As interest in and concerns about performance management systems continue to grow, scholars have increasingly suggested methods to better design and implement these systems in the public sector organizations, with the underlying assumption that they will help public organizations perform better. These suggestions include approaches to design and implement performance management activities, including target selection, indicator adoption, data collection and analysis, and reporting of results. These recommendations are available in the form of books and research articles that cover a wide variety of performance management systems and their respective usage settings. Scholars argue that by using their recommendations (termed as “recommended practices” from here onwards) in designing and implementing performance management systems, system designers and managers can improve organizational performance; a claim I intend to examine in this paper. There are scores of recommended practices spread out in the literature, which not only lack theoretical foundations, but also might be contradictory to each other. The results from this study suggest do not suggest a link between the recommended practices and police performance, as only the practices of using performance information and providing discretion to officers were found to be supporting the hypotheses for only one out of the eight crime categories. These two significant results might be attributed to chance alone. The results, hence, raise questions about the effectiveness of the recommended practices in improving organizational performance. Justification of the use of recommended practices, however, can still be traced to goal-setting theory.

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No description available.

Best Practices: Does it mean the same thing in the Aboriginal community as it does in the Health Authorities when it comes to diabetes care? / Population Health

The use of universal or standard precautions by health care workers (HCWs) is essential to avoid exposure to blood and other body secretions that may transmit infectious diseases. Health care workers in Uganda often find it difficult to translate the principles of universal precautions into practice. Without appropriate use of universal precautions, disease transmission to HCWs may rise. In a resource-constrained environment such as Uganda however, nurses typically do not practice universal precautions unless they know the patients HIV or AIDS status. There is a need to understand the experiences and the context in which nurses practice universal precautions. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the experience of Ugandan nurses and midwives in the practice of universal precautions and to identify factors that influence the use of universal precautions by nurses while caring for persons living with HIV and AIDS. A qualitative research approach, using a focused ethnography was used for the study.

This study aims at revealing the school culture and its professional development activities. In essence, it attempts to reveal the relationships among the context, teachers‘ beliefs, practices, and interactions. Little is documented as to how inservice teachers perceive English language teaching, how they actually teach, how they interact with colleagues, and how they continue to learn to teach in a Japanese learning environment. Using multiple data sources including interviews, observations, surveys, and documents of teachers in an English department, this yearlong study revealed that experiencing new teaching practices in classrooms was not sufficient for teacher learning toward professional development to occur in the school and department context. The teaching culture of this school was consistent and almost immutable throughout the study. Responses from these teachers revealed at least three rules for this particular teaching culture: (1) Managing students and managing various work took precedence over teaching; (2) Communication and collaboration centered on keeping pace with others and getting through the day, rather than solving teaching issues; (3) It was particularly important to teach the same way for the common test and to maintain classroom management. The teaching culture of this school was defined and sustained by teachers’ beliefs. As teachers worked together in this school culture, they identified with one another and shared the same beliefs about school norms and values, the subject matter, students, and other work. Thus, individual teachers prioritized their educational beliefs over any beliefs they may have brought to the context. Consequently, these teachers reinforced their beliefs, existing practices, and internal interactions in this school context. The study revealed that these EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers lacked many teacher learning opportunities in their context. Although the majority of teachers replied that they learned how to teach by watching other teachers in this school context, there had been only a few peer-observations throughout the yearlong study. Experienced teachers were reluctant to have their classes observed and critiqued, while young teachers socialized themselves to the norm of teaching as other experienced teachers did. It was evident that a few peer-observations only helped these young teachers master routine practices. In addition, experienced teachers reported that they had been teaching the same way based on their second language (L2) learning and initial teaching experiences. As long as they teach the same way according to the existing curriculum, they do not seem to need any new ideas. In fact, a majority of teachers continued to avoid attending workshops outside the school. In contrast, only a few teachers tried out new ideas, and then mainly in special classes. However, those teaching experiences were little reported or shared, and innovation remained marginalized in this school and department context. As a result, individual trial and error generated few teacher learning opportunities for professional development in this school and department context. The study described the teaching culture through comprehensive investigation of the relationships among context, beliefs, practices, and interactions. The study revealed the context-specific nature of beliefs, which prioritized managing students and various kinds of work over teaching the subject in this school context. As long as teachers maintain such beliefs, they choose not to participate in many teacher learning opportunities in this context. This study calls for reconceptualization of teacher development in school contexts. Future questions remain as to how teachers can be life-long learners in their workplace.

Thesis (MEconSt.) - University of Queensland, 2003.

The progress of the Roman Catholic Church in Wales under a succession of able bishops between 1916 and 1962 was striking. The Church grew in strength, stature, and confidence. The expansion in the number of its adherents was largely due to continuing immigration from Ireland, England and the Continent. Although conversions from among the native population certainly occurred, they helped the Catholic cause only minimally. Furthermore, like the other Welsh denominations, the Church found itself in a constant struggle to retain its existing faithful. The growth of the Church in the Principality was one of the primary reasons why hostility and prejudice against Catholicism continued unabated down to the early 1960s. At a local level, the initial opposition to the re-emer gence of Catholicism was undramatic and soon subsided. In the wider sphere, however, animosity remained virulent. In denominational newspapers and conferences, ministers, clergymen and prominent laymen revealed deep anti-Catholic dispositions. Many reacted directly to the growth of the Church by warning fellow Welshmen of the insidious intentions of Rome and its Fascio-political threat. Others vehemently attacked Catholic belief and practice. The Catholic Church's unceasin g attempts to establish its own educational system in Wales became an ideal channel into which these prejudices were directed. While hostility remained fervent throughout the period, underlying_ it was the clear, yet gradual, acceptance of the Roman Catholic Church by the people of Wales. By 1962 the Church had achieved an accepted, and indeed revered, position among the Welsh denominations. The effect of increasing general tolerance, the wide-scale adoption of ecumenical ideals, and respect both for individual Catholics and for their promotion of social, moral and cultural issues, all helped transform the attitude of Welsh society towards the Church.

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No description available.