Program Design Features Research Articles

Women's views of cardiac rehabilitation programs.

Previous approaches to understanding participation in cardiac rehabilitation programs based on middle-aged men may not be useful to explain the participation of women. The focus group research method produces unique data about attitudes and experiences that can serve as an adjunct to other forms of data collection in an effort to develop models explaining cardiac rehabilitation participation. The aim of this pilot study was to examine the perceptions and experiences of women participating in a cardiac rehabilitation program using focus groups. Ten women (mean age 72 years) who had recently participated in a cardiac rehabilitation program were interviewed in focus groups of 6 and 4 members each using a semi-structured interview guide. Verbatim transcriptions of the focus group interviews were analyzed by two individuals using content analysis methods. Results indicated that prior to participation women had no idea what to expect in a cardiac rehabilitation program. Features women liked most about the program included: (1) feeling "safe" during exercise because they were monitored; (2) peer group support during rehabilitation; and (3) pleasant, encouraging staff. Women desired more: (1) social interaction during the cardiac rehabilitation exercise sessions; (2) emotional support from staff members about all dimensions of cardiac recovery; and (3) exercise options other than cycle or treadmill. Several cardiac rehabilitation program design and operational features are perceived by women as not meeting their needs. Although limited by its small sample size, findings from this study provide valuable insights into women's perceptions of cardiac rehabilitation programs.

Two‐Way Immersion Education: Students Learning Through Two Languages

In a growing number of schools in the U.S., students are learning through two languages in programs that aim to develop dual language proficiency along with academic achievement. These two‐way immersion programs integrate language minority and language majority students and provide content area instruction and language development in two languages. This article provides a picture of the current state of two‐way immersion education in the U.S. based on a study (undertaken between 1991 and 1994) of over 160 schools. Two‐way programs typically share the goals of bilingual proficiency, academic achievement, and positive crosscultural attitudes and behaviors, but they vary a good deal in the approaches and strategies they use to work toward those goals. A host of local factors affect such issues as student enrollment, program design, and instructional features. Emerging results of studies of two‐way immersion programs point to their effectiveness in educating nonnative‐English‐speaking students, their promise of expanding our nation's language resources by conserving the native language (L1) skills of minority students and developing second language (L2) skills in English‐speaking students, and their hope of improving relationships between majority and minority groups by enhancing crosscultural understanding and appreciation.

Municipal recycling: an assessment of programmatic and contextual factors affecting program success

How important are administrative practices and program design features in determining recycling success? Data from a national survey of local government public works directors are used to examine the extent to which cities’ waste recycling success can be explained by administrative and programmatic considerations as well as political context. A theory-based model is presented and results show contextual factors are as crucial as programmatic factors to municipal recycling success.

Meta-analytic methods for health services research--an example from geriatrics.

The authors recently published a meta-analysis of controlled trials of comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA). The results supported the view that efficacy of CGA is strongly related to the patients, objectives, and basic design of CGA programs, and that particular program models and design features are associated with important health outcome improvements (e.g., survival, living at home, and functional improvement at follow-up). Present objectives include the outline of methods and how they were developed given the condition of the trial database and scientific context. Aspects of the approach, such as (a) survey of primary trialists to recover unpublished information and standardize data, (b) development of a program typology to guide the principal analysis, and (c) incorporation of program design features as covariates where statistical heterogeneity was detected, proved extremely useful, and have implications for other systematic reviews of similarly complex primary trials of new health care technologies, health services, and organizational interventions.

An Analysis of Selected Descriptive and Experimental Studies on Program Model Designs for Gifted Students for Potential use in Rural School Districts of Developing Countries

The purpose of this study was to analyse program model designs for gifted children and youth currently in use in the United States. From a meta-analysis of 100 descriptive and experimental studies conducted in the last 10 years trends and practices currently used in the United States were identified. Ten features of program design which included name and description: identification of students: funding: staffing: grades: ages and number of students: scheduling: delivery of services: role of parents: community and technology were examined. Further recommendations were derived for the implementation of similar programs and training of teachers for the gifted in developing countries specifically the provinces of Ciskei and Transkei, South Africa. Focus is provided on aspects of gifted programs in rural areas of the United States for those recommendations as the characteristics are more representative of those in developing countries.

The Health Security Partnership

The Health Security Partnership attempts to assure (1) that all Americans have insurance coverage for a set of comprehensive health care benefits, (2) that cost-containment issues are addressed in a manner that does not impinge negatively on the quality of care, and (3) that provider freedom to deliver appropriate clinical care is strengthened. It assigns important responsibilities to the federal government (eg, specification of benefits, review of proposed state health care budgets), while permitting states to select, develop, and administer specific program design features they deem appropriate (eg, states could build on and expand the existing health system infrastructure, including private insurance, and/or extend the role of tax-supported programs). It is estimated that in its first year the program would add about 5% to America's health expenditures, but within a few years, cost-containment efforts and administrative efficiencies would reduce overall expenditures below what they otherwise would be.

The Health Security Partnership. A federal-state universal insurance and cost-containment program

The Health Security Partnership attempts to assure (1) that all Americans have insurance coverage for a set of comprehensive health care benefits, (2) that cost-containment issues are addressed in a manner that does not impinge negatively on the quality of care, and (3) that provider freedom to deliver appropriate clinical care is strengthened. It assigns important responsibilities to the federal government (eg, specification of benefits, review of proposed state health care budgets), while permitting states to select, develop, and administer specific program design features they deem appropriate (eg, states could build on and expand the existing health system infrastructure, including private insurance, and/or extend the role of tax-supported programs). It is estimated that in its first year the program would add about 5% to America's health expenditures, but within a few years, cost-containment efforts and administrative efficiencies would reduce overall expenditures below what they otherwise would be.

A Technique for Computer Flow Chart Generation

One of the concerns of the Centre for Computing and Automation at Imperial College is the teaching of good programming practice. To this end new courses have been devised, and tested in practice, with the object of giving students a good grasp of programming techniques, and not just a knowledge of, say, FORTRAN coding. Flow charting is taught as an integral part of the overall problem-solving effort required to implement any algorithm on a computer; as an aid to be used throughout the design and development stages of a program, as well as for final documentation. Flow charts are also extensively used as lecturing aids, illustrating the logical facilities of the programming language in a graphic manner, and also demonstrating good program design features. There is some tedium in producing flow charts for our lecture notes, which are distributed, and also in the general production of flow charts in a neat form for final documentation. It was decided, therefore, to investigate the possibility of producing flow charts automatically, and various approaches were examined, notably those described in Sherman (1966), and Roberts (1967). These approaches suffer from the main drawback that it is assumed that the text of the program contains sufficient information to describe the function of the program completely and clearly. We have found that, in general, production programs do not contain enough relevant information to enable a new reader to understand their function. Neither the variable names used, nor the usually sparse comments in the text, bear any close relationship to the function of the program. For instance the FORTRAN variable XT may refer to 'Time' in one section of a program and 'Distance' in another, and we have also found that programmers are reluctant to insert comments into the text in other than a cryptic manner. The flow chart generator that resulted from our study, called ICFLOW,f produces a conventional layout of boxes and arrows for any number of program routines at one time, within machine storage limitations, with no attempt made to insert text into the boxes, for the