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Does testing young children influence educational attainment and wellbeing?
Full text linkShould young children be tested? Proponents view early testing as a necessary instrument for early targeting. Others consider it detrimental to child mental health and with little impact on educational performance. We exploit variation in low-stakes test-taking in mathematics amongst primary school children in Norway, traditionally a low-testing environment. We examine the introduction of difficult mathematics tests. These tests were introduced to provide information for a larger randomised controlled trial (RCT) in Norwegian primary schools. We demonstrate zero effects of testing exposure on educational attainment, but evidence of heterogenous effects across gender and educational background of children. We find no negative effects on student welfare, but testing improves student perceptions of teaching practices, feedback and engagement.publishedVersio
Building a Community Among Multicultural Healthcare Teams in Nursing Homes: A Qualitative Study of the International Caregiver Development Programme (ICDP)
Full text linkBackground: Healthcare workers in nursing homes are an educationally, experientially, culturally and linguistically diverse workforce who face increasing challenges in their working conditions. Studies indicate positive results with regard to coopera tion and care from experiencing a sense of community in diverse healthcare teams.
Aim: This qualitative study aimed to explore healthcare workers' experiences of being part of a team in nursing homes before, during and after their participation in a psychosocial competence building intervention, the International Caregiver Development Programme (ICDP).
Methods: Fifteen focus group interviews of five ICDP group courses were conducted before, during and after participation in ICDP with 31 cross-cultural healthcare workers in nursing homes. The findings emerged through hermeneutic analysis. The results were compared with the open responses in an anonymous written evaluation. Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) served as a framework for reporting this study.
Results: Before ICDP, the participants reported a lack of communication regarding priorities, challenges in interactions with the residents and cultural and linguistic diversity among the healthcare workers. During participation in ICDP, they described increased knowledge and understanding of one another in addition to inspiring each other and acknowledging each other's di versity as healthcare workers. After completing ICDP, they experienced a sense of relational and practical community, a sense of pride in the team, increased self-confidence related to practice and increased job satisfaction.
Conclusion: This study indicated that ICDP has the potential to create a community of psychosocial practice in multicultural healthcare teams, which may be strengthened by experiences of mastery, confidence and pride. The participants in this study developed a common conceptual framework for understanding, prioritising and practising psychosocial care. The community seemed to facilitate cooperation between them and increase their job satisfaction.
Implications for Practice: Healthcare workers in nursing homes need time and space to share experiences to establish relation ships that increase the quality of cooperation. While diversity among healthcare workers in nursing homes can pose challenges, participating in psychosocial competence building interventions like the ICDP can help it to be viewed as a valuable source of inspiration and means of preventing discrimination against migrant healthcare workers. More research is needed regarding how the ICDP can prevent discrimination and underestimation of migrant healthcare workers.publishedVersio
Navigating the Labor Market: A Study of Immigrant Domestic Care Workers in Rural Southern Europe
Full text linkThis study examines the factors driving employment, adaptation strategies, and labor market trajectories of female, immigrant domestic care workers in rural southern Europe. Through thematic analysis of fieldwork data collected in Potenza (Italy) and Teruel (Spain), it explores the interaction between local labor market dynamics and these workers’ migrant capital. Contributing to a body of literature that has largely overlooked the rural dimension of this conversation, the study emphasizes the importance of considering both individual as well as contextual factors when analyzing the diverse labor market trajectories of these workers. Findings suggest that limited access to quality employment, significant elderly care needs, and close-knit social contexts shape their labor market experiences in various ways. Despite facing “migrant penalties,” many adapt by acquiring skills, building networks, and navigating systemic barriers, including restrictive immigration policies. That said, precarious job conditions at times compel some of them to relocate to more dynamic regions or leave the sector.acceptedVersio
Perceptions of migrant domestic workers in rural Southern Europe: Insights from Italy and Spain
Full text linkThis study examined perceptions and sentiments toward female migrant domestic workers providing elderly care in two “predominantly rural” Southern European provinces: Potenza in Italy and Teruel in Spain. We analyzed field observations, interviews, and conversations collected mainly in small towns and villages. Our goal was to better understand how migrant domestic workers were perceived across different societal levels in their rural communities, the factors that shaped those views, and whether some of those perspectives were specific to these rural areas. Our findings revealed a high level of awareness among local residents about these workers, although this awareness did not necessarily imply friendship or inclusion in local social circles. Perceptions of migrant domestic workers as a group typically ranged from neutral to favorable, with local residents often valuing their contributions. However, skepticism and problematic views were also identified. Overall, increased contact and familiarity tended to reduce prejudice over time. We also discussed the critical issue of “trust” among care recipients and their family members, as well as the “contextual empathy” that residents often showed toward these workers—empathy that typically factored in local challenges.acceptedVersio
Life in Rural Spain as an Immigrant Domestic Care Worker: Diverse Testimonies From Teruel
Full text linkThis article contributes to the limited literature on immigrant caregivers in rural Spain. Building upon interview data, it examines the question of social inclusion with a focus on employment from the perspectives of Latin American women working in private, home-based elderly care. The interviews were conducted in small towns and villages across Teruel; a landlocked, sparsely populated, predominantly rural province in eastern Spain. For these caregivers, employment generally offered a means to improve their financial situation and, in some cases, to obtain legal residency. However, their day-to-day experiences varied considerably. This wide spectrum included cases of isolation and exploitation, of marginal participation in their communities, and of genuine satisfaction with their lifestyles and social relationships. With particular attention to the rural context, the article examines how inclusion and exclusion were shaped by factors such as employment conditions and personal networks. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of supportive employers in bridging the gap between caregivers and their rural communities—employers who can potentially foster inclusion to a degree not commonly experienced by other immigrant workers in the southern European countryside.acceptedVersio
Can primary mental health services impact levels of involuntary admissions? A cluster-RCT of the ReCoN intervention
Full text linkPurpose Internationally, policies and legal changes seek to reduce the use of involuntary psychiatric admissions. Usually directed towards specialist services, these initiatives show little sustained progress. We tested whether an intervention at the level of primary mental health services has potential to reduce the use of involuntary admissions.
Methods We conducted a two-arm cluster-RCT following Zelen’s design (ClinicalTrials.gov:NCT03989765). Each cluster included the primary mental health service and their local collaborators in mid-sized Norwegian municipalities with rates of involuntary admissions above the national average. Five clusters were randomised to co-create and implement a compre hensive intervention. These could not be blinded, but the five control clusters were. Our primary hypothesis was that rates of involuntary admissions would be lower in the intervention arm when comparing change over time between arms, and that this would sustain. Secondary hypotheses were that rates of referrals for involuntary admissions and rates of referrals confirmed for involuntary status after the second statutory assessment, would be lower in the intervention arm.
Results Data obtained from the Norwegian Patient Registry included all events in the study period. The difference between trial arms in changes of rates of involuntary admissions from baseline to the intervention period was 6.8 (95% CI 1.8 to 11.7; effect size (EC) 2.7), and reduced to 3.0 (95% CI -3.8 to 9.7; ES 0.9) between baseline and the post-intervention period. The difference between arms regarding changes in referral rates between the baseline and intervention period was 1.7 (95% CI -4.6 to 8.1; ES 0.5), and for changes in the rate of referrals resulting in involuntary status it was 1.3 (95% CI -3.4 to 6.0; ES 0.8).
Conclusion We found a clear difference between trial arms in our primary outcome of involuntary admissions during the intervention period, but not beyond that period, and not regarding referrals for involuntary admissions, although the consis tent direction of change favoured the intervention. We interpret the results to constitute ‘proof of concept’ that adequately resourced primary mental health services might contribute to policy aims of reducing involuntary care. Further rigorous studies in heterogeneous contexts are required.publishedVersio
From Trivial to Critical. Emergent Interagency Collaboration Through Co-Location of Emergency Call Centrals
Full text linkThis paper studies the role of day-to-day social interaction among emergency call central operators and its effect on interagency collaboration in emergencies. In 2017 the police, fire and health emergency call centrals in a region in Norway were co-located. This was done largely retaining their formal structures and responsibilities, which follows strict sectorial boundaries. However, the proximity afforded by co-location −placing the centrals in the same building− led to the emergence of informal interactional patterns among the operators. Much of this interaction is seemingly trivial and only loosely connected to resolution of critical tasks. Our study, however, shows that it formed a basis for improved collaboration and development within the centrals. Through an ethnographically oriented normal operations study, our focus is not primarily on the outcomes of spatial proximity during emergencies, rather on the processes leading up to the outcomes: How the foundations emerge for quality in critical moments, how trust was established in the first place, how the involved actors could learn to know what others know, and how a learning-oriented community of practice was developed over time. In interviews, our informants were surprisingly uniform in their positive assessment of the co-location. The main question of the paper is thus not whether the operators were satisfied with the change, but more why, and whether this perceived improvement affected the outcome of their work in terms of emergency response capabilities. The paper thus argues for the importance of the social “undercurrents” evolving over time—the informal, trivial and often organizationally “invisible,” day-to-day interaction that provides the collaborative basis for dealing with critical situations.publishedVersio
Arct-Risk Final Report. Main results from the research project “Risk governance of climate-related systemic risk in the Arctic” (Arct-Risk)
No full textsubmittedVersio
Gaming motivation and well-being among Norwegian adult gamers: the role of gender and disability
Full text linkIntroduction: Digital gaming is a popular and often social activity, also among adults. However, we need more knowledge of the social dynamics of gaming and its potential benefits for one's well-being. The current study aimed to examine gaming motivation, time spent gaming, and gaming performed together with friends, family, or romantic partner and how these aspects relate to expanded social network and well-being among men and women with and without disability.
Methods: Regular players of the popular game Fortnite Battle Royale (FBR; N = 278, 48.5% women, Mage = 32.38) completed an online questionnaire assessing their motivations for playing FBR (social motivation, achievement motivation, novelty motivation), time spent gaming, whom they usually play with, their psychological well-being, and FBR's impact on their life and social network. Differentiated statistical analyses on gender and disability were performed.
Results and discussion: The results showed that time spent gaming and social motivation to play were associated with larger social networks for all participants (strongest for women). More time spent gaming FBR was also associated with a positive impact on life for those with a disability. Social motivation to play was positively associated with a positive impact on life for men and those without a disability and increased well-being for women. Novelty motivation, which concerns experiencing new features in the game, was associated with a positive impact on life for women and with a decrease in well-being for those with a disability. This study demonstrated that gaming can be an essential social arena associated with positive outcomes for men, women and disabled people, who—when socially motivated—may expand their social networks through gaming.publishedVersio
Selvkost i kommunene – avskrivningstid, kalkylerente og framføringsperiode
Full text linkDenne rapporten omhandler to hovedtemaer; i) en generell vurdering av levetid for kommunale anleggsmidler opp mot maksimal avskrivningstid i regnskapsforskriften, og ii) en kartlegging og vurdering av selvkost i kommunene. For å hente erfaring fra kommunene har vi både benyttet spørreskjema som ble sendt til alle kommuner, i tillegg til intervju med representanter for fem kommuner. Prosjektet er finansiert og initiert av Kommunal- og distriktsdepartementet (KDD). Prosjektet er gjennomført som et samarbeid mellom Senter for økonomisk forskning (SØF), BDO AS og SINTEF AS, hvor SØF har vært hovedleverandør.Selvkost i kommunene – avskrivningstid, kalkylerente og framføringsperiodepublishedVersio