1,720,956 research outputs found
Measuring the equity of risk assessment instruments used in child protection
No full textBackground: It is not enough for risk assessment tools to be accurate at an aggregate level; they must also operate equitably across racial groups. Objective: This paper identifies and evaluates approaches to measuring the equity of risk assessment instruments. Participants and setting: NA. Methods: The paper draws on literature in child protection as well as other fields where equity is important including employment and criminal justice. Results: Two dimensions of equity were identified. Avoidance of prejudice can be measured qualitatively by assessing the underpinning logic of a tool. Literature has focused on avoiding unconscious bias, which fails to capture both direct and indirect discrimination. Comparative validity can be measured quantitatively by comparing actual and predicted rates of recurrence for children of different groups. This can be achieved by comparing both sensitivity and specificity, or receiver operator characteristics. However, child protection literature has relied primarily on crossover, which cannot be used to make valid comparisons between groups with different overall rates of recurrence. For example, if the recurrence rate in Community A is half that in Community B (30% vs 60%), a risk assessment could avoid crossover with wide discrepancies in numbers of false positives (25% vs 1.3%) and false negatives (39.3% vs 89.4%) observed in each community. Conclusions: Current methods for measuring equity of child protection risk assessments, including crossover, are likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate inequity. Evaluations of equity should use valid measures of comparative validity and ensure tools consider what people do, rather than who they resemble.No Full Tex
An evaluation of the racial equity of the actuarial Family risk assessment instrument used in Queensland, Australia
No full textBackground: Risk assessment instruments used in child protection to guide intervention decisions should be equitable. To be considered equitable, two criteria are necessary: instruments should avoid discriminatory logic and display comparative validity for children of different races. Empirical evidence about the equity of risk assessment instruments is limited. Objective: To investigate the racial equity of a widely used risk assessment instrument, the Structured Decision Making Family Risk Assessment (FRA). Participants and setting: Administrative data were obtained for all children subject to investigation in Queensland, Australia in 2018, for whom an FRA was completed (n = 17,851). Methods: Relationships between FRA items, race, and recurrence (subsequent investigation within 12 months) were explored using crosstabulations and Cox Proportional Hazards. Accuracy of FRA recommendations and practitioner decisions were compared using sensitivity and specificity for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. Results: Most FRA items predicted race better than recurrence. Differences in recurrence by race were only partially explained by FRA items. The FRA produced high rates of false positives for Indigenous children (incorrectly classifying 48.9% of children who did not recur compared to 31.7% for non-Indigenous children) and high rates of false negatives for non-Indigenous children (incorrectly classifying 59% of children who did recur compared to 39% for Indigenous children). Practitioner discretion did not mitigate inequitable FRA recommendations. Conclusions: The FRA failed both criteria of equity, discriminating indirectly by relying heavily on factors correlated with race, and demonstrating less accuracy for Indigenous children. High rates of false positives for Indigenous children exacerbate Indigenous overrepresentation in child protection.Full Tex
Supporting Children of Incarcerated Mothers: Creating Conditions for Integrated Social Service Delivery Using Scenario-Based Workshops
No full textUnderstanding the service delivery system for children of incarcerated mothers is crucial for developing evidence-based innovations that promote integrated social service delivery. However, the system’s complexity and invisible infrastructure pose challenges in gaining a comprehensive overview, and there is limited literature detailing methods to navigate this complexity. Our study bridges this gap by evaluating the efficacy of using fictional scenarios to foster conversations about collaboration among service providers who support the children of incarcerated mothers. In total, 21 service providers from seven agencies participated in scenario-based workshops. The workshops were audio recorded, transcribed, and qualitatively analysed. Findings indicated that the scenarios resonated with the participants and revealed details of the often invisible infrastructure within the system. The emotional resonance of the scenarios played a pivotal role, cultivating empathy, enriching the exploration of shared experiences, and prompting discussions on broader systemic issues. Importantly, the scenarios stimulated conversations about collaboration, showcasing a genuine desire among service providers for collaborative efforts and clarifying roles and responsibilities within the complex system. These findings underscore the scenario method’s effectiveness in identifying the complexities of the service system, fostering collaborative conversations, and providing crucial insights to enhance the service delivery system supporting children of incarcerated mothers. Future research should explore whether embedding this method into a more structured approach, such as a Community of Practice, could lead to measurable and sustained improvements in integrated service delivery for the children of incarcerated mothers.No Full Tex
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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