Unsuccessful Participants Research Articles

Perceived Effectiveness of a Drug Treatment Court: Spoken from the Experiences of Participants

ABSTRACT Drug treatment courts aim to rehabilitate adults who were charged with an offense and identified as having a substance use issue. While there is substantial literature on the quantitative effectiveness of drug courts, less attention has been given to qualitative analyses. The present study examined qualitative interviews with drug court participants in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin for both successful and unsuccessful participants at mid-participation and departure. Results suggested both strengths and weaknesses of the drug court, including three overarching themes of motivation, structure, and support. Each of the themes, as well as policy implications, are further discussed.

Imposter Phenomenon in Pediatric Residency: An Empirical Simulation-Based Educational Study.

The imposter phenomenon (IP) may have a negative impact on the ability of healthcare providers to make difficult and accurate decisions. This study presents an empirical approach, segregating the real imposters based on a simulation, and aims to investigate the prevalence and severity of IP and evaluate the attitude in the decision-making process of pediatric residents with impostorism. A simulation-based case study with the 113 pediatric residents was performed with the Clance Imposter Phenomenon Scale to identify IP scores and appropriate management skills for the case. The collected data were divided and combined into different categories based on the IP scale scores and the success of case management to further detect how real imposters were affected. Our study revealed that 24 (21.2%) of residents have moderate, 33 (25.7%) of residents have frequent, and 29 (29.2%) of residents have intense impostorism feelings. The imposter scores were found to be higher among female participants (P = .006). However, when considering the prevalence of significant impostorism (defined as both frequent and intense), there was no statistically significant difference between females and males (P = .088). The data indicated that an increase in IP scores was associated with a higher likelihood of delayed pressing the help button for both the overall and post-exclusion groups (P < .001). The analysis also revealed a significant correlation and a monotonic-linear trend between IP scores and the decision-making process, even after excluding the unsuccessful participants (P < .001). This is the first study to demonstrate the prevalence of IP among pediatric residents, potentially leading to challenges in patient care and resulting in delayed decisionmaking and self-doubt with feelings of inadequacy. The findings support the claim that higher imposter scores are associated with a greater tendency to seek help from more experienced individuals, even when fully capable of managing cases independently. This emphasizes the importance of awareness about the IP, as these factors can directly impact both the well-being of trainees and patient care outcomes.

Qualitative study of perceptions of factors contributing to success or failure among participants in a US weight loss trial of financial incentives and environmental change strategies

BackgroundThe use of financial incentives and environmental change strategies to encourage health behaviour change is increasingly prevalent. However, the experiences of participants in incentive interventions are not well characterised. Examination...

Re-conceptualizing SMART designs as a hybrid of randomized and regression discontinuity designs: opportunities, cautions

ABSTRACT Though previously unacknowledged, a SMART (Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial) design uses both regression discontinuity (RD) and randomized controlled trial (RCT) designs. This combination structure creates a conceptual symbiosis between the two designs that enables both RCT- and previously unrecognized, RD-based inferential claims. In Phase 1, based on a quantitative cut-point, a SMART design yields successful or unsuccessful participants after the initial RCT. In Phase 2, interventions are randomly assigned to successful and unsuccessful, Phase 1 subgroups, thereby yielding both RCT and RD results. Like RCT-based inferences, many but not all newly recognized, RD-based SMART inferences are potentially unbiased. In particular, comparisons between RCT and RD outcomes are potentially problematic. Principles from the within-study comparison literature are used to inform SMART-based research, thereby introducing otherwise ignored inferential and procedural possibilities. Awareness of RD designs embedded within SMARTs encourages previously unrecognized inferential claims, though potential internal validity threats and limitations must be carefully weighed. Finally, new, SMART-like sequences of quasi-experiments and experiments can be tested and embedded logic applied.

Effects of task structure and attribution target on responsibility attributions in human–robot interaction

Responsibility attribution refers to beliefs about the cause of an event or outcome. This study investigates the effects of cooperation and competition on responsibility attributions after success and failure in human–robot interaction. A 2 × 2 × 2 mixed-design experiment was conducted, with task structure (cooperation vs. competition) and attribution target (self vs. robot) as within-subject variables and task outcome (win vs. lose) as a between-subject variable. Forty students from a university campus participated in the experiment. They cooperated with or competed against a humanoid robot in a picture memory game whose outcome either exceeded (success) or did not reach (failure) an expected outcome. Afterward, participants allocated the causal responsibility between themselves and the humanoid robot for a specified performance success or failure. It was found that participants attributed more responsibility for success to themselves than to the humanoid robot, and such self-serving bias was greater in competitive than in cooperative structures. Additionally, participants attributed more responsibility for failure to themselves than to the humanoid robot in cooperative structures but not in competitive structures. Moreover, the competitiveness index of unsuccessful participants moderated the relationship between the task structure and the differential responsibility attribution between the self and the robot. Furthermore, participants evaluated the humanoid robot more positively in cooperative than competitive structures. Finally, participants had higher accuracy in cooperative structures, although they subjectively perceived that they performed better in competitive structures. These findings provide insight to guide people's attributional behavior, task performance, and evaluation of robots in the desired manner from the perspective of task structure design.

Novice nurses’ attention to task-relevant stimuli during practice

Objective: Nurses engaged in practice make split-second decisions based on stimuli perceived in the clinical environment. There has been limited research in nursing on stimuli perception and limited research aimed specifically at directly measuring nurses’ gaze and the subsequent quality of their decisions.Methods: This study used an observational descriptive design to examine nurses’ gaze behaviors as they cared for a simulated patient in three different clinical scenarios. Participants were fitted with eye-tracking goggles that facilitated the recording on video of the focal point of their gaze. The recorded videos were coded to quantify the participants’ areas of focus. For each scenario, visual focus data were compared between participants who successfully resolved the scenarios and those who did not. Results: The results revealed statistically significant differences in areas of focus between successful and unsuccessful participants. While successful participants focused on the patient, unsuccessful participants focused on task-irrelevant environmental cues.Conclusions: The results demonstrate a need for nurse educators to focus their students on the patient, while guiding them to avoid becoming mired in task irrelevant foci and actions.

Misperceiving Economic Success: Experimental Evidence on Meritocratic Beliefs and Inequality Acceptance

Most people tend to equate success with merit, a tendency that is particularly pronounced among conservatives. However, in practice it is exceedingly difficult to discern the relative impact of luck and effort to economic success. Based on a large-scale online study that samples the general US population, we investigate whether individuals misperceive the importance of luck for success, and how this mediates their meritocratic beliefs and acceptance of inequality. We randomly assign participants in pairs to compete in an easy or hard work assignment. The tasks are structured such that working on the easy work assignment almost certainly results in better performance and economic success. We show that economically successful participants overweight the role of effort in their success, perceiving high income as more deserved than unsuccessful participants. Subsequently, they demand less redistributive taxation, and they also show little interest in receiving information about the true determinants of their success. These general findings hold true regardless of political orientation. Successful liberals are as meritocratic as conservatives are, sharing the same beliefs in deservingness and preferences for low redistributive taxes.

Auswahlgespräche an der Medizinischen Hochschule Hannover: Determinanten der Studierendenauswahl im Studiengang Medizin

IntroductionIn order to incorporate social and communicative skills in its student admissions process, Hanover Medical School (MHH) has conducted selection interviews (in combination with the high-school GPA) to choose 60 % of its freshmen in medical studies. The present article analyses if applicants’ performances in the interviews were the determining criterion of student selection, despite a higher weighting of school grades in the admission process. Furthermore, this article checks whether the grading of the interviews was independent of the applicants’ gender, age, origin and educational background. MethodsFor a sample of more than 3,000 successful and unsuccessful participants in the MHH student admission process in the years 2010–2017, we employ variance analysis and logistic regression analysis to determine those factors that have contributed to the chances of being offered a place at the MHH after a successful interview. ResultsThe scores received in the selection interview were the sole determinant of being offered a place at the MHH; neither the applicants’age nor their gender or origin biased the decisions of the selection committees. The grading of the interview was also not affected by school GPAs. DiscussionThe selection interviews at the MHH have been costly in terms of both financial and human resources. However, this selection method has been popular among students and lecturers alike, not least because its elements fit the MHH's focus on early bedside teaching and social skills of prospective physicians. However, there is no evidence that selection interviews are effective in predicting academic success. ConclusionsThe present article has shown that the selection interviews acted up to the principles defined by the MHH: very homogenous high school GPAs were complemented by differentiated interview assessments that did not discriminate by sociodemographic characteristics. It is, however, unclear if the MHH will resume the interviews after the end of a federally mandated halt to stand-alone selection methods at medical schools in Germany.

The Influence of Physiological and Psychological Learning Mechanisms in Neurofeedback vs. Mental Imagery Against Binge Eating

In biofeedback research, the debate on physiological versus psychological learning has a long tradition and is still relevant today, regarding new developments of biofeedback for behavior modification. Analyzing the role of these learning mechanisms may help improving the protocols and answer the question, whether feedback of physiological functions is necessary to modify a target behavior. We explored the presence and impact of physiological (EEG changes) versus psychological learning (changes in somatic self-efficacy) in a recently developed EEG neurofeedback protocol for binge eating. The protocol targets a reduction of food-cue induced cortical arousal through regulation of EEG high beta activity. In an experimental study accompanying a randomized controlled trial, pre and post treatment EEG measurements were analyzed in a neurofeedback group (n = 18) and an active mental imagery control group without physiological feedback (n = 18). Physiological learning in terms of EEG high beta reduction only occurred in the neurofeedback group. Post treatment, participants with successfully reduced binge eating episodes (≥ 50% reduction) showed lower EEG high beta activity than unsuccessful participants (p = .02) after neurofeedback, but not after mental imagery. Further, lower EEG high beta activity at post-treatment predicted fewer binge eating episodes in neurofeedback only. In mental imagery, somatic self-efficacy predicted treatment success instead of EEG activity. Altogether, the results indicate that physiological changes serve as a specific treatment mechanism in neurofeedback against binge eating. Reducing cortical arousal may improve eating behaviors and corresponding neurofeedback techniques should therefore be considered in future treatments.

How does symbolic success affect redistribution in left-wing voters? A focus on the 2017 French presidential election.

Redistribution preferences depend on factors such as self-interest and political views. Recently, Deffains et al. (2016) reported that redistributive behavior is also sensitive to the actual experience of success or failure in a real effort task. While successful participants ('overachievers') are more likely to attribute their success to their effort rather than luck and opt for less redistribution, unsuccessful participants ('underachievers') tend to attribute their failure to external factors and opt for more redistribution. The aim of the present study was to test how the experience of success (symbolic success) and political views interact in producing redistributive behavior in an experimental setting. The study was conducted during the 2017 French presidential election. Our sample was biased towards left-wing, and most participants reported voting for Mélenchon, Hamon or Macron. Our findings reveal that 1) Macron voters redistribute less than Hamon voters who themselves redistribute less than Mélenchon voters, 2) overachievers redistribute less than underachievers only among Mélenchon voters. This suggests that redistributive behavior is governed primarily by political opinions, and that influence by exogenous manipulation of symbolic success is not homogenous across left-wing political groups.

SPORCU VE SEDANTERLERDE CORE STABİLİZASYON KUVVETİNİN DENGE ÜZERİNE ETKİLERİNİN İNCELENMESİ

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect to core stabilization strength of sports habit and consequently to look into the effect to individuals’ balance. 25 sedentary females, 25 athlete females and 25 sedentary males, 25 athlete males totaly 100 individuals participated in this study. Core stabilization and strength test, flamingo balance test, Y balance test, were used in this study. Data are analyzed with SPSS 21 packet programme. When the obtained results are considered, all of sedentary females are fail on core stabilitazion test. When the successful and unsuccessful participants in core stabilization test are considered, two results found as: firstly, there is a significant difference between static balance, anterior plane of Y balance test (p<0.05); secondly there is a significant difference between posterolateral and posteromedial of Y balance test (p<0.01). After the study, it is determined that that is a positive correlation between the core stabilization strength with balance. Core stabilization strength affect significantly the sport performance. We think that coachs and athletes surely have to add the exercises improving the core stabilization strength to their training programme.

What Went Wrong for Bad Solvers during Thematic Map Analysis? Lessons Learned from an Eye-Tracking Study

Thematic map analysis is a complex and challenging task that might result in map user failure for many reasons. In the study reported here, we wanted to search for differences between successful and unsuccessful map users, focusing—unlike many similar studies—on strategies applied by users who give incorrect answers. In the eye-tracking study, followed by a questionnaire survey, we collected data from 39 participants. The eye-tracking data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively to compare participants’ strategies from various perspectives. Unlike the results of some other studies, it turned out that unsuccessful participants show some similarities that are consistent across most analyzed tasks. The main issues that characterize bad solvers relate to improper use of the thematic legend, the inability to focus on relevant map layout elements, as well as on adequate map content. Moreover, they differed in the general problem-solving approach used as they, for example, tended to choose fast, less cautious, strategies. Based on the collected results, we developed tips that could help prevent unsuccessful participants ending with an incorrect answer and therefore be beneficial in map use education.

Сryptocurrency as a Product of Development of the Modern Information and Economic Environment

It is necessary to systematize and classify cryptocurrency as a product of modern information and financial technologies and to analyze its genetic relations with other modern financial assets that traded on the currency markets. It is important to clear up to what extent the cryptocurrency is related to commodity or fiat money. The research was based on the methods of statistical and comparative analysis, graphic, dialectical, historical and logical methods. Cryptocurrency is neither full option money – not fulfilling all the monetary functions, nor a financial instrument – not creating requirements and obligations. Cryptocurrency cannot be considered as a fiat money, because the state is not to ensure its issue. The essential difference between cryptocurrency and private money lies in the fact that a private person stands behind the latter. It is possible to classify cryptocurrency as fiduciary money, the existence and functioning of which is provided by public trust. The research results allow much more deeply and comprehensively understanding of the nature of cryptocurrency. It gives a possibility to form an effective anti-crisis financial policy. Cryptocurrency is the second derivative of classical financial assets. It is a tool for redistributing social wealth from its customers, secondary owners, and unsuccessful participants of this pyramid in favor of creators, primary owners of cryptocurrency, and successful participants of the crypto-pyramid. Cryptocurrency is a tool of primitive accumulation. By using dialectical logic by analogy to economic history it is possible to conclude that in the world of cryptocurrency, the period of competitive ‘wild capitalism’ was ended and the period of ‘monopoly capitalism’ has begun.Article received 24.04.2019

A Quantitative Study of a Drug Treatment Court in a Western Canadian City: Post-sentencing and Reoffence Outcomes

Drug treatment courts (DTCs) have been proposed as an alternative to custody that will better deal with drug-dependent offenders through application of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ). While DTC proponents emphasize the positive aspects of the judicial involvement and intense treatment that most courts provide, critics observe that there are many punitive aspects to DTCs. Frequent court appearances, curfews, urinalysis, multiple bail conditions, and delayed sentencing can be viewed as extensions of coercive social control rather than as benevolent measures intended to help offenders. Further, critics of Canadian DTCs have challenged the efficacy of treatment. This paper seeks to add to a limited Canadian research literature by examining a DTC in the Prairie city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Two samples are used: sample 1 examines sentencing outcomes and reoffence data for 199 DTC admissions from 2006 to 2014; sample 2 is employed for a quasi-experimental comparative recidivism study using a propensity score matching determined sample of 63 DTC cases with 167 adult probationers from 2010–12. Graduates showed lower rates of reoffence compared to unsuccessful cases. Sentencing outcomes showed that unsuccessful participants were most often incarcerated when re-sentenced on original charges. Probation cases reoffended at higher rates than the matched DTC group. Administrative violations were still higher than in the probation group, and may actually result in an inflated reoffence rate for Canadian DTCs. Policy implications and directions for further research are discussed.

Constraints on organic chemistry students’ reasoning during IR and 1H NMR spectral interpretation

Promoting students’ ability to engage in discipline-specific practices is a central goal of chemistry education. Yet if instruction is to meaningfully foster such ability, we must first understand students’ reasoning during these practices. By characterizing constraints on chemistry students’ reasoning, we can design instruction that targets this constrained reasoning and ultimately promotes more sophisticated ways of thinking. For this study, we investigated reasoning used by 18 organic chemistry students at a large university in the United States as they evaluated the success of chemical syntheses through IR and 1H NMR spectral interpretation, a common task of practicing chemists. Students completed a series of interpretation tasks while having their eye movements tracked and then participated in semi-structured, cued retrospective think-aloud (RTA) interviews about their reasoning during spectral interpretation. RTA interviews were analyzed qualitatively to characterize invalid chemical assumptions and heuristic reasoning strategies used by participants, both of which science education literature identifies as fundamental constraints to learning. The most problematic assumptions and heuristics, i.e., those used more frequently by unsuccessful participants, were then identified through statistical analysis. Findings suggest that the most problematic constraints on students’ reasoning during spectral interpretation constitute a combination of particular invalid chemical assumptions and heuristic reasoning strategies.

Turkish board of neurological surgery

To provide information on the process and the results of the Turkish Board of Neurological Surgery and increase the relevant awareness. The number of applications to the written and oral board exams organized by the Turkish Neurosurgical Society Proficiency Board since 2006, the number of successful and unsuccessful participants, and the number of the neurosurgery residents and specialists who applied to the exam were evaluated. A total of 554 candidates took the exam since 2006 when the first TBNS was applied. Two hundred and sixty of the candidates were successful (46.9%), and 294 (53.1%) were unsuccessful. Two hundred and forty six (44.4%) of those who took the test were neurosurgeons, 308 (55.6%) were neurosurgery residents who had completed their 3rd year in their training. The highest score in the written exams was 93/100, and the lowest score was 33/100. In verbal exams, a total of 73 candidates participated, and 66 (90.4 %) of them were successful while 7 of them (9.6%) were unsuccessful. Board exams are inevitable to provide a certain level of education and standardization in the training of neurosurgery. Our duty as neurosurgeons is to participate in these exams and work to increase participation for continuing education.

Patients' Reported Usage of Weight Management Skills Following Bariatric Surgery.

Little is known about which specific weight management skills bariatric patients find most and least valuable. Participants completed a measure assessing their usage of weight management skills at a follow-up appointment one or more years after undergoing bariatric surgery. Decreased usage of skills was associated with unsuccessful weight outcome, defined as losing less than 50% of excess weight, as well as weight regain. Weighing regularly was the skill selected most often by successful participants as helpful, and was chosen by a significantly smaller percentage of unsuccessful participants and those who regained a clinically significant amount of weight. A majority of both successful and unsuccessful participants indicated that they had discontinued food journaling. Weighing regularly may be perceived as a more useful method of self-monitoring.

Effects of Instrumental Success and Failure on Perceptions of Underaccommodative Messages and Sources

Guided by communication accommodation theory, this study examined how the success or failure of accomplishing an instrumental goal affects people’s perceptions of objectively underaccommodative messages and corresponding sources. Participants (N = 141) completed two map-based tasks that required them to follow directions that contained insufficient information (i.e., were underaccommodative). Participants received feedback about their accuracy in completing the task. Consistent with predictions, successful participants perceived the directions as more accommodative and clear, and inferred more positive motives and higher levels of perspective-taking by the direction-giver (compared to unsuccessful participants). These results identify instrumental success/failure as a factor that leads people to interpret the same communication adjustments differently, and that contributes to perceptions of communication adjustments as problematic.

Pd-catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling of [Ph2SR][OTf] with arylboronic acids

The Pd-catalyzed Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling of alkyl- and fluoroalkyl(diphenyl)sulfonium triflates with arylboronic acids was compared. The fluorine substitution on the alkyl groups of [Ph2SR][OTf] had a big influence on the reaction. Perfluoroalkyl(diphenyl)sulfonium triflates (2b–d) were unsuccessful participants in the Pd-catalyzed phenylation of arylboronic acid under the standard conditions because of the strong electronegativity of the long-chain perfluoroalkyl groups, which underwent SRfn bond cleavage instead. Polyfluoroalkyl(diphenyl)sulfonium triflates (2f–h) reacted with arylboronic acid to afford the phenylation product in very low yields due to the tendency of deprotonation and β-F elimination of the sulfonium salts. Eventually, (2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)diphenylsulfonium triflate (2e), methyl- or ethyl(diphenyl)sulfonium triflate (2i or 2j), and triphenylsulfonium triflate (2m) were found to be more effective reagents than other tested phenylsulfounium salts for Pd-catalyzed phenylation, which provided much higher yields of the desired products under mild conditions.

Political self-serving bias and redistribution

We explore the impact of the self-serving bias on the supply and demand for redistribution. We present results from an experiment in which participants decide on redistribution after performing a real effort task. Dependent on individual performance, participants are divided into two groups, successful and unsuccessful. Participants' success is exogenously determined, because they are randomly assigned to either a hard or easy task. However, because participants are not told which task they were assigned to, there is ambiguity as to whether success or failure should be attributed to internal or external factors. Participants take two redistribution decisions. First, they choose a supply of redistribution in a situation where no personal interests are at stake. Second, they choose a redistributive system behind a veil of ignorance. Our results confirm and expand previous findings on the self-serving bias: successful participants are more likely to attribute their success to their effort rather than luck, and they opt for less redistribution. Unsuccessful participants tend to attribute their failure to external factors and opt for more redistribution. We demonstrate that the self-serving bias contributes to a polarization of the views on redistribution.