higher education and the health sector, we show that early adopters are more likely to be motivated by instrumental reasons, while late adopters will more likely be motivated by institutional reasons.