This thesis reports on an evaluation of an intervention to improve the quality of care for adults with epilepsy. The intervention comprised an epilepsy specialist nurse working in 14 general practices in north west Bristol, England. A multi-method approach was employed. As part of a quasi-experimental trial, baseline and two annual follow-up questionnaires were sent to all patients in the practices aged 16 years and over and currently on drugs for epilepsy. In addition, interviews were undertaken with those having seizures to explore further some questionnaire findings and to appraise the appropriateness, acceptability and accessibility of the nurse service. The epilepsy nurse was interviewed to assess the feasibility of providing the new service. Baseline results highlighted deficiencies in services for people with epilepsy and suggested the need for structured care and increased discussion. The main effects of the nurse service were improved communication about epilepsy between health care providers and patients and increased access, especially for those with the greatest needs. The nurse service had limited impact on patients’ health status. There were indications of a negative impact on the perceived effect of epilepsy on aspects of everyday life. After one year, an intention-to-treat analysis suggested improvements in satisfaction with care from GPs, but decreased adherence to medication. A comparison of nurse service users with non-users after two years showed a reduction in the use of polypharmacy in users, and an increased proportion who queried GPs’ knowledge about epilepsy. Users reported increased visits to their GP. Interview data showed that the decision to use the nurse service depended on factors other than the severity and frequency of seizures. The service was most appropriate for those who perceived themselves to need care or information. This method of delivering care was feasible, but several operational problems were identified. The study supports the use of specialist nurses in primary care. Impact is, however, limited. The greatest contribution to improving care is by supporting and advising patients with specific and defined needs.

Title: Customer's view of service quality in private fitness center Objectives: The thesis is focused on selected fitness and wellness club Holmes Place Premium Karlín, where the client's satisfaction with the quality of services offered was determined by using the marketing research. The specific form of this research consisted of a questionnaire survey method called SERVQUAL. With this method, the client's ideas about services in an excellent fitness center are measured first and then these ideas are compared to the actually perceived service quality in the selected facility. The result of the whole research is the quality evaluation of the individual services and all the services as a whole. Based on these results, the thesis presents recommendations and suggestions for the club management to improve the quality of selected services and increasing the level of customer satisfaction. Method: For the survey of service quality in fitness and wellness club Holmes Place Premium Karlín was used the standardized SERVQUAL questionnaire. This questionnaire examines and compares the expected quality of services in an excellent fitness center to the actually perceived service quality in the selected club as the customers evaluates it themselves. Data collection was proceeding between October 2013 to March...

Measurement and evaluation of academic performance is an highly debated research area and results of the studies in this area are closely followed by a large segment of the society. In general, researches conducted in this domain evaluate higher education institutions as a whole, but such an approach actually represents an average performance of the research fields, which are actively studied by the members of institutions. This may be misleading, because academic performance varies for each university depending on the field of research. However, people who are interested in the results of these studies require more detailed information about field based academic performances of institutions. One of these studies mentioned above have been implemented in 2011 by University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) research laboratory which was established in Middle East Technical University - Informatics Institute. In this study, 2000 universities around the world have been ranked according to multiple criteria in terms of overall academic performance. Interests shown to results of the system implemented by URAP revealed a need for a more comprehensive ranking system, which deals with the evaluation of field based academic performance. In this sense, within the scope of this study, universities ranked by URAP research laboratory were evaluated in terms of their academic performance in the following six research fields / Agriculture &amp / Environmental Sciences (AGE) Clinical Medicine (MED) Engineering, Computing &amp / Technology (ENG) Life Sciences (LIFE) Natural Sciences (SCI) Social Sciences (SOC) Institutions in this study has been evaluated according to data that have been collected from ISI - Web of Knowledge for the indicators listed below. Article Count (last year) Total Document Count (last 5 years) Cumulative Journal Impact (last 5 years) Total Citation Count (last 5 years) H-Index (average of last 5 years) The results indicate that status of universities from the point of academic performance varies according to the research field.

This empirical study explores Chinese scholars’ conceptions of the characteristics of quality in research. It follows a phenomenology approach and uses four mixed qualitative methods (online survey, interview, focus groups and document analysis). Phenomenological coding strategies and Pierre Bourdieu’s field and cultural theory are utilised to analyse the data and achieve a theoretical understanding of the findings. It is found that the participants viewed quality via multifarious lenses and identified diverse actual criteria. They nominated many ‘normal’ criteria that were similar to the western standards of research quality, especially the methodological ones, and some ‘abnormal’ ones which were indigenous and contextual in nature (i.e., related to the particular context of educational research in China). The participants elaborated their criteria through 3 layers: methodology (technical quality criteria), contextualisation (i.e., criteria that were about the relationship between the research and the context), and criteria related to the impact of research. The contextual issues (e.g., job title evaluation system, research policy and administrative interference) generated “unscholarly” criteria, and hindered the academics’ good intention to consider and follow the conventional criteria in action. They influenced the academics’ opinions of quality and their ways of conducting research. In the participants’ eyes, doing research in China was tantamount to writing papers, and it was not about assuring quality but reflected the academics’ struggles to meet all sorts of requests at institutional and national levels. The participants looked for an impact of research at the practical level (e.g., teaching and learning), and suggested a combination of both theoretical and practical significance of research. Powerful academics have not created cultural and scholarly debates to consider and select the criteria nominated by other academics, and have not used them in the government and institutional documents. In Bourdieusian terms, quality as reflected in some aspects of the habitus of participants has been greatly influenced by the field, the capital and the symbolic power; but the habitus of most scholars has not yet managed to affect the field. There is much in the field that could be altered to enable the habitus to affect and develop the quality of educational research. This current study provides recommendations for educational research, university-teachers’ research and practice, researcher development, as well as research policy and management in the Chinese context, and/or abroad.

Title: Satisfaction of I. ČLTK Praha competitive players with club services Objectives: The aim of this diploma thesis is evaluation of I. ČLTK competitive players satisfaction with club services. Then were proposed recommendations that should lead to services optimization and higher satisfaction of competitive players. Results will be presented to club management. Methods: In this research were used interviews with club management, coaches and players and then primary method of data collecting - written questionnaire. The final version of questionnaire was made after many editing, consultations and questionnaire testing especially for environment of this tennis club. Results: Results of research are presented in analytic part of this thesis in classification crosses, graphs and charts. Based on acquired data and interviews with players were proposed recommendations for I. CLTK Praha management, that should lead to quality improvement of provided services and also to higher satisfaction of I. CLTK Praha competitive players. Keywords: tennis, sport service, customer, quality, research

Public policy analysts are often tasked with reviewing research or other forms of evidence in order to provide advice for policy decisions. Many have argued that systematic reviews that include meta-analyses (SRMAs) are the most rigorous forms of evidence, and thus, when possible, should form the basis of policy decisions. However, it is not yet clear to what extent policy analysts are aware of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, or to what extend they use them to inform policy work. Moreover, given the importance of evaluating the quality of research before using it for policy, it is not clear to what extent policy analysts feel able to judge the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. An online survey was used to provide initial estimates of the extent to which policy analysts a) are familiar with SRMAs; b) use these reviews to inform their policy work; and c) are able to evaluate them. It further sought to explore other correlates of use, barriers to use, methods to increase use, and knowledge of factors that influence quality. Thirty-nine Ministerial policy analysts responded to the survey, 18 from the Ministry of Health, 9 from the Ministry of Environment, and 12 from other ministries. Policy analysts reported being fairly familiar with both systematic reviews and meta-analyses, although they were more familiar with systematic reviews than with meta-analyses. There were no differences between the Health, Environment, or Other groups with respect to familiarity. Respondents reported moderate scores on most indicators of use, with results suggesting the Health group having the highest rates of use, followed by the Environment group and then the Other group. Finally, there were relatively high self-ratings on ability to judge the quality of SRMAs, with no differences found between groups. The results of other exploratory analyses are also presented, and implications and recommendations are discussed. / Graduate

The thesis is focused on specifics of quality and customer satisfaction in health care. The theoretical part of the thesis summarizes the status of this issue in the literature; it compares theoretical approaches to quality that are generally applied and approaches that are recommended by authors for the health care sector. This part uses the Czech and foreign literature. The practical part of the thesis provides an overview of a current state of health care facilities, presents characteristics of the society where the research was conducted and its products. A satisfaction customer research is presented on a concrete example of a private eye care facility. Outcomes of the research are analyzed. Data obtained by the analysis are synthesized, the conclusion is made and further actions are suggested.

In this research I investigate the problem of education quality at the faculties of Social Sciences at four Georgian Public Universities. The findings of research are derived through interviewing of professors and document analysis of Georgian legislation concerning higher education and European-level frameworks supporting the enhancement of education quality. I deal with the problem of quality using the mixture of theories. I divided researched topics in three parts: Ideological, Institutional and personal-level. The majority of theoretical claims were disproved in the local context of Georgia. Education quality and knowledge production are multi-faceted problems at Georgian Public Universities, Faculties of Social Sciences and it mainly is related to the scarce state resources allocated to HEIs in general in Georgia.

Students with autism spectrum disorders present deficits in social interaction skills that may prevent their successful inclusion in general education placements. Considering the increasing number of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) being educated in inclusive settings and recent requirements on the use of research-based interventions in schools, the purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate the quality of single-case research and determine whether behaviorally-based interventions to improve social interaction skills of children with ASD in inclusive settings can be considered evidence-based practices and (2) to conduct a meta-analysis investigating whether specific factors such as participants' age, behavioral components used in the intervention, target social interaction skills, intervention implementer, and peer training moderate effectiveness of the interventions. Specific criteria for quality of single-case research were used to classify studies according to their certainty of evidence. Tau-U, a non-parametric index of effect size in single-case research, was used to measure the intervention's magnitude of change on target outcomes. Differences between levels of the moderators were analyzed using statistical significance test (p = .05) through the use of 83.4% confidence intervals. Results indicate that the use of behaviorally-based interventions to improve social interaction skills of students with ASD in inclusive settings can be considered evidence based practices. In addition, the interventions produced overall high effect size, indicating their effectiveness based on studies meeting minimum standards of methodological quality. More specifically, the interventions are demonstrated to be effective for preschool and elementary school children between the ages of 2 and 10 years. Studies targeting social interaction initiations or responses in isolation were more effective than studies focusing on both skills. While interventions using planned reinforcement were shown to be more effective, no differential effects were found regarding the use of planned modeling. No differences were found regarding intervention implementer. Finally, the use of peer training did not appear to increase effectiveness of the behaviorally-based social skill interventions. The results and their implications for practice and future research are discussed.

This master thesis deals with the communication strategy of the brand Klasa. The aim is to analyse and evaluate the current communication strategy of the brand and based on the results of research confirm or disprove the hypothesis regarding quality labels. The work is divided into two parts: theoretical and practical. The first part contains chapters dealing with commercial and marketing communications, brand and its role in marketing and marketing research. The practical part is devoted to the analysis of existing communications of the brand Klasa and to own marketing research. The final part of my thesis contains a summary of findings and suggestions for brand communication Klasa in the future.