Evidence suggests that the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Relational Training System (PEAK) is an effective method of providing verbal behavior training to individuals with developmental disabilities, and previous research indicates that BST can be used to train staff in its implementation. Video modeling is a modification to BST that can decrease the amount of resources necessary to provide instruction without limiting the effectiveness of the training. This study evaluated the effectiveness of using video modeling for teaching direct care staff how to implement the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Relational Training System (PEAK) using a multiple baseline across participants design. All participants showed improvement in PEAK implementation with video modeling treatment; one required the addition of a checklist to achieve mastery. Implications for further research are discussed.

Although alcohol plays an important role in psychiatric morbidity, there is a general lack of strategies within psychiatric care to intervene at alcohol problems in an early stage (secondary prevention). The aim of this thesis was to increase knowledge of adequate forms of secondary alcohol prevention in psychiatric care.   The capacity of three brief screening instruments was investigated in a psychiatric outpatient sample (n=1811). The results indicate that the HED (heavy episodic drinking) screener, strongly recommended for health care settings, is not sufficiently sensitive in a psychiatric setting. Instead, the full AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) is recommended. The knowledge and attitudes of psychiatric staff members to problem-drinking patients were studied and the effects of a three-hour training course were investigated. Confidence in self-perceived capacity to intervene in more severe alcohol problems was raised among all staff after training. Awareness of early signs of problem drinking was raised among psychologists and social workers. The therapeutic attitude of the psychiatric staff was higher when compared with primary care staff. Two forms of brief intervention were delivered by clinical psychiatric staff. At 12 months, 29% of all participants had improved their drinking habits, moving from hazardous to non-hazardous level (21%) or from harmful to hazardous level (8%). In the improved group, mean AUDIT score was reduced from 11.0 points at baseline to 5.5 points. Differences in outcome between the two interventions could not be identified. Nine high-risk drinking young female psychiatric patients were interviewed, focusing on reasons for excessive drinking and factors facilitating a change in drinking habits. Alcohol played an important role in the lives of the young women. It made them feel social and helped them deal with unbearable emotions. It was also used as a means of self-harm, representing the first stage in an escalating self-harm process. They expressed a need for help from their caregivers in addressing the underlying reasons for drinking. Secondary alcohol prevention strategies including appropriate screening methods, staff training and the elaboration of tailored interventions are urgently needed in psychiatric care. The findings of this thesis can be used when forming such strategies.

This thesis considers the provision of person-centred care (PCC) in acute healthcare. In recent years it has been increasingly recognised that healthcare should be delivered in a person-centred manner and that staff should receive training and support in relation to this. There is a growing body of literature investigating the potential benefits of PCC in relation to both patient and service level outcomes. Paper one of this thesis is a systematic review of the literature examining staff training interventions for improving PCC in acute healthcare settings. The findings offer preliminary support for the positive impact of such training interventions on patient and service level outcomes in hospital environments. The research in this area is not of a uniformly high standard and this paper concludes that further research in this area is required. Paper two is an examination of a modified version of Dementia Care Mapping (Care Mapping – Neurorehabilitation: DCM-NR), an observational tool for measuring and improving PCC. Results provide evidence of the feasibility and validity of DCM-NR in a range of Clinical Neuroscience settings. Future research should examine the impact of DCM-NR on person-centred practices over time.The critical reflection paper considers both the systematic review and the empirical study. It aims to consider both the strengths and limitations of the research, challenges encountered, clinical implications and highlights areas for future research.

Sammanfattning Att ha rätt kompetens ses som viktigt för organisationers omvärldsanpassning och konkurrenskraft. Stora summor läggs på kompetensutveckling där personalutbildning är en sätt att sprida kunskap. Men många organisationer lyckas inte med att producera ihållande och heltäckande överföring av kunskap eftersom det kan uppstå problem i att överföra lärandet från utbildningsmiljön till att faktiskt använda nya kunskaper i arbetsmiljön. Detta benämns transferproblemet. Forskningen visar att transfer påverkas av faktorer som härrör individens förmåga och motivation, utbildningens utformning och relevans, arbetsklimatet, samt stöd från ledningen och kollegor. Ledningen bör ta hänsyn till forskningen för att skapa förutsättningar för utbildningsdeltagaren att tillämpa ny kompetens, men trots detta verkar det som att organisationer har svårt att identifiera vilka faktorer som är mest kritiska för transfer. I centrum för denna studie står ledningspersoners upplevelser av hur de arbetar med att stödja och ta tillvara anställdas kompetens i samband med personalutbildning. För att få en förståelse för ledningspersonernas upplevelse av att arbeta med transfer genomfördes åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra verksamhetschefer, tre arbetsledare och en HR-medarbetare i en tandvårdsorganisation som måste möta många förändringar och har ett omfattande utbildningsprogram. Det insamlade materialet har sedan tematiserats och analyserats mot tidigare forskning om transfer och med hjälp av ett organisationspedagogiskt perspektiv. Det framträdande i resultatet var att cheferna anpassade stöd och resurser för transfer både till utbildningen och till individen. Ett proaktivt arbetssätt användes främst för att anpassa insatser för transfer till utbildningen genom att det i vissa utbildningar ingick efter-utbildnings-insatser, en efter-utbildnings-aktivitet på kliniken, samt att planera för att individen ska komma igång med nya arbetsuppgifter. Ett reaktivt förhållningssätt var dock vanligare för att kunna göra de individuella anpassningarna av insatserna. Cheferna var också mer benägna att ge stöd och resurser för transfer i samband med yrkesutbildning än vid relationsinriktad utbildning. Något som också var framträdande var den kollektiva kompetensens betydelse. Det ansågs viktigt att arbetsteamet och ibland hela gruppen på arbetsplatsen behövde kunskap inom det aktuella området för att bidra till den kollektiva kompetensen att utföra en uppgift och för att kunna stötta en utbildningsdeltagare. Något som också var utmärkande var det kollegiala stödets betydelse både på arbetsplatsen och i organisationen, samt hur organisationen och cheferna aktivt arbetar med att skapa interaktionsutrymme mellan olika medlemmar i organisationen för stöd och kunskapsutbyte. / Abstract Having the right skills is considered important for organizations' adaption to changes and competitiveness. Large sums are being spent on skills development, where staff training is a way of spreading knowledge. However, many organizations fail to produce sustained and comprehensive transfer of knowledge, as problems may arise in transferring learning from the educational environment to actually using new skills in the work environment. This is called the transfer problem. Research shows that transfer is influenced by factors that derived from the individual's ability and motivation, the design and relevance of the staff training, work environment, and support from management and colleagues. Management should take into account the research to create the conditions for the training participant to apply new skills, but despite this, organizations seem to have difficulties identifying which factors are the most critical of transfer. At the heart of this study, management's experience is how they work to support and utilize employee skills in staff training. In order to gain understanding of executives' experience of working with transfer, eight semi- structured interviews were conducted with four business executives, three supervisors and a HR employee in a dental organization that has to face many changes and has a comprehensive education program. The collected material has since been thematized and analyzed against previous research on transfer, using an organizational pedagogical perspective. The prominent outcome was that the managers had adapted support and resources for transfer both to the education and to the individual. A proactive approach was used primarily to adapt efforts for transfer to education through the inclusion of post-education activities, post-training activities in the clinic, and planning for the individual to get started with new tasks. However, a reactive approach was more common in order to make individual adjustments of the efforts. The managers were also more likely to provide support and resources for transfers in vocational education than in relational education. Something that was also prominent was the importance of collective competence. It was considered important that the work team and sometimes the entire group at the workplace needed knowledge in the field in question to contribute to the collective competence to perform a task and to support a training participant. Something that was also significant was the importance of collegial support both in the workplace and in the organization, as well as how the organization and managers actively work to create interaction space between different members of the organization for support and knowledge sharing.

Educational Psychologists (EPs) are often asked to see children that may have difficulties with attention or children with impairments in executive function. Research suggests that there is a link between attention and executive function. There is research evidence linking Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) with executive function difficulties. It is proposed that there will be a link between primary school children’s attention and executive function skills as measured by standardised assessment. The present study involved assessing 31 participants on subtests of the Test of Everyday Attention in Children (TEA-Ch) (to gain a measure of attention) and the Neuropsychological Assessment (Second Edition) (NEPSY-II) (to gain a measure of executive function).Participants were aged between 6;01 and 10;08 (mean 8;06) when they were assessed at the pre-intervention stage. Participants were all from one primary school in the North West of England. Significant correlations between participants’ performance on the TEA-Ch and NEPSY-II were found. There is some research evidence that executive function interventions can improve children’s executive functions, but this is at the individual case level. There were no studies identified that looked at whole school executive function interventions. Executive function staff training was developed and delivered to teachers and teaching assistants in the primary school. A supporting pack of written materials was produced to help staff. Evaluation questionnaires and staff interviews identified useful aspects of the training. It is proposed that the consultation model of training delivery was particularly important. Staff interviews indicated that interventions had been carried out at the whole school and class level. Participants were reassessed at the post-intervention stage using the TEA-Ch and the NEPSY-II. Results indicated significant improvements in both attention and executive function skills for participants overall. Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests identified that there were significant increases in participants’ mean TEA-Ch and mean NEPSY scores following the whole school intervention. The results suggest the intervention may have been most successful in improving children’s selective attention, response inhibition, flexibility and task initiation skills.

The thesis examines possible ways of implementing e-learning / electronic education of internal staff in Business Media CZ. It includes various options of e-learning. Furthermore, it compares the types of implementing the LMS systems, ultimately leading to the selection of one solution. The final part of the thesis describes the actual implementation of e-learning, suggested structure of courses including additional materials and final assessment.

The purpose of this study was to develop and examine the effects of enhanced training and performance management methods for an autism coordinator who managed several paraprofessional therapists providing in-home behavior therapy for young children with autism. Intervention included task clarification, targeted skill development, and improved feedback from the coordinator to the therapists. Results showed that service delivery performance of in-home trainers increased and/or became more consistent after the intervention was implemented. The intervention provided the autism coordinator with an empirically validated training and feedback system that can be successfully utilized in a sporadically supervised environment.

The education community agrees that correcting student errors is important for learning. They do not agree on the components that define successful error correcting. Some theories suggest that detailed feedback facilitates adult learning and some suggest that less detail is needed for these learners. Gilbert (1962) applied the scientifically derived methods of Behavior Analysis when designing instruction. This study attempted to develop an efficient error correction procedure for university teachers. Throughout the semester, error correction design efforts between the teachers and the experimenter became more collaborative. While error correction procedures never showed systematic effects on student grades, later versions were viewed more favorably by both teachers and students and were more likely to be implemented accurately. Decreased teacher practice opportunities, due to low student participation, may have decreased the procedure's effectiveness.

The effectiveness of behavioral interventions for the treatment of young children with autism has been well documented in professional literature. The success of these procedures, however, depends on the fidelity of implementation and proper training of the therapist. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a 125-skill, comprehensive staff training package that involved a graduated sequence of teaching. In addition to changes in skills, social validity and training time were also assessed. Results indicate that correct demonstration of skills increased following training, incorrect implementation decreased, teachers rated the procedures favorably, and the total training took between 20 and 32.5 hours for over 120 skills to reach mastery criteria. A discussion of the results as well as implications for future research is also provided.

abstract: Libraries provide a needed third place for students to engage with their peers and faculty, both academically and socially. Staff behavior, knowledge, and skills in providing an accessible and inclusive environment are key to helping students with disabilities feel that they belong in the libraries. This makes training in disability and accessibility awareness a necessary component of the overall program for the library. This study assessed a locally-developed, online training program for staff of all levels that was intended to improve staff knowledge and skills in disability etiquette, library services and spaces that support people with disabilities, and the policies that govern this work. The program used the four-part Deines-Jones (1999) model for its content and the core principles of andragogy for its instructional design. Assessment focused on changes in beliefs and knowledge using an adapted standardized scale, and evidence for learning from responses to training program questions, focus group discussions, and survey responses. Further development of the training program was informed by the principles of andragogy. Participants in the training program improved their scores in the knowledge domain but had no change in their beliefs domain. Learning was most evident in spaces where it engaged with previous knowledge and supportive customer service approaches. Participants identified and, in several cases, independently pursued new questions that were prompted by the training program. On the whole, participants found the training to be supportive and engaging, with minor changes to structure and focus recommended for the next iteration. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2019