Quality Of Human Relationships Research Articles

The IoT Revolution: Redefining Online Relationships and Social Network Expansion

Although the Internet of Things (IoT) has been acknowledged to significantly affect the nature of human interaction, the associations between IoT technologies and aspects of social bonds between humans are still underexplored. This study examined the extent to which the IoT shapes online social interactions in the Vietnamese context. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 384 Vietnamese participants. Data were projected onto structural equation modelling to test the hypothesised relationships between perceived social presence (PS), media richness of IoT, quality of online relationships, and online social network expansion. The results show positive correlations between IoT richness, quality of human relationships and social media use. PS was significantly related to online social network expansion, but it could not predict the quality of bonds between social media users. The findings suggest that the IoT is designed and developed to enable meaningful social connections, expanding human knowledge of how IoT influences online social interactions.

The Characteristics of Subject-Subject Interaction During Professional Training of Future Foreign Language Teachers at French Universities

AbstractThe article studies the conditions of the educational environment in higher education institutions in France, especially at pedagogical universities, in order to explore the psychological conditions for developing competencies in future foreign language teachers. The article thoroughly analyzes the studies of French scholars on the interaction between the participants in the educational process. There are two main trends in sociological studies on educational relationship. The first theory proves the impossibility of abstracting the interaction between teachers and students from the organization of teacher education and its role in society and highlights the interaction in the division of labour. The second theory lies in studying the interaction between the subjects as a social reality, which occurs as a result of implementing certain interactions. The article considers the effects of mass formation in the context of such areas as degradation and remotization of interactions during professional training. It also describes the results of observations on the subjects of educational activity conducted by certain French scholars between the early 20th century and the early 21st century. The studies between 1975 and 2000 reveal the effects of massification in the social and public environment. The image of French universities of that period is characterized by overload and degradation in the relational context. The authors point to the weakness of integration between students, misunderstandings with teachers and, finally, the distance of communication. The early 21st century has not yet much contributed to the professional training of future foreign language teachers in the context of educational relationship between the participants in the educational process. The article analyzes possible explanations of relational difficulties. These, first of all, include unjustified expectations of the subjects of both parties. In addition, one of the most important influential factors is pedagogical mastery of communication quality. However, one of the most important reasons is the quality of human relationships. The current period in professional teacher training is characterized by a gap in the interaction between students and teachers as a result of introducing technologies, acquiring virtual knowledge and culture of instant information.

Sustainability of international collaborative partnerships in education: a personal research journey

IntroductionThe growth of international collaborative development and research programmes owes much to a greater focus on transcultural research, funding in this regard, and the concern of universities to extend their international visibility (Rigby & Edler, 2005). It has also raised significant challenges and concerns regarding the conceptualisation and dissemination of international educational research, its sustainability, and the development of collaborative partnerships that transcend international borders. Furthermore, as those of us who have been closely involved in the development of international educational research and development projects have learned, developing sustainable international partnerships has been difficult, and has often been fraught with issues. These issues are not only related to processes of funding, knowledge production, and who the ultimate beneficiaries of the research will be, but also to partnership relationships as well as transcultural communication and intercultural learning.In this article, I focus on revisiting my field notes and personal reflections from a reflexive diary (ethnographic account), that I kept during an international project in education in Palestine that came to an end in 2014, in order to explore aspects that could possibly have influenced the development of sustainable international partnerships in education that brought about change. The purpose is to analyse my own reflections during the project and after it came to an end and, by connecting the personal to the cultural in this way, possibly contribute to further development of knowledge in this field.The project in Palestine cannot be characterised as a research project as such, but rather as an externally funded knowledge exchange project in education, with a strong emphasis on evaluation research in order to monitor progress and evaluate the impact of the project. As this project came to a close, it generated new projects and influenced the development of revised policies on teacher education. The dynamic relationship between international collaborative projects in higher education and the nature, scale, sustainability, and quality of our collaboration in bringing about educational change in this project has also become clearer. I, therefore, increasingly realised that the role that quality of collaboration played within this project, including the willingness of individuals and collective team groups to transcend international sociocultural boundaries, cannot be underestimated. The challenging path that this partnership followed enabled the greater international project team, as well as the Palestinian project team, to accomplish much more than we would have been able to achieve as individual researchers or as consultants at individual universities. Furthermore, my personal belief in the integral connection between the quality of human relationships in complex international educational research settings and the validity of processes in projects aimed at bringing about social change was confirmed.Brief Description of the International Project in EducationThe main objective of this knowledge exchange project was to improve the quality and relevance of the teaching practice component of teacher education programmes for primary school-aged pupils in Grades 1-4 in Palestine (West Bank and Gaza). In pursuance of this objective, the World Bank funded a Teacher Education Improvement Project (TEIP) in 2010, for which an international cross-faculty, cross-university team successfully bid to act as international consultants. Notification of the contract was received in March 2011, and the project came to a close in 2014. Strategic planning to achieve the overall goal of this project within a period of about 36 months was informed by a coherent body of knowledge derived from international research and practice in teacher education, whole-school improvement, and continuing professional development. …

Relationships matter: case study of a university campus incubator

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the nature of the incubator manager (IM)‐client, client‐client and client‐IM‐client relationships that facilitate incubation activity.Design/methodology/approach – A case study methodology was adopted for undertaking the empirical work. The case organization was an Irish Dublin‐based university campus incubator. During the course of the research, which lasted six months, data were collected from high‐technology client firms and the incubator management using semi‐structured interviews, non‐participant observation and corporate documents.Findings – Incubation is very much dependent on the quality of human relationships and occurs via a process of co‐production in dyads and triads. Without the voluntary and active participation of client firms, the mechanisms that facilitate co‐production break down. There is no one master incubation process, it is comprised of small micro‐processes each with its own norms, dynamic and stages depending on relational quality.Re...

The Study of the Elements of Work Alienation: A Case Study of the Urmia White Cement Factory, Western Azarbayjan Province, Iran

This paper studies the elements of work alienation in the Urmia White Cement Factory. Nowadays, along with technical and industrial developments, we observe extensive changes in the field of work. Industrial developments, work division, and development as well as some phenomena like mechanization and automation have changed work qualities. As a result, the atmosphere of work in our time, too, has suffered from these phenomena. Considering the organizational, socio-cultural, and individual elements, this paper explains the condition of work alienation in the Urmia White Cement Factory with the aim of identifying those elements affecting work alienation in that industrial unit. Using survey as research method, we prepared some questionnaire according to the Sorel scale for gathering data. Our statistical population consisted of 200 workers and personnel serving in that factory. As our sample, 90 people were selected. Our findings indicated that work alienation had a meaningful relationship with geographical origin, marital state, type of work, satisfaction with wages and incomes, quality of human relationships with other workers and managers, uncertainty, confliction, and stress of role.

Preparing practitioners to respond to resistance: a cross‐professional view

Teaching depends upon relationships. Yet teaching is only one of a number of professions in which practice depends heavily upon the quality of human relationship between practitioners and their clients. To explore how other professions prepare professionals for the work of building and maintaining relationships, we embarked on a study that investigated the preparation of teachers, clergy, and clinical psychologists, all professions that engage in what we are calling ‘relational practices’. In this article, we explore how preparation programs in teaching and clinical psychology, in particular, teach novices to attend to relationships in their practice, focusing specifically on how novices are prepared to respond to various forms of resistance from those they seek to serve. Our analysis draws upon a subset of data from our larger study, including interviews, classroom observations, and observations of field experiences from visits to five professional preparation programs: three clinical psychology programs and two teacher preparation programs. Our data suggest that clinical psychology and teacher education programs both prepare novices to try to prevent resistance through careful planning. However, clinical psychology programs provided students with more opportunities to rehearse responses to client resistance in the moment, through the use of role‐play and other simulations. Clinical psychology programs also provided novice clinicians with both a common language and theoretical base with which to analyze client resistance. We argue that teacher education might be strengthened by providing novice teachers with similarly deliberate and focused opportunities to practice responding to resistance.

Well-being and the quality of human relationships

Well-being and the quality of human relationships

Intelligent Corporate Strategy: Beyond World‐class Manufacturing

The ideas expressed in this work are based on those put into practice at the Okuma Corporation of Japan, one of the world′s leading machine tool manufacturers. In common with many other large organizations, Okuma Corporation has to meet the new challenges posed by globalization, keener domestic and international competition, shorter business cycles and an increasingly volatile environment. Intelligent corporate strategy (ICS), as practised at Okuma, is a unified theory of strategic corporate management based on five levels of win‐win relationships for profit/market share, namely: ,1. Loyalty from customers (value for money) – right focus., 2. Commitment from workers (meeting hierarchy of needs) – right attitude., 3. Co‐operation from suppliers (expanding and reliable business) – right connections., 4. Co‐operation from distributors (expanding and reliable business) – right channels., 5. Respect from competitors (setting standards for business excellence) – right strategies. The aim is to create values for all stakeholders. This holistic people‐oriented approach recognizes that, although the world is increasingly driven by high technology, it continues to be influenced and managed by people (customers, workers, suppliers, distributors, competitors). The philosophical core of ICS is action learning and teamwork based on principle‐centred relationships of sincerity, trust and integrity. In the real world, these are the roots of success in relationships and in the bottom‐line results of business. ICS is, in essence, relationship management for synergy. It is based on the premiss that domestic and international commerce is a positive sum game: in the long run everyone wins. Finally, ICS is a paradigm for manufacturing companies coping with change and uncertainty in their search for profit/market share. Time‐honoured values give definition to corporate character; circumstances change, values remain. Poor business operations generally result from human frailty. ICS is predicated on the belief that the quality of human relationships determines the bottom‐line results. ICS attempts to make manifest and explicit the intangible psychological factors for value‐added partnerships. ICS is a dynamic, living, and heuristic‐learning model. There is intelligence in the corporate strategy because it applies commonsense, wisdom, creative systems thinking and synergy to ensure longevity in its corporate life for sustainable competitive advantage.

Dissatisfaction and insecurity of patients in domiciliary care

This paper is based on material from two domiciliary care studies undertaken in Finland. The purpose of this paper is to clarify on one hand the patient factors which relate to dissatisfaction and insecurity and on the other hand the significance of dissatisfaction and insecurity in patient care. The data were collected by interviewing patients (Helsinki: 129, Espoo: 215), by devising a care plan in Espoo and directing a questionnaire to the domiciliary care providers (Helsinki: 202, Espoo: 64). About one in 10 of the patients was dissatisfied and insecure. Correlation between dissatisfaction and insecurity was high (Helsinki: r = 0.63***, Espoo: r = 0.53***). The dissatisfaction was associated more with external factors, which appeared as a behaviour perceived by others. The quality of human relationships in care was the main predicting factor of the variance of dissatisfaction. Insecurity again was linked more with internal factors. The main factor which predicted the variance of insecurity was the quality of human relationships in care but also the well-planned goal-oriented care. A dissatisfied patient who actually feels insecure, can be perceived as being unco-operative, non-compliant and unpopular by care providers.

Het voortbestaan van de traditionele scheidingslijnen en hun voornaamste accentverschillen

A comparison of the way in which various issues (the advancement of women, housing, town planning and national and regional development, immigrant workers) are dealt with by the organs of the Catholic pillar and by those of the socialist pillar, highlights the persistence of an essential difference between their respective approaches to social reality. The work environment is regarded as decisive by the socialist organizations; any change in any sphere whatsoever can only be achieved through action carried out with reference to this sphere. For christian organizations, on the other hand, social reality is made up of a multiplicity of structures within which distinct forms of action are in order. This difference in approach cannot only be explained by the difference in clientele. This difference is in turn to be understood, it seems, by reference to a difference in underlying philosophies. On the socialist side, only control of the labour process via collective regulations and structural change can bring about change; on the christian side, the personalist tradition induces an emphasis on the quality of human relationships and on personal effort, without which no structural change can be effective.

ISSUES IN ASSESSING AND EVALUATING THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF INDIVIDUALS: A RESPONSE TO WHITEHEAD

The paper is a response to Whitehead, who has questioned prevailing views of knowledge and values in Higher Education, specifically the quality of human relationships in education. It examines from an orthodox point of view questions of dialectical logic; knowledge acquisition and knowledge structures; the differentiation of knowledge structures; facts and values; and theory and practice. The main concern is to show that there is no essential conflict between the pursuit of objective knowledge and human Values. There is, on the contrary, the highest educational virtue in achieving impersonal, objective knowledge.

ASSESSING AND EVALUATING AN INDIVIDUAL'S HIGHER EDUCATION

ABSTRACT My purpose is to raise a number of questions concerning the nature of what is being assessed and evaluated by the contributors to this Journal. I also wish to challenge a number of the assumptions concerning the concept of Higher Education which is implicit in the work of these contributors. I will be arguing that important dimensions of Higher Education are being omitted from the Journal, not because they do not concern the contributors, but because of the prevailing view of knowledge in institutions of Higher Education. My particular concern is that the aesthetic dimensions of the concept of Higher Education are omitted from the Journal. I am thinking specifically of the quality of human relationship in education within which the unity of humanity is not violated.

“Marriage in the later fiction of Camus and Simone de Beauvoir”

Marriage is an important topic in the post‐war fiction of Camus and Simone de Beauvoir. Characters like Clamence (La Chute) and Lucienne (La Femme rompue) are overtly cynical about the institution, but the marriages portrayed in detail in the twelve stories of this period do not entirely bear out this cynicism. Circumstances in which characters marry are frequently rather strange, showing little commitment to the institution, and few of the marriages run their course smoothly. Yet we are shown successes as well as failures, and all of the problems depicted could arise in any longstanding relationship between a man and a woman; marriage as such is not seen as exercising much influence upon the characters. Camus and Beauvoir are more concerned with the quality of human relationships than with their framework, and the principal targets for their criticism are a certain concept of romantic love with which marriage is commonly associated and any suggestion that sex is capable of solving an individual's metaphysical problems. The individual is shown as accepting marriage, if he does so at all, strictly on his own terms.