Tacit Assumption Research Articles

Walking backwards into the future of health professional practice

Health professional education needs to be designed so that future practitioners are well equipped for clinical and professional challenges. While the biomedical model has enabled major biological advances in all health professions, its inherent presuppositions have prevented progress in many of the more complex issues within healthcare, examples being health inequities, somatisation, chronic pain and student/clinician burnout. We suggest that students learn about the scientific origins and tacit assumptions of the biomedical model, such as reductionism, biological plausibility and clinical objectivity. Critical reflection, including interprofessional discussion, can enable students to explore its strengths and limitations. Although biomedicine will remain the dominant paradigm in both training and clinical practice, other “ways of seeing” may be helpful, including biopsychosocial and Indigenous models. Complexity sciences now provide additional understandings of human physiology and socio-cultural processes within healthcare and could also be taught explicitly as core curricula. Student-selected components may enable faculty to pilot educational initiatives in relation to specific professional challenges, which could then be further developed for all students. Critical reflection and teaching innovation are core values of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Health Professional Educators (ANZAHPE). “Walking backwards into the future” in healthcare education means identifying and critiquing our taken-for-granted assumptions, then providing future clinicians with broader frameworks and skills to respond more effectively to persistent challenges in healthcare.

The role of network structure in integrated water management: a case study of collaboration and influence for adopting nature-based solutions

IntroductionIntegrated water management (IWM) involves a range of policies, actions, and organizational processes that go beyond traditional hydrology to consider multifaceted aspects of complex water resource systems. Due to its transdisciplinary nature, IWM comprises input from diverse stakeholders, each with unique perceptions, values, and experiences. However, stakeholders from differing backgrounds may disagree on best practices and collective paths forward. As such, successful IWM must address key governance principles (e.g., information flow, collective decision-making, and power relations) across social and institutional scales. Here, we sought to demonstrate how network structure impacts shared decision-making within IWM.MethodsWe explored a case study in Houston, Texas, USA, where decision-making stakeholders from various sectors and levels of governance engaged in a participatory modeling workshop to improve adoption of nature-based solutions (NBS) through IWM. The stakeholders used fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) to define an IWM model comprising multifaceted elements and their interrelationships, which influenced the adoption of NBS in Houston. We applied grounded theory and inductive reasoning to categorize tacit belief schemas regarding how stakeholders viewed themselves within the management system. We then used FCM-based modeling to explore how unique NBS policies would translate into more (or less) NBS adoption. Finally, we calculated specific network metrics (e.g., density, hierarchy, and centrality indices) to better understand the structure of human-water relations embedded within the IWM model. We compared the tacit assumptions about stakeholder roles in IWM against the quantitative degrees of influence and collectivism embedded within the stakeholder-defined model.Results and discussionOur findings revealed a mismatch between stakeholders' external belief statements about IWM and their internal assumptions through cognitive mapping and participatory modeling. The case study network was characterized by a limited degree of internal coordination (low density index), high democratic potential (low hierarchy index), and high-efficiency management opportunities (high centrality index), which transcended across socio-institutional scales. These findings contrasted with several of the belief schemas described by stakeholders during the group workshop. We describe how ongoing partnership with the stakeholders resulted in an opportunity for adaptive learning, where the NBS planning paradigm began to shift toward trans-scale collaboration aimed at high-leverage management opportunities. We emphasize how network analytics allowed us to better understand the extent to which key governance principles drove the behavior of the IWM model, which we leveraged to form deeper stakeholder partnerships by identifying hidden opportunities for governance transformation.

Chinese international students’ wellbeing: Experiences of assessment in higher education

While there is growing research identifying the academic and nonacademic challenges to the wellbeing of Chinese international students, there is little discussion about the differences in and challenges of the assessment they experience. This gap appears to come from a tacit assumption that assessment is universal worldwide, or that students will automatically learn strategies to deal with all the contrasts in assessment themselves. Based on personal experience, literature review and the interview responses of a group of Chinese international students’ in the UK answers are sought to three research questions regarding their experiences. Academic hospitality is the theoretical underpinning of the research as this emphasises the bilateral collaboration between international students and higher education providers to support students’ successful transition. The findings show that most participants were surprised and confused about the variety of assessment formats, the expected answers for assessment, and the autonomous learning they experienced in the UK, which were diverse from previous experience in China. While most Chinese students used similar strategies when they first encountered assessment in British universities, they developed new strategies when they realised the diverse expectations. These Chinese internationals needed ongoing support for assessment from the whole university.

The techno-politics of human rights: The case of the National Food Security Act in India

To attend to the techno-politics of human rights is to bring into focus how tacit assumptions and norms about human dignity are rendered into technical, or implementable, legal frameworks and governmental interventions. Drawing on legal geography, an analytics of governmentality of human rights, and Nancy Fraser’s “politics of need interpretation,” this article presents an ethnographic examination of how the right to food, and its related normative principles, were translated and ratified, or not, into a food entitlement law, called the National Food Security Act (NFSA). It scrutinizes how the judiciary, para-public, and legislative lawmaking spaces in India have framed the formulation of what the hungry may need and how the state develop legal tools to satisfy (some of) those needs. Human rights policy-making is complex and messy. As this article shows, bringing into focus the technical and procedural process of human rights lawmaking reveals how which interpretation of food security needs were legitimized and which ones were not.

Effect-less? Event-files are not terminated by distal action effects

Event-files that bind features of stimuli, responses, and action effects figure prominently in contemporary views of action control. When a previous feature repeats, a previous event-file is retrieved and can influence current performance. It is unclear, however, what terminates an event-file. A tacit assumption is that registering the distal (e.g., visual or auditory) sensory consequences of an action (i.e., the “action effect”) terminates the event-file, thereby making it available for retrieval. We tested three different action-effect conditions (no distal action effect, visual action effect, or auditory action effect) in the same stimulus-response (S-R) binding task and observed no modulation of S-R binding effects. Instead, there were comparably large binding effects in all conditions. This suggests that proximal (e.g., somatosensory, proprioceptive) action effects terminate event-files independent of distal (e.g., visual, auditory) action effects or that the role event-file termination plays for S-R binding effects needs to be corrected. We conclude that current views of action control require further specification.

Governance of disaster emergency wells in three cities in Japan affected by earthquakes

Concern has grown regarding how public and private sectors should make effective use of local groundwater to alleviate negative impacts of water-supply cutoff following an earthquake event, which can be regarded as an emergency groundwater governance problem. Existing literature on groundwater governance, however, is based on the tacit assumption of groundwater utilization under normal social conditions, and scant consideration has been given to the role of groundwater following occurrence of a natural disaster. This study conducted questionnaire surveys to reveal how groundwater was used in three cities (Kumamoto, Sapporo, and Sendai) in Japan struck by large earthquakes between 2010 and 2020. Results revealed substantial differences between these cities in terms of groundwater utilization following earthquake occurrence. The time between the restoration of the electricity supply and restoration of the waterworks, and the social capital accumulated by local governments, are indicated as possible reasons for such differences. Analysis also identified policy challenges for improved groundwater governance in an emergency: (1) establishment of a strategy for emergency water supply through combined use of groundwater and other water sources, (2) enhancement of methods for timely inspection of groundwater quality following occurrence of a disaster, (3) maintenance of records of the number of registered disaster emergency wells (DEWs), (4) creation of methods for publicizing locational information on DEWs with adequate regard for the privacy of well owners, and (5) recognition of the importance of making DEWs part of overall disaster preparedness.

Thought Experiments and Conceptual Analysis in Ethics

In recent years a lot of metaphilosophical attention has been paid to the role of thought experiments in philosophical inquiry. According to the popular picture, thought experiments are among the most prominent methods for conceptual analysis. However, it is also often claimed that thought experiments in ethics differ from those that are used in other fields of philosophy as being of a different nature—they are not about the concepts, but rather about the things in the world (what those things exactly are depends on the particular metaethical theory one subscribes to). In the paper I argue that this claim is wrong. Conceptual analysis is of a huge value to ethics for it substantially helps to clarify the concepts one uses while making a moral judgment. It is very often the case that the apparent moral disagreement between two subjects turns out to be superficial since it is rooted in the misunderstanding on the conceptual level, for example when one uses some concept equivocally. Moreover, through thought experiments conceptual analysis can help to bring out the tacit assumptions that relate to the concepts involved.

Unconscious bias in the HRM literature: Towards a critical-reflexive approach

This article presents a systematic review of the human resource management (HRM) literature to document how the term “unconscious bias” is defined, theorized, and operationalized in a sample of 518 articles in the field. The review identifies four main thematic streams in which unconscious bias is commonly discussed: (1) the biased individual; (2) bias as binary; (3) bias in moments of decisions; and (4) bias as a fixable issue. Based on this thematic mapping of the literature, a critical-reflexive approach is outlined to shed light on and challenge taken-for-granted assumptions, interrogate how arguments are brought forth and open up new avenues for future research. This article contributes to the existing HRM literature in three ways. First, it shows patterns in existing theory, making explicit the inconsistencies and tacit assumptions in the ways in which unconscious bias is theorized in HRM research. Second, it presents a critical-reflexive approach to researching unconscious bias. Third, based on this approach, it suggests avenues for future research on how to move beyond these inconsistencies and assumptions.

Soundings on a Relational Epistemology: Encountering Indigenous Knowledge through Interwoven Experience

ABSTRACT Engagement with concepts of Indigenous knowledge can generate valuable conversation on what knowledge is within diverse cultures and their interactions, enriching the intellectual frameworks guiding collaborative research with Indigenous Australian communities. However, significant limitations of this term can be shown by looking to specific traditions of thought and performance within Indigenous Australia. In this article, I argue that use of the term Indigenous knowledge often carries tacit epistemological assumptions that obscure various relational and participatory dynamics of knowledge. This can be seen in tendencies to utilise the term as a marker of cultural separation rather than looking to the ways distinct traditions allow relational growth across cultural differences. I develop this critique with reference to Yolŋu manikay (public ceremonial song) as it foregrounds interactivity between different peoples and places as integral to meaningful engagement with ancestral traditions. These observations echo recent methodological work within Australian ethnomusicology, in which collaborative research activities prioritise ceremonial revitalisation and archival repatriation over ethnographic documentation. I suggest this focus might be further consolidated by emphasising characteristics such as respect, attentiveness and friendship, which can motivate collaborative research and constitute knowledge within unique localities of people and place.

Conformation-dependent ligand hot spots in the spliceosomal RNA helicase BRR2.

The conversion of hits to leads in drug discovery involves the elaboration of chemical core structures to increase their potency. In fragment-based drug discovery, low-molecular-weight compounds are tested for protein binding and are subsequently modified, with the tacit assumption that the binding mode of the original hit will be conserved among the derivatives. However, deviations from binding mode conservation are rather frequently observed, but potential causes of these alterations remain incompletely understood. Here, two crystal forms of the spliceosomal RNA helicase BRR2 were employed as a test case to explore the consequences of conformational changes in the target protein on the binding behaviour of fragment derivatives. The initial fragment, sulfaguanidine, bound at the interface between the two helicase cassettes of BRR2 in one crystal form. Second-generation compounds devised by structure-guided docking were probed for their binding to BRR2 in a second crystal form, in which the original fragment-binding site was altered due to a conformational change. While some of the second-generation compounds retained binding to parts of the original site, others changed to different binding pockets of the protein. A structural bioinformatics analysis revealed that the fragment-binding sites correspond to predicted binding hot spots, which strongly depend on the protein conformation. This case study offers an example of extensive binding-mode changes during hit derivatization, which are likely to occur as a consequence of multiple binding hot spots, some of which are sensitive to the flexibility of the protein.

Fear of the Past

A widespread (and often tacit) assumption is that fear is an anticipatory emotion and, as such, inherently future-oriented. Prima facie, such an assumption is threatened by cases where we seem to be afraid of things in the past: if it is possible to fear the past, then fear entertains no special relation with the future—or so some have argued. This seems to force us to choose between an account of fear as an anticipatory emotion (supported by pre-theoretical intuitions as well as empirical research in psychology) and admitting cases of past-oriented fear. In this paper, we argue for a proposal that dissolves this dilemma. Our claim is: with the right account in place, the future-orientation of fear can be made compatible with, and is actually explanatory of, cases where we are genuinely afraid of something in the past. So, there is no need to choose: fear is still future-oriented, even when we are genuinely afraid of things in the past. The key is a correct understanding of what fear’s temporal orientation amounts to, and the framework we offer here provides us with such an understanding.

Why is one study technique superior to another?

Reviewers on manuscripts or grant proposals often react positively if authors use in-favor study techniques and negatively if authors use not-in-favor study techniques. A tacit assumption is that the in-favor technique is superior to alternate techniques. However, study techniques for theory testing depend on auxiliary assumptions that connect nonobservational terms in theories with observational terms in empirical hypotheses. Therefore, the extent to which a technique is useful depends on the theory and empirical hypothesis under investigation. A technique might be useful from one theoretical perspective and not useful from another theoretical perspective. Or a technique might successfully connect to one empirical hypothesis but not another. The present work threshes out some of the relevant philosophical issues.

Physical Characteristics and Settings in Teacher Images: Student Perceptions of the Profession

Examining tacit assumptions of teachers using images can benefit new teachers as they begin to formulate their own teacher identities. Such reflection can proactively change potentially uninformed or negative assumptions.

Effects of Water Deuteration on Thermodynamic and Structural Properties of Proteins and Biomembranes.

Light and heavy water are often used interchangeably in spectroscopic experiments with the tacit assumption that the structure of the investigated biomolecule does not depend too much on employing one or the other solvent. While this may often be a good approximation, we demonstrate here using molecular dynamics simulations incorporating nuclear quantum effects via modification of the interaction potential that there are small but significant differences. Namely, as quantified and discussed in the present study, both proteins and biomembranes tend to be slightly more compact and rigid in D2O than in H2O, which reflects the stronger hydrogen bonding in the former solvent.

Populism à la Carte: The paradoxical political communication of Narendra Modi on Twitter

AbstractHow and where is democracy ‘hacked’? Studies examining the variability of the populist discourse rely on the—often tacit—assumption that global digital platforms are used similarly from one country to the other. By examining political rhetoric on Twitter, we show that populist communication is tailored to a particular audience profile rather than a particular social media (SM). More specifically, we compare Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tweets with his addresses on multiple mediums. We describe how Modi uses wide‐reaching media such as radio to unfold a populist narrative based on institutional disintermediation, layman's language, counselling and the staging of an intimate conversation with the masses. Modi uses more elitist and cosmopolitan SM sites in India, such as Twitter, to mitigate his populist credentials, and introduce himself as a respectable democratic leader favouring multilateral collaborations, banal nationalism and Gandhian peace‐building. The variability of his political rhetoric across seven address formats indicates that Modi is populist tactically rather than ideologically, which complicates the tenets of the dominant ‘ideational’ populist paradigm. To further ground our argument empirically, we venture into comparing Modi's and Trump's tweets. We suggest that due to the popularity of Twitter in the United States, it was strategically useful for the former President of the United States to act populist on the platform, while that is not the case for Modi. This tends to indicate that not enough attention is given to intermedium studies that complement comparisons between states/regions with comparisons nested within a coherent political space.

Distrust: A critical review exploring a universal distrust sequence

ABSTRACT In this article, we review the distrust literature and explore whether the universal sequence for trust as outlined by Dietz (2011) and Dietz and Den Hartog (2006) is also true for distrust. Compared to trust, there is much less research on distrust, although the field has been rapidly developing in recent years. We argue that it is time to explore a universal sequence for distrust to take stock of current knowledge and to focus the empirical and conceptual research. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that such a universal sequence is a valuable framework for distrust research. This analytical exercise also forces us to identify tacit assumptions that frame and guide much of the current distrust (and trust) research. In so doing, we identify two main areas that require more attention: 1) the definition of distrust and its relation to trust and 2) the universal sequences and their dynamics. These findings lead to avenues for further research.

Critical Reflections on Conducting Qualitative Health Research During COVID-19: The Lived Experiences of a Cohort of Postgraduate Students in a South African University.

COVID-19 ushered in public health guidelines restricting face-to-face contact and movement, and encouraging social distancing, all of which had implications for conducting field-based research during the pandemic. For qualitative researchers, this meant adapting conventional face-to-face methods and resorting to virtual variations of the same in adherence to stipulated COVID-19 health protocols. Virtual qualitative research introduced new concerns and logistical challenges. This paper presents critical reflections on experiences of conducting qualitative research during the pandemic, from the perspectives of a cohort of postgraduate fellows. A critical reflection framework was utilised to explore fellows experiences and meanings ascribed to their experiences. The research findings illustrate three overarching processes which, in turn, shaped ways of thinking, doing and being. First, explicating tacit assumptions about their anticipated research journeys and interrogating these. Second, shifts in power differentials demonstrated by role reversal between researchers and participants, and between fellows and supervisors as they re-negotiated their positionalities in virtual research spaces. Third, context specific sense-making, in which - narrative accounts support the notion of knowledge as a social construct. Our findings have important implications for qualitative research practice. Our study documents methodological nuances and social implications of conducting qualitative research during COVID-19 and in a-South African context. In addition, our study exemplifies the use of critical reflection in qualitative research practice in the specific context of postgraduate academic research. Further, our study illustrates how the use of technology shapes qualitative research protocol development, data collection and analysis phases.

26. In The Minds Eye: Cognitive Dexterity Amongst Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeons

Head & neck surgeons are heavily reliant on radiological imaging for the diagnosis, treatment planning and delivery of care in a wide range of specialities. A detailed knowledge and understanding of surgical anatomy is of course crucial in performing procedures safely. Cross-sectional imaging requires the surgeon to mentally reconstruct these images in 3D utilising 'the minds eye' allowing the individual to perform the surgical procedure with this knowledge in advance. There is a tacit assumption that all surgeons visualise the same mentally reconstructed images. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the differences in the ability to cognitively reconstruct cross-sectional images into a 3D form.

The transmission of gender stereotypes through televised patterns of nonverbal bias.

One tacit assumption in social psychology is that people learn gender stereotypes from their environments. Yet, little research has examined how such learning might occur: What are the features of social environments that shape people's gender stereotypes? We propose that nonverbal patterns communicate intersubjective gender norms (i.e., what behaviors people value in women and girls vs. men and boys). Furthermore, we propose that children develop intersubjective gender norms in part because they are commonly and consistently exposed to these nonverbal patterns. Across three studies, we tested the hypotheses that (a) children are frequently exposed to a nonverbal pattern of gender-role bias in which people respond more positively to gender-stereotypical than counterstereotypical girls and boys and (b) emotionally perceptive girls extract meaning from this pattern about what behaviors others value in girls (traditionally feminine behavior) and boys (traditionally masculine behavior). Study 1 indicated that characters across 12 popular U.S. children's TV programs exhibited a small, but consistent nonverbal bias favoring gender-stereotypical TV characters. In Study 2, girls (N = 68; 6-10 years) felt more pressure to be feminine after viewing TV clips that included traditional nonverbal bias than after viewing clips that reversed this bias. As predicted, these results held only to the extent that children could accurately decode nonverbal emotion (i.e., were emotionally perceptive). Study 3 replicated these results (N = 91; 6-11 years). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Case for Core Competency and Competent Corps: Using Polarity Management to Illuminate Tensions in Training.

The Case for Core Competency and Competent Corps: Using Polarity Management to Illuminate Tensions in Training.