Peer Models Research Articles

Creating a new context for dialogue and reflection within a residency program: the development of a blog

ABSTRACTWhile communication is essential to effective clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction, training programs that employ synchronous feedback systems are time consuming. This investigation employs the development and use of a secure blog as an asynchronous alternative for enhancing physician communication skills. Residents who participated in the communication training program for 2 years (N = 7) posted 63 responses to a blog hosting 13 doctor and patient interactions with an average post size of 322 words. Transcripts of the blog were analyzed using the constant comparative method. Themes were identified as they were associated with research questions. Residents’ concerns involved balancing information exchange and patient relationship development, with themes identified as lack of time, management of information, identification of an effective communication style, and managing distractions. The topics introduced in the blog involved strategies for addressing the narrative of the visit, the inclusion of patient concerns, communication style, and management of the EMR system. Finally, themes emerging from the discussion of patients included the patient as a distraction, the connection between rapport and compliance, and the patient as an obstacle to health maintenance. The blog is an innovative mechanism for resident feedback. The blog allows opportunity for learning through self-examination, reflection and it provides an opportunity for vicarious learning through peer modeling. The blog allows feedback between residents to be somewhat standardized in structure and occurrence and promotes interaction and the impetus to examine and critique each other outside the constraints of a real time feedback system.

Examples as an instructional tool in mathematics and science classrooms: teachers’ perceptions and attitudes

ABSTRACTThis study examined mathematics and science teachers’ perceptions and use of four types of examples, including typical textbook examples (standard worked examples) and erroneous worked examples in the written form as well as mastery modelling examples and peer modelling examples involving the verbalization of the problem-solving process. Data collected from mathematics and science teachers through a survey instrument and a focus group indicated that typical textbook examples were insufficient in terms of either the number of examples presented or the level of details presented in these examples. Moreover, examples containing errors were used less frequently and perceived less useful as compared to examples containing only correct solutions; teachers also felt less comfortable using examples containing errors. In addition, teachers overall had a positive attitude towards computer-based modelling examples, indicating a promising integration of computer-based modelling examples into teachers’ instructional practices.

The Influence of Adult and Peer Role Models on Children' and Adolescents' Sharing Decisions.

This study explores how the age (adult vs. peer) and the suggestion (to be fair vs. unfair) of models affect the sharing decisions of 9- and 12-year-olds (N=365) from Italy and Singapore. Results demonstrate a developmental shift in the influence of models on children's and adolescents' sharing decisions in both cultures: Children's decisions were more affected by an adult model's suggestion than by that of a peer model, whereas the opposite was true for adolescents. Regardless of the models' influence, participants considered equal sharing to be the fair choice and reported being happier when their sharing decisions were generous. Our results highlight the crucial importance of social and developmental factors for the promotion of fairness judgments and emotions.

Evidence of the Potential Effectiveness of Centre-Based Childcare Policies and Practices on Child Diet and Physical Activity: Consolidating Evidence from Systematic Reviews of Intervention Trials and Observational Studies

The aims of this study are to synthesize the findings of systematic reviews to (1) determine whether centre-based childcare interventions are effective in improving child physical activity and diet and (2) identify promising modifiable centre policies and practices to improve child physical activity and diet. Four electronic databases were searched. The methodological quality of included reviews was assessed using the AMSTAR tool. For intervention effectiveness, reviews were categorized as ‘generally effective’ if more than two-thirds of primary studies demonstrated positive effects. Database searches yielded 1164 unique citations of which 22 reviews were included. Three of 16 physical activity reviews, including one of the two higher quality reviews, and the largest and most recent review to date, reported that the interventions were generally effective in improving physical activity. One of nine nutrition reviews reported that interventions were generally effective at improving dietary intake. This review was of moderate quality and was the largest and most recent review of dietary outcomes in children in this setting. The most consistently reported policies and practices associated with improved child physical activity included those targeting the physical environment (playground markings, equipment, space), educator qualifications and training, and structured physical activities. Policies and practices associated with improved child diet included food availability and menu modification, positive peer modelling, and including parents. There is increasing evidence from high-quality, recent systematic reviews that childcare-based interventions can be effective at improving child physical activity. Systematic review evidence regarding the effects of intervention on child diet is more equivocal.

Enhancing medical students\u2019 reflectivity in mentoring groups for professional development \u2013 a qualitative analysis

BackgroundProfessional competence is important in delivering high quality patient care, and it can be enhanced by reflection and reflective discourse e.g. in mentoring groups. However, students are often reluctant though to engage in this discourse. A group mentoring program involving all preclinical students as well as faculty members and co-mentoring clinical students was initiated at Witten-Herdecke University. This study explores both the attitudes of those students towards such a program and factors that might hinder or enhance how students engage in reflective discourse.MethodsA qualitative design was applied using semi-structured focus group interviews with preclinical students and semi-structured individual interviews with mentors and co-mentors. The interview data were analyzed using thematic content analysis.ResultsStudents’ attitudes towards reflective discourse on professional challenges were diverse. Some students valued the new program and named positive outcomes regarding several features of professional development. Enriching experiences were described. Others expressed aversive attitudes. Three reasons for these were given: unclear goals and benefits, interpersonal problems within the groups hindering development and intrapersonal issues such as insecurity and traditional views of medical education. Participants mentioned several program setup factors that could enhance how students engage in such groups: explaining the program thoroughly, setting expectations and integrating the reflective discourse in a meaningful way into the curriculum, obliging participation without coercion, developing a sense of security, trust and interest in each other within the groups, randomizing group composition and facilitating group moderators as positive peer and faculty role models and as learning group members.ConclusionsA well-designed and empathetic setup of group mentoring programs can help raise openness towards engaging in meaningful reflective discourse. Reflection on and communication of professional challenges can, in turn, improve professional development, which is essential for high quality patient care.

Jeremy Rifkin’s utopia of the economy of abundance

The article is a voice in the discussion on the directions of the evolution of the global economy. The reference plane is a reflection J. Rifkin's book titled: The Zero marginal Cost Society. The article critically analyzed some of the assumptions and conclusions contained in the work of Rifkin. The main topics of discussion included the reality of such principles as the need to reduce the human population, or total elimination of intellectual property rights. On the other hand, the dubious trends was inter alia dominance of communities production in the world economy already about half the twenty-first century. Also pointed to issues relevant to the future development strategies completely omitted in the work of Rifkin.

“Should I or shouldn’t I?” Imitation of undesired versus allowed actions from peer and adult models by 18- and 24-month-old toddlers

Imitation is a common way of acquiring novel behaviors in toddlers. However, little is known about toddlers’ imitation of undesired actions. Here we investigated 18- and 24-month-olds’ (N=110) imitation of undesired and allowed actions from televised peer and adult models. Permissiveness of the demonstrated actions was indicated by the experimenter’s response to their execution (angry or neutral). Analyses revealed that toddlers’ imitation scores were higher after demonstrations of allowed versus undesired actions, regardless of the age of the model. In agreement with prior research, these results suggest that third-party reactions to a model’s actions can be a powerful cue for toddlers to engage in or refrain from imitation. In the context of the present study, third-party reactions were more influential on imitation than the model’s age. Considering the relative influence of different social cues for imitation can help to gain a fuller understanding of early observational learning.

PPE Model for Misconception Remedial of Science for Junior High School Students

This article is a result of developmental research of PPE (Peer, Tutoring, Presentation, and Evaluation) model for remedy several science misconceptions: work, kinetic energy, the potential energy of junior high school students. The research aims to describe the science misconceptions of students and the effectiveness PPE model to remedy students’ misconceptions. The research was conducted by 31 students of SMP 1 Kencong, Jember Regency, who had misconceptions of those concepts. Technique for collecting data was test and interview. The data collection were analysed qualitatively descriptive. Findings of the research were: Most of the students had three kinds of misconceptions, they said that if a body has a force, it also has work; if velocity of body increased three times, so the kinetic energy increased three times; in freely falling bodies, when an object approaches the ground, it has null kinetic energy and high potential energy. The effectiveness of the PPE model to remedy those students’ misconceptions can be seen from positive students’ responses to the implementation of the model to remedy their misconceptions and the average of the number of students’ misconceptions decrease from 100% to 15,4%. The study can be concluded that the PPE model effective for remedy students’ misconceptions of work, kinetic energy, and potential energy concepts.

Perceived parental monitoring and adolescent internet addiction: A moderated mediation model

Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological model focuses on the interrelation between different contexts and the interaction between individuals and their proximal contexts. Based on this theory, the present study tested a moderated mediation model of family, peer, and individual characteristics to investigate how they impact adolescent Internet addiction. Specifically, we examined whether deviant peer affiliation partially mediated the relation between perceived parental monitoring and adolescent Internet addiction, and whether this indirect relation was moderated by effortful control. A total of 747 Chinese middle school students filled out anonymous questionnaires concerning perceived parental monitoring, deviant peer affiliation, effortful control, and Internet addiction. The findings indicated that while the impact of parental monitoring on Internet addiction was partially mediated by deviant peer affiliation, effortful control moderated the first stage of the indirect relationship. For low effortful control adolescents, perceived parental monitoring negatively predicted deviant peer affiliation. Conversely, the indirect path was not significant for high effortful control adolescents. These findings highlight the need to consider family, peer and individual factors simultaneously when evaluating risks associated with adolescent Internet addiction and have important implications for the prevention and intervention of adolescent Internet addiction.

Co-operative learning and peer writing programmes

This article argues that peer writing programmes based on co-operative learning theory have the potential to enhance students' writing development. It examines to what extent peer writing programmes can be considered co-operative. The co-operation theories of Johnson and Johnson and Damon and Phelps are drawn on, particularly Johnson and Johnson's theory of positive interdependence and Damon and Phelps' three-pronged model of peer writing programmes: peer tutoring; co-operative learning, and peer collaboration. These co-operation theories are then used to critique five peer writing programmes from New Zealand and overseas. Results suggest that few peer writing programmes foster positive interdependence and most do not go beyond the peer tutoring model. Therefore, teachers need to develop ways of implementing a co-operative approach within peer writing programmes.

A local context‐aware LDA model for topic modeling in a document network

With the rapid development of the Internet and its applications, growing volumes of documents increasingly become interconnected to form large‐scale document networks. Accordingly, topic modeling in a network of documents has been attracting continuous research attention. Most of the existing network‐based topic models assume that topics in a document are influenced by its directly linked neighbouring documents in a document network and overlook the potential influence from indirectly linked ones. The existing work also has not carefully modeled variations of such influence among neighboring documents. Recognizing these modeling limitations, this paper introduces a novel Local Context‐Aware LDA Model (LC‐LDA), which is capable of observing a local context comprising a rich collection of documents that may directly or indirectly influence the topic distributions of a target document. The proposed model can also differentiate the respective influence of each document in the local context on the target document according to both structural and temporal relationships between the two documents. The proposed model is extensively evaluated through multiple document clustering and classification tasks conducted over several large‐scale document sets. Evaluation results clearly and consistently demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the new model with respect to several state‐of‐the‐art peer models.

Drug Use in Soldiers: Family and Peer Contextual Associations

ABSTRACTBackground: Given the stressful nature of military life, people in the armed forces are vulnerable to substance use. Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between family and peers with drug use among military forces in Iran. Methods: Convenience sampling was used to recruit a total of 422 draftees doing military service in army units in Tehran, Iran. Measures of family and peers' risk and protective factors, alcohol use, and other drug use were administered. Results: Findings indicated significant relationships between family (i.e., family models for risk behavior, parent sanctions, and family controls) and peers (i.e., peer modeling for risk behavior, peer controls, support from friends) with drug use. A multiple regression analysis revealed that peer modeling for risk behavior, family models for risk behavior, and parent sanctions were significant predictors of drug use in soldiers. Conclusions: These results were consistent with the influence of family and peer on drug use amongst soldiers. Programs designed to reduce alcohol and other drug use may benefit from tailoring to fit risk and protective files amongst peer and family networks.

Exploring mentorship programs and components in nursing academia: A qualitative study

Objective: Nursing education institutions globally have issued calls for mentorship to address the nursing faculty shortage; however, little is known about the current state of mentorship for faculty members in Canadian schools of nursing. The purpose of this study is to describe the current state of mentorship in Canadian schools of nursing and explore definitions and goals of mentorship programs, mentorship models and components, and mentorship evaluation.Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted. Within the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing there are 81 English-speaking schools of nursing and 2,284 permanent faculty members spread over four regions. Participants were recruited from the 81 schools of nursing through the CASN newsletter list serve and publically accessible email addresses. Inclusion was limited to English speaking faculty. Purposive sampling aimed to capture variation across rank and tenure, school, size and areas within Canada. Semi-structured interviews were utilized to explore the participant’s (n = 48) perspectives and involvement with mentorship. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. NVivo was used to code and analyze the data for significant statements and phrases, which were organized into themes and sub-themes.Results: Mentorship remains largely informal in nursing academia without common definitions or goals. Current mentorship in nursing academia employed dyad, peer, group, constellation, and distance mentorship models. Common mentorship program components included guidelines, training, professional development workshops, purposeful linking of mentors and mentees, and mentorship coordinators. Evaluation of mentorship in nursing academia, where it exists, remains mostly descriptive, anecdotal, and lacks common evaluative metrics.Conclusions: Our results confirm mentorship in Canadian schools of nursing remains largely informal. In developing mentorship programs, academic leaders need to consider the mentorship models and components to meet their specific needs. Further rigorous evaluation of mentorship programs and components is needed to identify if mentorship programs are achieving specified goals.

Counteracting the Influence of Peer Smoking on YouTube

YouTube, a popular online site for user-generated content, is emerging as a powerful source of peer modeling of smoking. Previous research suggests that in counteracting such influence, health messages may inadvertently increase the perceived prevalence of drug use (a descriptive norm) without reducing its acceptability (injunctive norm). This research tested the ability of health messages to reduce the social acceptability of peer smoking on YouTube despite enhancing its perceived prevalence. In an online experiment with 999 adolescents, participants were randomly assigned to view one of two videos: (a) a mosaic displaying a variety of YouTube videos of adolescents smoking followed by a message about the mortality risk to those smokers, or (b) a control video on a health topic unrelated to smoking. Although exposure to the adolescent YouTube smokers increased perceived prevalence among some participants, it simultaneously increased beliefs about smoking’s adverse health outcomes and negative attitudes toward smoking, effects that were associated with reductions in injunctive norms of social acceptability. Interventions that communicate the severity and scope of health risks associated with smoking may undercut the descriptive normative effects of peer modeling of smoking on social media sites such as YouTube.

Understanding Dutch practice nurses' adherence to evidence-based smoking cessation guidelines and their needs for web-based adherence support: results from semistructured interviews

ObjectivesPractice nurses in general practices suboptimally adhere to smoking cessation guidelines. Since the effectiveness of their smoking cessation support is greatest when full adherence to these guidelines is achieved, interventions...

A literature review of mentorship programs in academic nursing.

Nursing education institutions have issued recurring, global calls for mentorship; however, evidence-based program development guidance is scarce. To date, there are no comprehensive syntheses of current mentorship models, objectives, and program components to inform mentorship program development in nursing academia. The purpose of this review is to identify published articles that (1) described models for mentoring programs for academic nurses, and (2) described the objectives and core components of these programs. A systematic search of five databases (Medline, CINAHL, Embase, ERIC, and PsycINFO) was conducted to identify articles describing mentorship programs for academic nurses. Program objectives and components were extracted and narratively synthesized to identify important patterns and themes across mentorship programs. A total of 34 articles describing 30 mentorship programs were identified. Mentoring models included dyad, peer, group, online, distance, learning partnerships, highly relevant, and constellation mentorship models. Key mentoring program components included: (a) having a program coordinator; (b) orientation to the program; (c) selectively matching dyads; (d) developing clear purpose and goals; (e) frequent communication between mentors and mentees; (f) faculty development workshops; (g) mentee reflective journaling; (h) facilitation of socialization and networking opportunities; and (i) administrative support. In synthesizing the mentorship literature in academic nursing it is apparent that mentorship models and mentorship components look different in every setting with no empirical evidence that one mentorship model is more effective than another. Given the significant resources required to support mentorship innovations, understanding the benefits and shortcomings of various mentorship components can help ensure scarce resources are invested in the most effective mentorship strategies.

Peer-Mediated Interventions: a Practical Guide to Utilizing Students as Change Agents

Student interventionists have been utilized as change agents in a variety of contexts to improve the academic, social, and communicative behaviors of target students. A strong literature base supports the use of peers in academic interventions such as peer tutoring, as well as in behavioral interventions such as peer-mediated Check-In/Check-Out, peer modeling, and social skill groups with peer interventionists. Prior to implementation, peer tutoring, modeling, and management interventions may require a significant amount of time and/or resources on the part of school staff to train student interventionists and make a plan to monitor intervention effectiveness. As such, the current paper discusses implementation issues surrounding peer-mediated interventions and provides recommendations for deciding whether a peer-mediated intervention is appropriate, selecting and training target students, and monitoring and troubleshooting intervention effectiveness.

The effects of different types of video modelling on undergraduate students' motivation and learning in an academic writing course

academic writing; peer modelling; strategy instruction; observational learning; writing self-efficacy

How Facebook can revitalise local languages: lessons from Bali

ABSTRACTFor a language to survive, it must be spoken and passed down to the next generation. But how can we engage teenagers – so crucial for language transmission – to use and value their local tongue when they are bombarded by pressures from outside and from within their society to only speak national and international languages? This paper analyses the extent to which social media can actively engage teenagers in using minority languages by examining a vibrant Balinese language Facebook group which is oriented to teens. The study finds that this particular group uses peer pressure and peer modelling to actively create space for young people to use Balinese 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, regardless of official policies, school practices, and family norms. By operating in the shadows outside of government, school, and family structures, this study suggests that social media can be a highly effective, low-cost, and easily implementable way to foster language revitalisation among the crucial young generation.

Students See, Students Do?: Inducing a Peer Norm Effect for Oral Source Citations

Video modeling was used to establish descriptive norms for proper oral citation performance in a general education public speaking class (N = 191). Three conditions—a control, a peer model video, and a nonpeer model video—were compared for influence on proper citation usage and completeness. Results indicated that students viewing any video performed more complete citations than students not viewing a video. Results were mixed when comparing the effects of the peer model video against the nonpeer model video. Findings suggest norms for proper oral citation behavior can be established through modeling videos.