Samforsk Open
Not a member yet
605 research outputs found
Sort by
External quality assurance of cost estimates in major public projects: empirical evidence on cost performance
Full text linkacceptedVersio
Bringing Real Life into the Classroom: Learning in Nearness & Distance
Full text linkThis article details and reflects on how student learning was elevated to a new level through inviting real life into the classroom of a course in cultural understanding, aimed at engineering students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In preceding years, the learning was organized as two group assignments where students authored a make-believe narrative, wherein a technical project was accomplished in collaboration with a foreign party. This year, the students’ second project was a collaboration with social science students from the West University in Timișoara. The students not only learned facts about Romanian culture, but, more importantly, they became immersed in culture as an experience and a process, observing a turn from culture understood as a reified scientific entity, to culture as an environment or lifeworld. Rather than trying to approach culture at a distance, distance itself became the students’ environment. Only as the students came to accept a state of unknowing, with associated feelings of frustration and anxiety, were they able to dwell in a nearness to Romanian culture quite unlike that in which a “native” dwells. The students’ project solutions evocate this nearness. In previous projects, cultural challenges were hurdles for the technical product that needed solving much like any technical hurdle. This relationship was flipped upside down in the real collaboration, putting technical products in the service of culture rather than the other way around. We show and discuss how our open-ended pedagogical philosophy was critical in unlocking this new level of learning.Bringing Real Life into the Classroom: Learning in Nearness & DistancepublishedVersio
Getting an outsider’s perspective - sick-listed workers’ experiences with early follow-up sessions in the return to work process: a qualitative interview study
Full text linkPurpose:
The aim of this study was to explore how early follow-up sessions (after 14 and 16 weeks of sick leave) with social insurance caseworkers was experienced by sick-listed workers, and how these sessions influenced their return-to-work process.
Methods:
A qualitative interview study with sick-listed workers who completed two early follow-up sessions with caseworkers from the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV). Twenty-six individuals aged 30 to 60 years with a sick leave status of 50–100% participated in semi-structured interviews. The data was analyzed with thematic analysis.
Results:
Participants’ experiences of the early follow-up sessions could be categorized into three themes: (1) Getting an outsider’s perspective, (2) enhanced understanding of the framework for long term sick-leave, and (3) the empathic and personal face of the social insurance system. Meeting a caseworker enabled an outsider perspective that promoted critical reflection and calibration of their thoughts. This was experienced as a useful addition to the support many received from their informal network, such as friends, family, and co-workers. The meetings also enabled a greater understanding of their rights and duties, possibilities, and limitations regarding welfare benefits, while also displaying an unexpected empathic and understanding perspective from those working in the social insurance system.
Conclusion:
For sick-listed individuals, receiving an early follow-up session from social insurance caseworkers was a positive experience that enhanced their understanding of their situation, and promoted reflection towards RTW. Thus, from the perspective of the sick-listed workers, early sessions with social insurance caseworkers could be a useful addition to the overall sickness absence follow-up.publishedVersio
Evaluering av utviklingsprosjekter i NTNU Toppundervisning
Full text linkDenne rapporten er resultatet av en evaluering bestilt av NTNU i tilknytning til utviklingsprosjekter ved NTNU Toppundervisning.Evaluering av utviklingsprosjekter i NTNU ToppundervisningpublishedVersio
Måling av effektivitet i kommunale tjenester
Full text linkBakgrunnen for denne rapporten er at SØF siden 2011 har skrevet årlige rapporter om effektivitet og effektivitetsutvikling i kommunale tjenester. Et sammendrag av rapportene er publisert i TBUs høstrapporter. Transportøkonomisk institutt (TØI), i samarbeid med Frischsenteret, ble i 2021 engasjert til å evaluere SØFs analyser og foreslå forbedringer i analyseopplegget. Sluttrapporten er dokumentert i Rødseth mfl. (2022). Denne rapporten er i hovedsak en videreføring av de tidligere effektivitetsanalysene og en oppfølging av anbefalinger i Rødseth mfl. (2022).Måling av effektivitet i kommunale tjenesterpublishedVersio
Conflicting norms in Danish and Norwegian educational psychology counselling
Full text linkWith rising special education expenditures in many countries, educational psychology services (EPS) have been brought to the centre of renewed attention. Educational psychology counselling plays a vital role in facilitating inclusive education and addressing and fulfilling students’ mental health needs in the educational context. Like many public services, EPS work is characterized by a lack of resources and by high-stakes accountability. However, as the resource perspective is widely discussed in the literature and public debate, we turn our attention to a less explored topic – the mismatch or conflict between the EPS users’ expectations from the services and the accountability demands and the resources made available to the services from the authorities. Through open in-depth interviews with Danish and Norwegian EPS professionals, we identify three interrelated conflicting norms encountered by EPS professionals: a methodological conflict (whether to work on a system/organizational level or with individual evaluation), time and capacity conflicts (time pressure and limited resources) and a normative conflict between loyalty to what the EPS professionals perceive as a restricting system and loyalty to the children with and for whom they work. We argue that there is a need for more research that does not simply take the conflicting demands as a given premise but focuses on how these are experienced and dealt with.publishedVersio
The social science of offshore aquaculture: uncertainties, challenges and solution-oriented governance needs
Full text linkAquaculture technology is on the move, enabling production in more open and exposed ocean environments around the world. These new systems offer solutions to environmental challenges facing conventional aquaculture, yet new technologies also create new social challenges while potentially exacerbating, or at minimum recreating, others. Offshore aquaculture research and governance are still in early stages, as is our understanding of the social repercussions and challenges associated with development. This paper provides an evaluation and reflection on offshore aquaculture from a social science perspective and is based on findings from a modified World Café group discussion method including the thoughts and experiences of social science experts. Key challenges and uncertainties including a lack of an appropriate regulatory framework, societal perceptions of offshore aquaculture, and offshore aquaculture’s contribution to society were identified. The governance implications of these challenges are discussed as well as the need for social sciences to address these challenges through transformative and transdisciplinary approaches that bridge science and society.publishedVersio
‘Jeg skulle så gjerne gitt dem ett år til’: Hvordan effektivisering og tidsknapphet i introduksjonsprogrammet kan bidra til prekære arbeidsliv for flyktninger med lite skolegang
Full text linkpublishedVersio
Corrosion of care and disempowerment in acute psychiatry: As seen from the positions of therapists and suicidal patients
Full text linkFor people in suicidal crisis, referral to a psychiatric hospital is common. However, acute psychiatry is characterized by a lack of resources in terms of time and beds, making it challenging for therapists to provide person-centered care. In this qualitative study, we explored the experiences and positionings of therapists and suicidal patients in an acute psychiatric ward in Norway. We generated data through participatory observation and interviews with therapists and patients and analyzed the material using principles from Systematic Text Condensation supplemented with an analysis from a Positioning theory perspective. We developed two themes: Therapists positioned as professionals with authority in a context with restricted action radius, and Patients in suicidal crisis positioned as medical subjects with limited influence. In this resource-limited context, therapists managed their work and obligations by simplifying the patient’s suffering and suicidality and by emphasizing medical aspects. Ensuring an efficient patient flow was a high priority. The therapists’ authority and actions were closely connected to how patients were positioned and their experiences of the care. Positioning theory provides new perspectives for understanding the power imbalance in the positions of therapists and patients. The findings provide insights into acute inpatient psychiatry as a normative field where the choices and actions of both therapists and patients are restricted. In that sense, both patients and therapists can feel powerless. The findings point to significant limitations in the acute mental health care of people in suicidal crisis.publishedVersio
