1,720,960 research outputs found
Examining the Shift to Patient Centeredness: Patient-Centered Communication Practices in the American Diabetes Association’s Complete Guide to Diabetes
No full textIn 2001, the Institute of Medicine declared that patient centeredness was one of its pillars of quality healthcare, signaling a change to the traditional biomedical model. The fifth edition of the American Diabetes Association’s Complete Guide to Diabetes, published in 2011, claimed to embrace this era of patient centeredness. This study uses a mixed-methods approach comprised of rhetorical analysis, reading reception and eye tracking, and critical theory, to examine the patient-centered communication practices that the American Diabetes Association (ADA) implements in its manual. Specifically, the present study is designed to answer the following research questions: • Compared with past iterations of the ADA’s manual, what design practices are implemented in the fifth edition to create the semblance of patient-centered communication? • How do people with diabetes experience and respond to these patient-centered rhetorical devices in the context of the rhetoric of managed care? • Can eye-tracking methods be triangulated with rhetorical analysis effectively to study these kinds of questions? I conducted a rhetorical analysis of the fourth and fifth editions of the ADA’s Complete Guide to Diabetes to identify patient-centered design moves made in the two editions of the manual. I then conducted an eye-tracking study—adapted from traditional reading reception studies—to observe how participants engaged those design elements during reading. I also performed pre- and post-test interviews during the eye-tracking study to determine relevant subjective life experiences that affected the ways in which the participants experienced the texts. The rhetorical analysis component of the present study found that the fifth edition of the manual makes effective use of design and rhetorical appeals in its text that more closely aligns with the concepts of patient centeredness and patient-centered communication practices than does the fourth edition of the manual. The eye-tracking portion of the study provided observational data—gaze plots and heat maps—of participants’ reading behaviors. While these data were interesting, it was the pre- and post-test interviews that provided especially astute subjective insights as participants discussed their reading experiences in the context of their lives with diabetes. Ultimately, more participants preferred the user-centered design of the fifth edition than those who preferred the fourth edition of the ADA’s manuals. Combining two approaches, rhetorical analysis and eye tracking, proved to be an interesting, though potentially unnecessary mode for identifying both empirical and interpretive results for the present study. Each method seemingly corroborated the other’s findings, but the interviews were essential to understanding how the readers actually responded to the design choices on a subjective level whereas the eye-tracking data were questionable.Embargo status: Restricted to TTU community only. To view, login with your eRaider (top right). Others may request the author grant access exception by clicking on the PDF link to the left
Academic Makerspaces: A Case Study in Stem Effectiveness
Full text linkStatement of the Purpose
This study investigates the effectiveness of academic makerspaces in enhancing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. The primary purpose of this study is to explore how these hands-on learning environments contribute to critical thinking, creativity, and interdisciplinary collaboration, ultimately improving STEM learning outcomes. Additionally, the study aims to identify the institutional factors, such as policies and resource allocation, crucial for the successful integration and sustainability of makerspaces within educational institutions.
Methods
The study begins with a preliminary survey distributed to potential respondents, allowing them to express their initial insights and interest in participating. The response of interest from participants required them to give consent for the in-depth interview to take place. In-depth interviews with staff from professional higher education institutions represent the significant data source in this qualitative case study. Social constructivism and connectivism provide a framework for this analysis, underlining the collaborative and experiential learning environment. This framework helps determine how learning within makerspaces develops through social interaction, a collaboration of peers, and digital networks in each STEM subject curriculum.
Findings of the Dissertation Research
Results indicated that makerspaces integrated into formal STEM curricula significantly enhance students' levels of engagement, self-efficacy, and practical problem-solving. Students who use makerspaces have increased their ability to apply theoretical concepts in real-life settings; hence, they improve both their interest and ability in STEM fields. Critical success factors in institutional policies, resource avowal, and staff training all contribute in creating inclusive, resilient, and impactful makerspaces.
This study recommends embedding makerspaces more deeply in STEM curricula, intending to realize the maximum educational benefit, given that access consistently develops interdisciplinary collaboration and experiential learning. It is recommended that further research be undertaken on the long-term impacts of makerspace experiences on students' career paths in STEM and the development of specialist staff training programs for enhanced operational support
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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