Professional Emphasis Research Articles

The practice experience of evangelical Christian occupational therapists

Occupational therapists who are religious are more likely to address spirituality in practice; however, little is known regarding the practice experience of therapists who hold particular faith perspectives. To examine the practice experience of evangelical Christian occupational therapists in the context of professional emphasis on spirituality as a largely secular domain of practice. . A qualitative, interpretivist approach was used for this study. Seven evangelical Christian occupational therapists were engaged in in-depth interviews; verbatim transcripts were thematically coded. Christianity was viewed as a practice resource through the use of private prayer and Christian values to support compassionate practice. Evangelical Christian occupational therapists navigated the tensions of working in a secular healthcare system through awareness of work environment and client cues, restrained expression of faith, as well as the experience of increased scrutiny for potential boundary violations. Evangelical Christian therapists may struggle with secular interpretations of spirituality in practice. Yet they may also display heightened awareness concerning potential boundary violations.

Classing early intervention: Social class, occupational moralities and criminalization

This article interrogates the nature of judgements used by social control professionals to identify signs of anti-social behaviour amongst young people and families referred to early intervention programmes. The emphasis of professionals working within such networks is mostly benevolent in seeking to support and direct specific services at particular individuals. This article traces the effects of these processes of social control in action, specifically the ways through which professionals’ judgements formed around the normative social class status of clients become prime reasons for intervening. The article reflects on the ways occupational moralities translate social class judgements into control responses, arguing that one of the principal outcomes of early intervention is class correction rather than crime control.

Building Conservation and Sustainability in the United Kingdom

There is an assumption on the part of some that only new building technology can meet the increasingly restrictive construction and building standards both for the restoration or conversion of historic buildings and ‘new build’. Indeed carbon-free construction continues to be the long-term aim of the United Kingdom governments. In recent years the issue has been given political impetus as well as professional emphasis. The drive towards sustainability in building is exemplified in the successive introduction of Codes for Sustainable Construction. This paper seeks to examine the extent to which the principles of sustainability are applied in the conservation, restoration and adaptation of historic buildings in the United Kingdom. It will also outline how traditional buildings are already examples of sustainability and how they can be made to be more sustainable without doing harm to their character. It will also explore the ways in which tried and tested building techniques, craftsmanship and the use of traditional materials can still be used to meet emerging standards for sustainability and energy conservation. Whilst concentrating on historic properties the use of traditional materials and building techniques in respect of new-build will also be outlined, particularly in the context of retaining local distinctiveness and identity.

Pediatric Nurse Practitioners' Assessment and Management of Childhood Overweight/Obesity: Results from 1999 and 2005 Cohort Surveys

Introduction Recently, public and professional emphasis has been placed on addressing the increasing prevalence of childhood overweight. Method This survey study was conducted with two cohorts of pediatric nurse practitioners ( N = 413) to explore differences in self-reported practice skills over time. Results Significant improvements in assessment, screening, and laboratory evaluations were reported, although reduced adherence to recommended psychosocial assessments was noted. Discussion This study outlines self-reported barriers to effective childhood weight management. One support that participants requested was evidence-based guidelines. Motivational interviewing may be an additional strategy to enhance provider skills to assess and manage challenging patient behavior change (e.g., dietary and activity changes).

Demonstrating scholarship and effectiveness of teaching through the application of data collected from concept maps

College faculty face the ongoing dilemma of balancing the professional emphasis on student learning with the administrative task of documenting student performance related to reappointment, promotion, and tenure. As tools in the undergraduate and graduate programs of an institution of higher learning, concept maps provide faculty with interesting and effective ways to assess learning by students in all academic areas. Concept maps can give students and faculty meaningful information about student performance. These tools are objective, meaningful assessments through which the instructor can monitor student progress, self-evaluate classroom performance, and revise the delivery of instruction in the collegiate classroom.

Understanding health information, communication, and information seeking of patients and consumers: a comprehensive and integrated model

Understanding health information, communication, and information seeking of patients and consumers: a comprehensive and integrated model

Discrepancies between patients and professionals in the assessment of patient needs: a quantitative study of Norwegian mental health care.

Sensitivity to and respect for the user perspective are important facets of user-centred services and empowerment in contemporary mental health care. Little is known about the extent to which new policies influence mental health work in practice. To investigate discrepancy between patients and professionals in the assessment of patient needs. Analyses could indicate emphasis on user orientation in Norwegian mental health care. Patients and their respective health professionals (n = 1080) completed separate questionnaires regarding patient characteristics and needs. Identifiers were removed from the data locally and then entered into a national database. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were used to explore mean levels of discrepancy and predictors of discrepancy. Mean discrepancy was low, as, on average, 30 of the listed 40 needs were considered absent by both the patients and their respective professional. However, the parties showed distinct disagreement as to the amount and type of needs that were present. Specifically, professionals identified more needs than patients (9.3 vs. 4.3, respectively) and this difference was characterized by a strong professional emphasis on needs regarding professional monitoring and follow-up. Results showed that symptoms of severe cognitive disability were over-represented in the group of patients with the highest level of discrepancy, however, the majority of high-discrepancy patients were not severely disabled on cognitive functions. A multiple regression analysis revealed 10 predictors of high discrepancy. A low professional emphasis on user-orientation may be indicated in some cases. Results are discussed with relation to the tension between autonomy and beneficence. Suggestions for practice and further research conclude the paper.

Public administration as a design science

This article examines Herbert Simon's notion of a “design” science and discusses its applicability to the field of public administration. Public administration, as a design science, exists at the nexus between the inner and outer environments of public organizations. As such, it integrates and synthesizes theories and propositions from other disciplines including the behavioral sciences, the system sciences, and the natural sciences. In addition to being concerned with descriptive aspects of the field, public administration scholars must be willing to prescribe, to design, and to redesign public sector systems. A framework for assessing design opportunities is developed, and the questions raised by this approach are addressed. As many of the participants were preparing for the first Minnowbrook Conference in the spring of 1968 in order to craft the “new” public administration, Herbert Simon was presenting a set of invited lectures, entitled “The Sciences of the Artificial,” at the Massachusetts Institute ...

Psychiatry in Pakistan.

Psychiatric services in Pakistan have undergone considerable changes since independence 50 years ago. There has been an increased awareness of psychiatric illness on both public and professional levels and great emphasis has been laid on the education and training of medical and related professions in recent years. Although old traditional methods still prevail, it is becoming increasingly common to seek professional psychiatric advice. Like any developing country, however, much remains to be done especially on a government level in order to meet the basic mental health needs of the nation.

Professional Peer-Mediated Learning Experiences: Another Idea Whose Time Has Come

This article serves primarily as a reaction piece to the four preceding articles dealing with professional peer-mediated support learning groups. In addition to addressing the implication for the professional development emphasis that currently is receiving considerable attention because of the rapid information-generation phenomenon we are experiencing, the value of such groups for consultation is addressed. Finally, some follow-up suggestions for this type of learning group are included.

Issues of accountability in the assessment of practice

The nature of nursing work makes the Code of Professional Conduct's moral and professional emphasis appropriate. However this is to the detriment of practitioners' moral, professional and contractual accountability towards learners. Practitioners may fail to make the paradigmatic shift necessary for them to be accountable for the teaching, supervision and assessment of learners. This is a direct consequence of the paucity of assessor preparation and the utilisation of assessors with limited professional experience. They have been invested with an authority of which they are unaware and for which they are unprepared.

The Public Historian and Unions: The Challenges of Professionalism and Discipline

IN THIS POST-WATERGATE PERIOD, ethical issues have assumed a new prominence. The professional historian must demonstrate sensitivity and awareness not merely in cases of obvious conflict of interest, but also in cases where shadings of professional emphasis are concerned. For the professional historian working as a union activist and staffer, however, this challenge can present a Hobson's choice. Though the two vocations-historian and union factotum-are not merely compatible but even highly complimentary, certain tensions do arise from the professional decisions a public historian makes while serving a union. In this regard, I believe I can offer special insight. For besides being a professor of Russian and East European history at Florida State University, I spent over a decade working with organized labor in a technical, nonpolitical role. During the summers of 1978 and 1979 I was a paid staff member in the state office of the United Faculty of Florida. During the academic years 1978-79 and 1979-80 I served in a volunteer capacity as the union's director of grievances and arbitrations, supervising the training as well as the contract administration program for all nine state universities. Furthermore, in 1980, again as an unpaid volunteer (I taught a full schedule of classes at the same time), I served as the faculty union's chief negotiator for both the contract reopener and for the new master contract with the Florida Board of Regents. As an experienced union insider and public historian, then, I propose to explore the wide range of possibilities for research and employment

Use of Journal Literature by Muslim Social Science Scholars in the United States

Introduction Library and information servi-ces need to be attuned to the needs of the users. There has been tremendous research effort and writing on the front of user and use studies to articulate the user demands and develop a better understanding for the purpose of planning. Tobin reported 477 such studies indexed in the library literature from 1960-1973. Despite this voluminous body of research, it is felt that needs of communities and specialized groups are not addressed in the literature. Study of information needs is inherently complex, and an attempt of global formulation of user needs makes it so general that it becomes meaningless. Another important dimension of studying the information needs is the contextual perspective that totality of 'user's life world,' should be taken into account. Such a study centers upon the user's experience to meet his physiological, affective, and cognitive needs. Information seeking behavior is patterned by various internal and external motivators which are embedded in the user's social situations, cultural settings, and many more factors surrounding the complex personality of the user. The socio-cultural and physical environment of the user is the foundation to understand the individual's knowledge structures rooted in cognitive and social psychology which stimulates information needs.The information acquiring activity of the user can be investigated through study of external and internal conditions. The external conditions pertain to material, environmental, personal, and social factors. Sovenyhazy states that these personal and surrounding conditions deserve particular attention. The user needs can be identified by studying the compounding effects of numerous variables such as age, educational level, socio-economic status, occupation, language skills, ethnic background, exposure to the environmental and cultural milieu, housing location, and many more. Such an analysis is helpful in determining the information demands of the users and the deficiencies they perceive. Study of information needs becomes more meaningful if it is confined to a specialized group of users as the homogenity of the group ensures validity of generalizations and makes their application more logical. Determination of information needs, in an articulate way, becomes imperative when an agency is planning information services for its specialized clientele. However, the needs of special groups of users and researchers like ethnic and minority groups have been given little attention by the researchers so far. Realizing this deficiency, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science organized a Conference on the Needs of Occupational, Ethnic, and Other Groups in the United States with the objective of identifying the specific needs of individual groups to fulfill their information needs in a more precise and thorough way. The conference proceedings cover a few ethnic groups but again the discussions are directed to general needs of the masses. Bourne and colleagues conducted a study on the special needs of identifiable sub-groups in the setting of American Public Library. These disparate efforts indicate the professional emphasis on conducting a thorough and scientific analysis of information use patterns and behaviors of the clientele for whom the information services are to be developed ...

Personal behavior and professional ethics: implications for special educators.

The need for enforceable professional standards for special educators is discussed within the context of recent criminal convictions of four prominent special educators. Their misconduct is related to possible contributing factors that are inherent in our present system: the lack of clear professional standards and emphasis on centralized controls. Another factor is our society's tendency to use publicity in lieu of research evidence. Examples of each factor are provided within the broad context of professional education. Some corrections are proposed.

Should Teaching Become a Come-and-Go Profession?

Should teacher educators encourage students without pedagogical prepara tion to enter teaching for a brief time? Watts identifies the reasons for the short-term professional emphasis and points out serious weaknesses with the position. In addition, he recommends alternative directions for the teaching profession.

Criminal justice programs in higher education: Course and curriculum orientations

The growth of criminal justice education programs at institutions of higher learning has been largely a phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s. This rapid growth has resulted in a variety of program types in terms of both subject area and content orientation. Programs appear to be moving toward a total-system approach with both a social science and professional emphasis. The type of program developed by educational institutions has implications for instructor selection, practitioner relationships, and organizational location within the institution of higher learning.

How to survive on a committee

Have you ever been a member of a jf there are numerous duds, you can committee in which encourage the chairperson to get some —Your input was encouraged but new blood Qn the committee. Call it the output never reflected it? Or expertise and have a few candidates —The meetings were strictly demo,ined up just in case If it>s only a mat_ cratic, but you could never bring yourter of a few thorns_and unless the self to say anything? (And you're not committee has been stacked_ordi a shrinking violet, either.) Or nary members can outmaneuvered -You attended every meeting but alwhh a fajr amount of dlspatch. Seven ways felt as if you had missed one? tested and proved techniques are: Have you wondered why? Have you j Reasoning (Try this first just t0 searched the literature for answers? show you,re a gQod guy) You may have found an out-of-print 2 0utshouting volume stuffed away in some dusty , „..., , , , „ 3. Filibustering corner, left over from a long-forgotten . . . 6 4. Threatening group work course. (Since committee _ „ ... , , . . 5. Ganging up (If you have some work is not a professional skill, not . , , . „ . , .... one to help) much professional emphasis is given to ^ Puttin to shame it.) You may even have discovered one 7 ot of the slick new books published by a S , , t , . /, . That s what they mean in the literature school of business management that ' . . „ , . . . „ on group dynamics when they talk tells you how to maxi ize your , . „, „ , , , about applying group pressure. Most meetings. Few books, however, pre, . rr ' ° ? r r . , . . , ,... , ., , of these techniques are ones you sent basic survival skills for those who , , , , , , . spend much of their working life in learfed °n ,the Pla^rond bac^ |n committee meetings. grade and thought everybody Part of the problem is that the lit0vey 12u had, outgrown' ,If JTM find , ... . ... you re the only sane one m the group, erature about committees is written 3 , 3 , , i. . „ , . . , you had better shut up or get out ldeahstically. It tells you what to do ' , re , .. », , fore you become too upset. Know under optimum conditions. Now, who 3 ever saw an Optimum Condition? Most w ^OU are 1C e • committees are composed, after all, Chairpersons are a different matter. of people. Unfortunately, the worldA clever one can almost guarantee re like organizations-is full of narrowsults b? the way he or she structures minded, pigheaded, sly, opinionated, the comm'ttee and manages the meet bigoted manipulators. We, on the other m®s Fortunately, there seem to hand, are always broadminded, intelfew Real Pros who are chairin8 com ligent if not brilliant, open, abovemittees' There are far more semibun board, fair, rational, and reasonable. «lers and bun8lers occupying seats of But we are in the minority. Just accept Power Bun8lers and semibunglers that. What to do if you find yourmay hard on y°ur nerves but they self on a less than ideal committee? can>t do nearly as much dama§e be cause they don't know what they're do ing. You just have to give them a lot of suggestions, support, and loving at To begin with, the fatal fallacy is tention—then try to persuade them to to expect rational behavior! When— resign because the strain is undermin with the exception, of course, of ouring their health, selves—were human beings ever ra tional? Once you have that misconcep tion out of the way, try to figure out what's going on. Is the problem a poor The Real Pro is another animal. Some, choice of membership? Was it one of admittedly, are as true as arrows and those deals in which whoever voluncommitted to the common good. But FATAL FALLACY

Preparing today's students for tomorrow's PR careers

The survey of professionals in the San Francisco Bay area shows that the practitioners think that (1) journalistic skills, (2) the liberal arts and (3) business courses should be emphasized in a public relations curriculum under the auspices of a journalism of communications department. In addition, there is strong pressure for providing students with the opportunity for supervised practicums and internships. Public relations majors at San Jose State University, for example, are required to have a 240-hour working internship under a professional practitioner as a requirement for graduation. The survey is instructive in that it gives public relations educators an opportunity to better structure programs that will meet the needs of today's employment market. The importance of writing skill is strongly reinforced and attempts must be made to strengthen this area of competence. It is not enough, however, for public relations majors to simply enroll in more news writing courses where the emphasis is on obituaries, accidents, weddings and city council meetings. Additional courses must be implemented that will give students an opportunity to handle stories that public relations professionals must write on a daily basis. Students also must be taught the mechanics of writing for a variety of media, not just newspapers. Perhaps the major dilemma facing public relations educators is reconciling the need for public relations students to have a broad liberal arts background and an increased number of business courses. Only so many courses are available to a student in a four-year degree program. The other obstacle deals with the present accreditation procedures of ACEJ for departments of journalism.5 The basic guideline calls for a curriculum based on 75 per cent liberal arts and 25 per cent professional (journalism) training. This means that the average student probably received no more than four in-depth writing courses in his or her college career because such courses are considered part of the overall professional emphasis. Business also is considered a professional area and public relations majors are actively discouraged from minoring in the field if the department values its accreditation. Thus, there appears to be a basic conflict between accreditation requirements and the needs of employers for qualified PR professionals. Perhaps the time has come for public relations programs to be evaluated for accreditation on somewhat different criteria than news-editorial sequences. Public relations curricula also can be strengthened by the active participation of the professional practitioners in the classroom as guest speakers and on departmental advisory committees. Many departments already have established advisory committees to make suggestions about public relations education and, in these days of limited financial support for higher education, help lobby for increased academic resources. This survey shows that there is a widespread interest and concern about public relations education. In most cases, public relations personnel are eager and willing to participate in the process of educating today's students for tomorrow's careers. They are a valuable resource and should be utilized.

Business as usual--at the state mental hospital.

Despite official policy and professional emphasis to the contrary, the custodial mental hospital continues to exist as a major form of state-provided mental health care. In this paper, one such institution, "New England State Hospital", is described, and the various features of hospital organization that sustain a system of custodial care are discussed. Although the custodial hospital offers little to its patients, its persistent survival can be explained by the number of non-patient vested interests that are well served by the state hospital, precisely in its existing custodial form. The case study of New England State Hospital suggests that reform of state mental institutions depends less on a programmatic formulation of desired changes than on an understanding of the structured resistance to such changes.

Trials, Errors, and Successes in Agribusiness Education at Purdue

HIS paper summarizes briefly our experience at Purdue in developing an agribusiness management curriculum. Specific educational goals of the program are given in subsequent discussion. Four overall goals represent our current thinking in undergraduate program development. The undergraduate curriculum should include: 1. A broad and liberal education in the social and natural sciences. 2. Adequate professional emphasis to enhance student placement and performance with business firms upon graduation. 3. Adequate academic emphasis to provide the foundation for graduate work in business management and/or economics. 4. Adequate agribusiness emphasis to provide the student with special insights into the unique problems of agribusiness without becoming involved with the specific trade practices and problems of any one agribusiness industry or job activity. Overall graduate curriculum goals have emphasized excellence in academic performance, with sufficient applied problem analysis to acclimate the student to the workings of the business world. In this manner, both academic and industrial placement needs are met.