Set Of Professional Standards Research Articles

"You See the World of the Other and You Look at Your Own": The Evolution of the Video in the Villages Project

WHAT PURPOSE DOES ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM SERVE?' Whom is it for? Is it for scientists, television audiences, its subjects? Can there be overlaps or common goals? This is the prickly question underlying much production. It is routinely addressed in practice more than in theory, in part because of the economics of filmmaking. Anthropologists have not found funding either to build filmmaking into fieldwork or to establish a rigorous set of professional standards, although anthropologists such as Jay Ruby have sturdily maintained that they should. At the same time, documentary practice has evolved, divorced from theoretical concerns about scientific accuracy, although documentarians have often capitalized on claims to science (Winston). Ethnographic and visual anthropology have areas of overlap but also occupy different domains. Visual anthropologists, concerned with the politics of representation as well as the challenge of communicating the lived experience of distinct cultures, have struggled from the first generation of anthropology to define an arena within anthropological practice. They have asked questions about the ethics and implications of formal choices in photography, and video. They have grappled with the nature of social scientific claims made for their observations and their moral obligations to their subjects. Some of those people have also been filmmakers. Meanwhile, many filmmakers with no formal training whatsoever claim the mantle of the term ethnographic film, so long as there is a cross-cultural aspect to the subject matter. Some of those people are thoughtful and reflective about their formal choices, relationships with subjects, and role in public. Many of them work without much reflection on the nature of the relationships they will establish between filmmaker and subject and filmmaker and audience. Even when traditional subjects turn into makers, as in the University of Washington's Native Voices program, it is not necessarily integrated with anthropology; Native Voices is a communications department project. Most filmmakers producing outside a purely academic environment are typically chained to production modes that respond to television markets; this ensures that they will adopt formal strategies that stay within the acceptable range for broadcast. Much work produced for the educational marketplace observes the same conventions. Teachers regularly use work that was designed considering the imperatives of commercial or quasi-commercial television markets. Inevitably, both anthropologists (including those trained in visual anthropology and those not) and professional filmmakers have used the term ethnographic film to describe their work. The line between the work of social scientists and the work of professional filmmakers is blurry in the eyes of the viewing public. An example is the The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003). Set in Mongolia, the was crafted from a fictional script devised by Mongolian and Italian coproducers, starring non-actors who were nonetheless cast in their roles and representing the nomadic community as far more isolated than the salt trade it participates in permits it to be, but it was widely reported as an authentic rendering of Mongolian daily life. Any documentary form grapples with the core problem of truthfulness-not only whether any particular fact is correct, not only whether a portrayal is a fair one and set properly in context, but also to whom and why it is relevant. Ethnographic raises this question acutely because the term itself implies otherness-that is a look from outside a culture, giving the audience a glimpse inside it. This claim to provide a privileged gaze heightens the usual ethical questions of documentary. Making the ethical and epistemological questions even more pointed is the common situation in which the subjects of an are members of cultural groups with less power in society and media than the filmmaker. …

A Conceptual Framework for Performance Measurement Development in an Intergovernmental Setting: The Case of Intergovernmental Systems in the USA and Italy

Throughout all levels of government, performance measurement remains an important topic among professional managers and elected officials. The evolution of performance measurement in many cases is driven by professional standard setting bodies, research institutes and occupational associations as much as by state government legislative bodies or governors. At the same time, state and national agencies act as oversight bodies or pass through conduits for sending resources to local government agencies that carry out service delivery functions. This is certainly true in the case of medical care, education and public safety in many countries. The performance of government services in these settings represent a particularly challenging environment from which to assess. The development of and quantification of performance measures in an intergovernmental setting remains an open area for research and examination. In such a setting, the conflicts between principals and agents becomes an important component in the process and potential conflicts over determining the types of performance measures to be used and the process of setting numbers to such measures. Those issues can be considered as being components of the so-called Whole-of-Govenrment (WoG) approach, that is the next generation of the New Public Management. Under the WoG perspective, the public administration is studied and managed under a more holistic strategy, where the focus is not on each single organization, but on the entire network of these organizations and on the integration among them (Bogdanor, 2005; Hood, 2005; Christensen and Laegreid, 2007). This paper seeks to identify the conceptual challenges in measuring and quantify performance in an intergovernmental system. It is believed that such a conceptual framework will guide future empirical research into questions that address the performance of services in an intergovernmental context as well as empirical research into the impact of performance measures in an intergovernmental setting. Two cases studies, one from Italy and the other form the United States, will serve to motivate the framework. In the area of court administration, the US National Center for the State Courts has created a new set of performance management tools called CourTools. The State of Michigan is one of the several states in the United States that is seeking to implement such a system. Michigan will serve as a motivating case study behind the development of the conceptual framework. There are several conceptual challenges in designing and compiling data related to the underlying CourTool measures. For the Italian case, the annual quality-of-life ranking of the 107 Italian territorial provinces published in December each year by Il Sole 24 Ore, the leading national business newspaper, will be analyzed. With its about 40 indicators, it is considered as one of the most important disclosure or, say, moment of truth for local elected officials belonging to the several local government operating at the provincial level. But, after more than twenty years since its first edition, criticism about the way performance indicators are chosen - and changed over time - still remains.

Governing Quality in Teacher Education: Deconstructing Federal Text and Talk

Two dueling national agendas characterize discussions surrounding teacher quality and teacher education reform. For professionalists, teacher quality is synonymous with meeting a set of professional standards. For deregulationists, these standards are roadblocks that deter high‐quality candidates from pursuing jobs in teaching. Despite differences regarding the means for improving teacher quality, both agendas try to depict their ideas as empirically sound, results driven, and in the best interest of the American public. Organized around and extending a framework devised by Cochran‐Smith and Fries (2001), the article analyzes legislation as well as public reports and speeches on teacher education to unpack how the professionalization‐deregulation debate is playing out in federal policy. We find a clear federal preference for deregulating teacher preparation.

The Role of Professional Organizations in Boosting Trust in Financial Business

In today's challenging business climate, a variety of constitutencies in the financial services industry are looking to professional standard setting organizations to establish and promote Best Practices in the marketplace. Such organizations, working with financial services companies and regulators, can accomplish a great deal to promote consumer trust. In addition, there are encouraging indications that the value of professional organizations is being recognized and, therefore, woven into the future regulatory and marketplace infrastructure.

Important Competencies for Future Health and Wellness Professionals: An Investigation of Employer Desired Skills

This study was designed to investigate the validity of the professional competencies developed by the Association of Worksite Health Promotion (AWHP) Professional Standards Task Force. The task force identified a competency framework that included business skills, program coordination skills, and human resource skills with corresponding subskills. The AWHP Task Force also recommended education degrees/certifications and desirable wellness/health promotion on-the-job-experience for program providers. In response to requests by professional organizations, 418 working health professionals voluntarily completed an online survey about the usefulness of the AWHP competency framework. Data were collected from members of the former AWHP (now part of American College of Sports Medicine), the National Wellness Institute, the Health Education Directory, and HPCareer.net. Findings indicate expected skill competencies of health professionals have expanded, and corresponding curriculum adjustments are needed. The results further indicated that continual development of a set of professional standards for the health promotion field is timely and needed.

Ethical ambiguities in the practice of child clinical psychology.

This article presents results from a survey of ethical beliefs about practice dilemmas unique to clinical work with children and adolescents. Survey data suggest that identical practices are not always ethically equivalent, particularly when the developmental status of the client is varied. The survey also reveals widespread ambiguity about what constitutes ethical practice, as manifested both in individual uncertainty and in the absence of group consensus. Ethically guided clinical practice is presented as a far more complex undertaking than adherence to a single set of professional standards.

Ethical ambiguities in the practice of child clinical psychology.

This article presents results from a survey of ethical beliefs about practice dilemmas unique to clinical work with children and adolescents. Survey data suggest that identical practices are not always ethically equivalent, particularly when the developmental status of the client is varied. The survey also reveals widespread ambiguity about what constitutes ethical practice, as manifested both in individual uncertainty and in the absence of group consensus. Ethically guided clinical practice is presented as a far more complex undertaking than adherence to a single set of professional standards.

From Standards to Licensure: Developing an Authentic Assessment for School Principals

The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium funded the development of a licensure assessment based on its Standards for School Leaders. But moving from a set of professional standards to a licensure assessment poses many challenges and raises difficult questions: Which standards should be assessed? How authentic should an authentic assessment be? How can licensure assessment help lead the field to a new pedagogical paradigm, when licensure has typically been reserved for protecting the public? This article explains these challenges and documents the methods used to meet them in the development of the School Leaders Licensure Assessment.

Who Is Competent To Run Primary Care Groups?

PCGs are effectively ‘treating’ whole communities and Debra Humphris argues that this requires a whole new set of professional standards.

Evaluation and public service quality

Public service quality is a recent trend in the context of new public management. During the 1990s, public service quality initiatives have been launched in numerous countries at various levels of government. These initiatives have involved a variety of approaches: professional standard setting, service excellence based on users' perception of quality, government granted rights and choice for consumers, and the activity of consumer movements. Public service quality is considered on three levels: the micro level related to the output of the service delivery, the meso level related to the outcome of the service, and the macro level related to public values. Various stakeholders of evaluations of service quality efforts are identified and their expected use of evaluation is discussed. Three roles of education are described: one in the implementation of public service quality, another in evaluation of the success of service quality initiatives, and a third role of evaluating higher levl outcomes. It is argued that even if evaluation techniques are necessary tools for improving service quality at the micro level during implementation, it is even more important to evaluate these initiatives against higher level policy goals and social values.

Clinical audit: Setting professional standards for counselling services

This paper describes the rationale behind the need to audit counselling services from both a purchasers' and a providers' perspective. It describes what audit is, why it is necessary, how to choose an audit topic, and how to implement audit methods. The process of Professional Standard Setting is documented and the differences and similarities between research and audit are explained. It is contended that all counsellors, whether working privately or for the National Health Service, should implement Quality Assurance and Audit Methods to ensure that clients receive the highest standards of counselling.

Shaping the Future of Physiotherapy with Clinical Care Profiles

Summary This paper reviews the current challenges facing the physiotherapy profession: meeting patients' needs, professional standard setting, measurement of health care outcomes, audit, research and development, the education of staff, organisational restructuring, reprofiling, resource management and contracting. It is argued that some of these challenges can be addressed through the development of multidisciplinary clinical care profiles which are described in relation to the practice of physiotherapy.

The Use of Clinical Care Profiles to Meet the Occupational Therapy Needs of Patients

This article reviews the current challenges facing the occupational therapy profession: meeting patients' needs, professional standard setting, measurement of health care outcomes, audit, research and development, the education of staff, organisational restructuring, reprofiling, resource management and contracting. It is argued that some of these challenges can be met through the development of multidisciplinary, collaborative clinical care profiles, the principles and advantages of which are described in relation to the practice of occupational therapy.

The Effects of Senior Internal Auditor Behaviour on Staff Performance and Satisfaction

Abstract The increasing importance of the internal audit function in the USA is evidenced by the attention focused on this function by professional standard setting bodies (Institute of Internal Auditors, 1989; American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 1991) and an investigatory commission (National Commission on Fraudulent Financial Reporting, 1987). Previous research in both accounting (Jiambalvo and Pratt, 1982; Pratt and Jiambalvo, 1981) and organisational behaviour (see Yukl, 1989 for a review) has identified specific leader behaviours that result in improved performance and satisfaction. Using a recently developed taxonomy unavailable at the time these previous studies were conducted, this study explores the effect of leader (senior internal auditor) behaviours on subunit (internal audit team) performance and subordinate (internal audit staff) satisfaction. The results of this study indicate that audit efficiency is influenced by both task behaviours (e.g. administering discipline) and rel...

The Confirmation Mess

Constitutional theory is widely regarded by scholars as one of the great disasters in contemporary legal thought. None of the popular theories is seen as finally workable, all are contingent and internally chaotic, and the courts that must do the serious work of interpreting the Constitution show no serious interest in any of them. The evermessier business of nominating and confirming Justices to serve on the Supreme Court is, in its way, contributing to the chaos, and things were spiraling downward well before the Senate's decisive rejection of the nomination of Robert Bork. The Senate, unable to agree on the precise role that it should play in the selection process, now finds itself trapped between the notion that it should act to enforce a set of professional standards, reviewing nominees only to ensure that they possess proper qualifications, and the idea that it should inquire deeply into the substantive judicial philosophy of each nominee, to keep from the Court those whose constitutional visions are too extreme for the American people to stomach. Neither of these roles is a useful one for the Senate to play the one because it trivializes the process, the other because it trivializes the Constitution. There is higher ground, however, and this is a small story about how the Senate might get there.