Personal Skill Sets Research Articles

Women at the top: a qualitative study of women in leadership positions in emergency medicine in Canada.

For the last two decades, more than half of Canadian medical students have been women, with an increasing number of medical trainees choosing emergency medicine as their careers. Despite a proportional increase of women in full-time faculty positions in emergency medicine, women are still underrepresented in leadership. The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of women leaders in emergency medicine to identify common themes that may have contributed to their acquisition of leadership roles. Participants included women emergency medicine physicians in Canada who currently or previously held a leadership position. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Inductive thematic analysis was performed on the interview transcripts. Transcribed data were coded and categorized into recurrent themes. A narrative summary of the most impactful themes was presented. Twenty participants were interviewed. Most participants perceived career opportunities were due to chance, related to personal skill set, or required additional training. Participants highlighted the importance of mentorship and sponsorship. Gender expectations and traditional gender roles were perceived as having a negative impact on career leadership success. Participants acknowledged the need for women in leadership to empower younger generations of women to become leaders. For future emergency medicine leaders, participants suggested applying for leadership positions early, networking, and seeking mentorship. Potential supportive changes to leadership structures included explicit parental leave policies, flexible scheduling, and job sharing to encourage women leaders. To date, there has been no Canadian specific study exploring the factors contributing to the success of women leaders in emergency medicine. This study examines career advancement of women leaders in emergency medicine and provides useful insight to those aspiring to grow their careers, as well as to mentors and sponsors of women in emergency medicine.

The Role of Professional Development Programs in Developing Skills of General Education Teachers to Support Students with Disabilities: A Case Study of Jordan

The core importance of this study can be defined through the illustration of "personal development programs'' as a necessary aspect for enhancing the skills of teachers. Increasing the skillsets of teachers has also been defined as a critical element for increasing the learning scope of disabled students. The perception towards this topic has been discussed by utilizing pre-existing studies from authentic sources. A survey has also been conducted in this study to collect necessary information. Participants were selected from Jordan, and responses were collected online. Critical analysis processes such as reliability tests, frequency analyses, descriptive analyses, and “one-sample t-tests" have also been conducted, which can be useful for increasing the importance of this study. The overall findings of this study also imply that the importance of PDP cannot be ignored as it can allow teachers to improve their personal skill sets.

Investigator attitudes on equipoise and practice patterns in the BEST-CLI trial

ObjectivesThere has been significant variability in practice patterns and equipoise regarding treatment approach for chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI). We aimed to assess treatment preferences of Best Endovascular vs Best Surgical Therapy in Patients with CLTI (BEST-CLI) investigators prior to and following the trial. MethodsAn electronic 60-question survey was sent to 1180 BEST-CLI investigators in 2022, after trial conclusion and before announcement of results. Investigators' preferences were assessed across clinical scenarios for both open (OPEN) and endovascular (ENDO) revascularization strategies. Vascular surgeon (VS) surgical and ENDO preferences were compared with a 2010 survey administered to prospective investigators before trial funding. ResultsFor the 2022 survey, the response rate was 20.2% and was comprised of VSs (76.3%), interventional cardiologists (11.4%) and interventional radiologists (11.6%). The majority (72.6%) were in academic practice and 39.1% were in practice for >20 years. During initial CLTI work-up, 65.8%, 42.6%, and 55.9% of respondents always or usually ordered an arterial duplex, computed tomography angiography, and vein mapping, respectively. The most common practice distribution between ENDO and OPEN procedures was 70/30. Postoperatively, a majority reported performing routine duplex surveillance of vein bypass (99%), prosthetic bypass (81.9%), and ENDO interventions (86%). A minority reported always or usually using the wound, ischemia, and foot infection (WIfI) criteria (25.8%), GLASS (8.3%), and a risk calculator (14.8%). More than one-half (52.9%) agreed that the statement “no bridges are burned with an ENDO-first approach” was false. Intervention choice was influenced by availability of the operating room or ENDO suite, personal schedule, and personal skill set in 30.1%, 18.0%, and 45.9% of respondents, respectively. Most respondents reported routinely using paclitaxel-coated balloons (88.1%) and stents (67.5%); however, 73.3% altered practice when safety concerns were raised. Among surgeons, 17.8%, 2.9%, and 10.3% reported performing >10 annual alternative autogenous vein bypasses, composite vein composite vein bypasses, and bypasses to pedal targets, respectively. Among all interventionalists, 8%, 24%, and 8% reported performing >10 annual radial access procedures, pedal or tibial access procedures, and pedal loop revascularizations. The majority (89.1%) of respondents felt that CLTI teams improved care; however, only 23.2% had a defined team. The effectiveness of the teamwork at institutions was characterized as highly effective in 42.5%. When comparing responses by VSs to the 2010 survey, there were no changes in preferred treatment based on Inter-Society Consensus for the Management of Peripheral Arterial Disease (TASC) II classification or conduit preference. In 2022, OPEN surgery was preferred more for a popliteal occlusion. For clinical scenarios, there were no differences except a decreased proportion of respondents who felt there was equipoise for major tissue loss for major tissue loss (43.8% vs 31.2%) and increased ENDO choice for minor tissue loss (17.6% vs 30.8%) (P < .05). ConclusionsThere is a wide range of practice patterns among vascular specialists treating CLTI. The majority of investigators in BEST-CLI had experience in both advanced OPEN and ENDO techniques and represent a real-world sample of technical expertise. Over the course of the decade of the BEST-CLI trial, there was overall similar equipoise among VSs.

Soft Skills Development in Future Primary School Teacher’s Training

The article deals with the importance of having soft skills nowadays. Through the analysis and synthesis of scientific and methodical sources, it was found that soft skills are flexible, sometimes non-special, acme competencies for the successful performance of professional duties. &#x0D; The purpose of the article is to reveal the content and the conditions for soft skill development in the process of training future primary school teachers, in particular, during the Ukrainian language teaching methods.&#x0D; To reach the purpose of the article, a set of research methods was used: theoretical: analysis of linguistic, educational, psychological, and methodical literature on the problems; synthesis, generalization, comparison; studying the work experience of higher education institutions teachers, defining the conceptual apparatus of research; empirical: observation and analysis of pedagogical phenomena and processes, collective and individual conversations with the aim of identifying the main contradictions and shortcomings in the content, teaching methods to identify the problems of soft skills formation in the process of learning the Ukrainian language teaching methods.&#x0D; Results. It was determined that the term “soft skills” in the context of training a future primary school teacher is considered as a set of personal skills aimed at developing successful, productive learning of primary school pupils, the ability to communicate effectively with direct participants during the educational process (pupils) and indirect participants (colleagues, administration, pupils’ parents).&#x0D; It has been proven that the new communicative environment enables the productive organization of the educational process participants, encourages creativity by means of developing the potential of methodological techniques, and operations in the form of various documents (working materials) aimed at obtaining the information with a powerful didactic resource for studying professional courses. The analysis of the professional standard “Teacher of the primary school of a general secondary education institution”, which was developed on the basis of the working functions of a teacher and involves a review of attitudes towards professional qualities and changes in stereotypes of the professional development, made it possible to identify a number of soft skills that must be formed in accordance with teacher’s working functions.&#x0D; It has been found that soft skills include leadership qualities and the ability to work in a team, the ability to teach and negotiate, set and complete tasks, time management, purposefulness, effective communication skills, presentation skills, stress resistance, creativity and analytical abilities.&#x0D; The attention is focused on the communicative aspect of soft skills. An employee with strong interpersonal communication skills can formulate his needs and expectations from the team and environment and listen carefully to others. She/he should communicate with the participants of the educational process in such a way that everyone has the feeling that he was heard and understood, and even the refusal was done professionally, without leaving a residue of indifference and hostility. The exercises and tasks for forming soft skills during the course of Ukrainian language teaching methods are offered.&#x0D; Conclusions. The necessity of updating the content of educational programs and courses of the specialty 013 “Primary education” to further develop future primary school teachers’ soft skills is proven since their professional and personal success depends on soft skills formation.

Lived Experiences of Former STEM Undergraduate Mentors of an Afterschool Mentoring Program: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Studies have identified gaps in the development of undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Students lack communication and problem-solving, impeding employment opportunities post-graduation. It is essential to prepare students for employment in STEM fields, as these fields remain in high demand and offer competitive wages for economic stability. Research has revealed that students gain critical thinking and problem-solving skills through students mentoring experiences. Evidence surrounding the inclusion of active learning strategies for in-classroom pedagogy has expanded in recent years, but the support mechanisms beyond the classroom remain unclear. Herein, we followed students for a decade after participation in our mentoring pre-professional training program, Nebraska STEM for You (NE STEM 4U). This phenomenological study utilized interviewing techniques and descriptive statistics to demonstrate how a midsized, metropolitan university STEM mentoring program supported the development of NE STEM 4U participants. We found that engagement in an after-school mentoring program provided participants with a model of mentorship. Participants also developed transferable professional and personal skill sets, including communication, perspectives, conflict resolution, and professional development.

Behavioural Skills Construct and Effecting on Employability Competence for Undergraduate Students: A Conceptual Framework

This paper attempts to examine the effects of behavioural skills on the employability competence of Libyan university students. This study aims to develop a practical model for the employability competency of finance and banking graduate students in Libyan universities. The focus of the study will be based on three large selected public universities located in three different regions in Libya: each university will represent each of the three regions (South, East, and West) in Libya. This study conducts a conceptual framework using a list of 48 items, starting with behavioural skills with students' perceptions concerning the set of personal skills and interpersonal skills required from finance and banking graduates to pursue a career in the finance and banking profession and lastly employability competency required in the workplace. This study collected data from 450 finance and banking students in three universities in Libya. The behavioural skills will be assessed reflectively by way of a multi-dimensional scale which is inclusive of personal skills and interpersonal skills dimensions. This study makes a significant theoretical and methodological contribution to both the students, universities and behavioural literature, as it examines an interesting subject that has not yet been investigated in the Libyan context by assessing behavioural skills as an integrated reflective high-order construct and by examining the overall behavioural skills on their employability competence.

The bricks and mortar of collaborative ecosystem-based restoration and management

For three decades, communities, agencies, industries, and stakeholders throughout the Great Lakes have been working together to restore degraded ecosystems and revitalize local communities through the Areas of Concern Program. Their work constitutes a set of natural experiments in collaborative ecosystem-based management (EBM). Similar experiments have been occurring simultaneously elsewhere in North America and the world. Despite differences in scale, scope, and context, these initiatives all share several notable attributes in common. These findings are distilled in a conceptual framework of core factors that enable effective EBM. The analogy of Bricks and Mortar distinguishes between the organizational elements that support, structure, and guide a process and the motivational factors that energize and sustain it. Bricks provide the governance infrastructure within which activities occur: the table that provides a legitimate convening place; the authorities, purpose, and scope that bound the initiative; the organizational form that ensures essential functions are fulfilled; and the formally codified roles and responsibilities. Mortar is what motivates people to engage and stay engaged: the relationships that they form and the personal skillsets they bring to the table; a shared sense of place, purpose, and responsibility; an effective and rewarding process; and sustained commitment and leadership at all levels. These findings about the critical role of Bricks and Mortar in enabling EBM are translated into simple diagnostic tools for assessing their strength and viability in similar initiatives within the Great Lakes region and elsewhere.

Understanding the Roles and Uses of Web Tutorials

In this paper we identify roles and uses of web-based tutorials through an examination of tutorials’ comments sections. Through this analytical lens, we find that web tutorials serve a variety of needs, providing: in-task help for users with an immediate, specific goal to accomplish; a means for users to proactively expand their repertoire of skills; and an opportunity for novices to shadow and experience an expert’s work practices. We also find a number of emergent practices in tutorial comments. Users post “help-me” stack traces, a type of comment useful for debugging tutorial content; use comments sections as opportunistic support forums; and turn to comments sections for social and technical validation of their personal skill sets. Collectively, these findings enrich existing perspectives on web-based tutorials and argue for new mechanisms to support these various use cases.

Predicting Teamwork Performance in Collaborative Project-Based Learning

Pulse of the Profession, published by Project Management Institutes (2017), reported that failed projects always lacked (a) clearly defined objectives to measure progress and (b) poor communication between team members. Minimizing communication costs and maximizing trust levels are essential to improve the efficiency of team performance. This study&amp;rsquo;s objectives required including how to formulate the problem and design the theoretical framework. The approach used involved a five-step team formation model with related definitions, including initial team forming, depending on group size, team agreement, role assignment, and team performance. The Predicting Teamwork Performance (PTPA) system was developed to help identify the functional roles of each member automatically. Role assignment provided a strong positive effect on team projects, while the role identification mechanism can assign team members responsibilities for some role(s) to enable learning. Self-assessment was used to identify team members&amp;rsquo; strengths and weaknesses so that team leaders could easily recognize suitable types of roles for each member. Three primary team performance indicators&amp;mdash;&amp;rdquo;Good&amp;rdquo;, &amp;ldquo;Pass&amp;rdquo; and &amp;ldquo;Marginal&amp;rdquo;&amp;mdash;were reflected in the teamwork collaboration outcomes. The Predicting Teamwork Performance system reveals information about those outcomes through 1) individual performance indicator; 2) teamwork performance indicator; 3) personal skill sets results; 4) recommended skill sets improvements. The relationship between those indicators and practical roles was examined as analytical information for further project team formation.

Development of a scale for nurses to assess their own shift leadership behaviours and factors associated with shift leadership behaviours.

Nursing is a mentally and physically demanding job and the industry is particularly strained in Japan. Assistant Professor Hiroko Kitajima, Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Medical and Welfare Saitama Prefectural University, Japan, believes improving nurses' time management skills would be beneficial for the work-life balance and mental health of nurses, as well as patient care. Kitajima is filling a research gap with her work as there is a lack of research on the leadership ability of work zone leaders, aka non-titled nurses that assume responsibility. She and her team have developed a scale for nurses to assess their own shift leadership behaviours and factors associated with shift leadership behaviours called the 'Nurse's Work Shift Leadership Behavior Evaluation Scale' and are verifying the reliability and validity of the scale in a project called 'Development of Nurses' Work Zone Leadership Evaluation Scale and Factors Affecting Work Zone Leadership'. Important collaborators on this research are Professor Eiko Suzuki, Assistant Professor Maki Matsuo and Assistant Professor Takae Machida. The researchers are adapting an existing scale called the Development of the Self-evaluation Scale on Role Performance of Shift Leader Nurse' that was developed by Yamashina et. al. in 2011 and are focused on reducing the number of items and using the Katz model, which outlines three key personal skill sets for successful leaders: technical skills, human skills and conceptual skills. Ultimately, Kitajima and the team are developing a programme based on empirical research that promotes the leadership of nurses in the work zone.

Philosophy Problems Become Real During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Philosophy Problems Become Real During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Faculty Competency Framework: Towards A Better Learning Profession

In order to prepare tomorrow’s professionals for challenging and rewarding careers, the role of faculty in higher education is of exceptional importance. A professional teacher should possess essential competencies that develop as a result of changing needs of our educational community, diversity of student groups and rapid industrial growth. These competencies will serve as basis for one’s development as a teacher. Most important is the teachers’ passion for continuous learning and self-improvement. In this era of knowledge expansion, globalization, high technology and rapid social transformation, the belief in effective learning as a continuous process is a fundamental belief of professionalism in teaching. Competencies represent an amalgamation of professional and personal skill sets of an individual [1]. Over the span of their career, faculty members need to adapt to the technological developments in the allied areas to be highly competent. In this paper, we have identified some of the essential competency that should be acquired to be a successful faculty.

Information reception and processing in purchasing a comparison of public and private sector purchasing

Among the required skills of purchasers, communication is one of the most frequently mentioned ones. Information reception and processing are important elements of this skill. This paper focuses on how and through what channels purchasers process inputs and how they understand them. The literature revealed that there are differences in tasks between the two sectors, but differences in communication have not yet been addressed. Based on a survey among purchasers, the paper fi nds private sector purchasers tend to be more creative, more open to teamwork and more visual, while public purchasers tend to focus on facts and on proved solutions. Furthermore, they are more verbal than private sector purchasers. The results indicate that differences between private and public purchasing cultures stem from the task features of the two sectors, and from different personal skill sets. The results have strong relevance for organisations focusing on the training of purchasers.

Future proofing child protection social work

PurposeHow might the profession of child protection social work be “future proofed”, i.e. remain intact and of value beyond its present existence? The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachThis is a discussion/“think piece” paper, in which the author argues that foregrounding the art and science of helping relationships is a way forward. Recognising and promoting the centrality of helping relationships is the direction in which the author believes (or is it hopes?) social work should head, because “more of the same” is not, in the author’s view, possible to sustain for much longer. Treading the well-worn but pot-holed path of box-ticking, endless risk assessment and perfunctory statutory visiting is likely to lead to continuing problems retaining social workers and, for those who do stay, increased burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary trauma, each of which interrupts or delays the development of working alliances with family members.FindingsGrowing reliance on thresholds and checklists to assess risk has served to increase referrals. As a result, social workers spend much of their time on triaging and filtering rather than working with the children and families that most need help and protection. Further, it is not what is in the practitioner’s toolkit that matters: rather, it is a defined set of personal skills and qualities that tips the balance to achieve lasting change. Thus, in order to “future proof” social work, we would do well to deepen our understanding of how helping relationships can lead to lasting change. Supporting social workers in this work is not just the responsibility of individual practitioners and their professional bodies, action also needs to be taken at governmental and managerial levels.Originality/valueThis is a discussion/“think piece”.

Online Peer Mentoring and Collaborative Reflection: A Cross-institutional Project in Sports Coaching

In recent years, calls have grown for the use of digital technologies to transform coach education and enhance student learning; however, empirical research evidence for their efficacy is lacking. This paper describes our initial experiences of a Higher Education Funding Council for England funded project, designed to facilitate online peer mentoring and collaborative reflection between bachelor degree students at two separate UK universities. So far, the pedagogical approach has been differentially effective, with three categories describing our current perceptions of successful and/or unsuccessful student engagement in it. Namely, students require an adequate knowledge base, an appropriate technological and personal skillset, and the attitudinal dispositions to deploy them effectively.

The role of community development in building critical health literacy

There is growing international interest in health literacy and the processes by which it can be developed. Critical health literacy, one of the domains of health literacy, shows an affinity with the goals and processes of community development. Critical health literacy represents a cognitive and personal skill set that exists at either individual or community level and which is oriented towards social and political action on factors affecting health. This paper examines the relationship between critical health literacy and community development. Using an illustrative case study it explores the extent to which community development processes were used by a project to build critical health literacy amongst vulnerable populations and communities. The case study demonstrates that in working to build the different elements of critical health literacy processes were used that were typical of community development. These processes included; building self-efficacy and self esteem, participatory and mutual learning techniques, acquisition of technical, practical and emancipatory knowledge, democratic processes of collective decision making, critical questioning, critical awareness raising and conscientization. The paper argues for community development to embrace and advance the concept of critical health literacy in order that; its potential to address inequalities in health can be achieved and to create an opportunity to embed community development more fully within health policy and practice.

Are Female Nurses Treated Differently?

Are Female Nurses Treated Differently?

Tearing Down the Wall: Franz Kafka and the Possibility of a Literary Immunity

Johannes Türk has argued that literature can function as an immunity mechanism, using the writings of Kafka as an example. Türk, however, theorizes immunity as a personal, individual coping strategy against one’s own mortal sickness and death. In this view, strongly influenced by Luhmann’s systems theory, literature has the capacity of providing us with an emotional skill set. The view that immunity mechanisms are a personal skill set leads to inevitable difficulties and limits our understanding of the functioning of a literary immunity. Kafka’s texts were written in a context in which problematic and destructive discourses about immunity were prevailing. By focusing on Kafka’s story Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer as an exploration of the problems with immunity discourse, I show that the different stylistic features of Kafka’s writing function as tactics to render destructive immunity discourses inoperative.

Learning Opportunities and Career Implications of Experience with BIM/VDC

AbstractThis paper aims to identify the impact of building information modeling (BIM), or Virtual Design and Construction (VDC), technologies on construction education and the architectural, engineering, construction, and facilities management (AEC/FM) industry, as well as the career implications for a person proficient in BIM. To identify the impact of BIM technology, an extensive review of the literature on BIM utilization in higher education and the AEC/FM industry was conducted. In addition, the lessons the authors have learned from years of BIM practices were introduced to further identify the specific benefits and challenges of adopting BIM in construction and engineering management (CEM) education as well as in the AEC/FM industry, for both vertical and horizontal projects. Surveys also were conducted to measure the estimating time contractors would save with a BIM-based estimating strategy compared with a traditional estimating approach. The findings concluded that personal skill sets in BIM have ...

Creativity

To describe an organizational schema of human creativity. Previous research has concluded that creativity involves something novel and useful, but whether creativity is common or rare, domain-specific or domain-general, quantitative or qualitative, or personal or social remains unresolved. Extant research from neurobiology, psychology, cognitive science, and neuroeconomics was used to generate a novel synthesis that explains human creative behavior. Creativity is the attempt to bridge the gap between what is and what should be. It emerges from the interplay of 5 commonly shared factors: motivation, perception, action, temperament, and social interaction. The reward value of what exists compared with an imagined possibility generates the motivational voltage that drives the creative effort. Action to attain the goal requires a dexterously executed plan, and dexterity levels are influenced by both practice effects and biologic biases. Temperament sustains the creative effort during periods of nonreward in anticipation of goal completion. Societal esthetics measure the success of creative efforts. Personal skill sets derived from nature and nurture vary between individuals and determine one's own creative phenotype. Despite great qualitative and quantitative differences between individuals, the neurobiologic principles of creative behavior are the same from the least to the most creative among us.