While there are studies linking positive psychological outcomes with exercise, few have focused on choice as a moderating factor. The research that has examined choice as a moderator yielded mixed results. Currently no research has looked at the impact of choice of exercise intensity on the psychological benefits of acute exercise; specifically, affective and cognitive gains. According to Landers (2008), acute exercise refers to a single bout of exercise usually lasting a short duration, whereas chronic exercise refers to long term repeated bouts of exercise (e.g., weeks, months, or years). Participants in this study consisted of 117 collegiate psychology students. The study consisted of two trials. The first trial was used to establish a baseline. Next, students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions for the second trial. Everything stayed consistent from the first trial to the second trial, except the extent of choice given with regard to exercise intensity. Affect and cognition measures were given to all participants on both days. For trial two, group 1 was given full choice, e.g., they were able to exercise at their own pace. Group 2 had to exercise at the average pace from their first session, group 3 exercised at a pace equivalent to two rate of perceived exertion (RPE) levels above their average pace from the first session, and group 4 exercised at a pace two RPE levels below their average pace from the first session. A mixed model MANOVA was used to analyze the participants’ cognitive and affective data. Although the outcomes of the study were limited, Group 1 (choice) performed better on two of the executive function measures (Trail Making Test, Letter Number Sequence) for the second trial than the other experimental groups.

Sleep impairments for caregivers are multifactorial. Assumptions are that caregivers of those with primary malignant brain tumors (PMBT) are similar to caregivers of persons with dementia as cognitive impairments are present at diagnosis. The shorter trajectory of PMBTs and rapid deterioration of recipients’ health may influence sleep in caregivers of persons with a PMBT. The purposes of this study were to use a sleep impairment model to characterize caregiver sleep using objective and subjective measures, and to examine sleep loss effects on psychosocial and physiologic health outcomes. A secondary data analysis using baseline data from a larger study of mind-body interactions in caregivers of family members with PMBTs was used. Caregiver data included standardized questionnaires, serum blood draw, and three-day sleep-wake activity data from an accelerometer. Analyses included descriptive statistics, correlations, t-tests, and hierarchical regression models. Caregivers (N = 133) were White (94%), female (69.2%) spouses (75.2) and on average 52 years old (SD = 11.8). Care recipients were mainly White males of similar age with a highly malignant glioma (57.4%). Sleep latency was longer (35 min, SD = 34.5), with shorter total sleep time (TST) (357 min, SD = 84.6) and more frequent wake after sleep onset (WASO; 15.1%, SD = 9.2) than in the general population. Caregivers reported high anxiety (59.4%). Caregiver comorbidities and care recipient functioning explained higher perceptions of health (R2 = 26, F(2, 84) = 14.94, p < .001). Whereas, longer TST, more WASO and poorer sleep quality explained poorer quality of life (R2 = .27, F(4, 66) = 6.19, p < .001). Sleep loss variables explained little variance in physical health status, interleukin-1ra and interleukin-6 levels, fatigue, depressive symptoms, spiritual health, social support, and work limitations. Nurses need to assist caregivers with anxiety management and ways to improve sleep at time of PMBT diagnosis. Sleep impairments place these caregivers at risk for physical and mental health problems, and compromise their ability to continue in the role.

Although the concept of quality of life (QOL) has become increasingly popular in the past few decades in a number of fields of research, few studies have specifically examined QOL for high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Several studies have found that objectively measured outcomes for adults with high-functioning autism (HFA) and Asperger's syndrome (AS) tend to be poor in terms of employment, relationships, mental health, and independence. However, it has been recently suggested that in order to obtain a more accurate depiction of overall QOL, subjective impressions must be examined as well. Recent research has found that the most significant predictor variable of QOL for high-functioning individuals with autism spectrum disorders is the discrepancy between support needed and formal support provided. The current study examined 15 formal support variables and their relationships to subjective QOL scores on the WHOQOL-BREF, in 4 domains (physical health, psychological health, environment, and social relationships) as well as overall QOL. A total of 33 participants completed a questionnaire that included items designed to obtain information on demographics and formal support. Participants also completed the WHOQOL-BREF in order to obtain overall QOL scores along with QOL domain scores. Significant negative correlations were found between Environmental QOL scores and the accessing of a social worker as well as the accessing of social groups. Significant negative correlations were also found between Social QOL scores and the accessing of a psychiatrist and a single-item overall QOL score and the accessing of counselling or psychotherapy. All correlations between formal support factors and QOL scores showed lower QOL scores for those individuals who accessed the supports. The results of standard multiple regression analyses revealed a significant model that accounted for 49% of the total variance in the amount of total supports accessed as well as two other significant models predicting Social QOL and Environmental QOL.

Problem: In today’s business markets companies are faced with new challenges occurring from globalization, new technologies, deregulation, blurring borders between industries, and outsourcing which change the competitive environment in the market. To deal with these challenges organizations are forced to look for new and innovative ways to differentiate themselves from competitors and to satisfy customers’ demands for more customized products and services. Additionally, nowadays customers strive for fulfilling their needs by being more active. Value co-creation, the collaboration between companies and customers, is as a solution of current interest to cope with these challenges. Due to the close linkage between retailers and customers, value co-creation is of high interest for this part of the SC. Hence, this thesis focuses on the retailer-customer context and co-creation in terms of co-designing of bikes. Purpose: The purpose of this Master of Science thesis is to investigate how and why retailers and customers co-create value. Therefore, retailers’ and customers’ potential motivators, the interaction between them and the actors’ potential outcomes are explored. Method: This thesis conducts an exploratory and qualitative investigation of three case companies; Bike by Me, myownbike, and 718 Cyclery. The empirical material is gathered from interviews with the CEOs of the three companies, the retailers’ customers, and potential customers. The findings have been analyzed using a framework developed based on existing literature, stated in the frame of reference, which is improved by this thesis’ findings. Conclusions: Customers and retailers co-create value due to different potential motivators and outcomes. Retailers are motivated by aspects such as increases in competitive advantage, differentiation, customer loyalty, and better understanding of new needs. Customers’ motivators are amongst others the product itself, individuality, and enjoyment. As retailers’ outcomes increased efficiency and effectiveness, new customer acquisition, and the establishment of long-term relationships are identified. Customers’ outcomes are high customer satisfaction, new knowledge, convenience, and financial aspects. Actions between retailers and customers in value co-creation are identified through a learning phase and an innovation phase. The retailer participates through providing information, the platform for co-creation, and suggestions and assistance. The customers collaborate in terms of designing the product, expression of desires and experiences, feedback, and WOM in interaction with other customers.

<p>Background: Each year, 2 million older Americans complete three to four week courses of post-acute care in nursing homes and return home; however, scant research describes services to protect older adults during their transitions from nursing homes to home. In hospital-based studies, transitional care interventions were associated with improved health outcomes for older adults, but these interventions added new staff positions, which are likely cost-prohibitive in nursing homes. Further, no prior study explored transitional care provided for vulnerable, post-acute care patients in nursing homes. Thus, this dissertation was designed to develop new understandings about transitional care provided by existing staff members in nursing homes. The study has two specific aims: (a) describe transitional care and outcomes for older adults who obtain post-acute care in nursing homes from the day of admission through discharge; (b) explore the influence of interactions, among selected older adult patients and their group of nursing home caregivers, on their ability to accomplish transitional care processes.</p><p>Method: Using data from a literature review and theoretical models, including Donabedian's Model of Healthcare Quality and Anderson's Local Interaction Model, a conceptual model of transitional care for post-acute care patients in nursing homes was constructed. The conceptual model was then used to guide exploration of the research aims with a longitudinal, multiple case study of transitional care in a nursing home. The unit of analysis was the patient care-team, defined as individual post-acute care patients, family caregivers, and 6 to 8 professional staff in each team (e.g., rehabilitation therapists, physicians, nurses and social workers). Three patient care-team members were purposively sampled for study. Moreover, longitudinal data were collected using repeated interviews and observations with patients, family caregivers, and staff; document and daily chart reviews; and surveys of patient preparedness for discharge. Manifest content analysis and thematic analysis (qualitative methods) were used to conduct within- and across-case analyses of trajectories of transitional care and to identify strengths, gaps and inconsistencies in care. </p><p>Results: Findings related to the first research aim include a description of transitional care in the study nursing home. Serious gaps and inconsistencies in transitional care exposed older, post-acute care patients to risks for complications in their transitions from the study nursing home to home: (a) systemic supports were not available to support nursing home staff who provided transitional care; further, nursing home staff and leadership were unaware that they provided transitional care; (b) care processes were not in place to prepare older adults and their caregivers to continue care at home; (c) care-team interactions often excluded family members; and (d) post-acute care patients left the nursing home without resources needed to support safe transitions in care, including transitional care plans, education to appropriately respond to acute changes in health, written materials to guide care at home, referrals for medical follow-up after discharge, and transfers of clinical information to primary care physicians. </p><p>Findings related to the second research aim include a description of local interaction strategies and the effectiveness of transitional care processes. When professional staff more consistently used local interaction strategies, specified in the model, care-team members exhibited greater capacity for connections, information exchange, and cognitive diversity. Further, when care-team interactions were of high quality and sufficient frequency, there were multiple indications of more effective transitional care, such as patient engagement in care, inclusion of patient priorities in care plans, and problem solving which included family members and diverse members of the patient care-team. Thus, local interaction strategies were essential staff behaviors needed to adapt care processes to the specific transitional care needs of individual patients.</p><p>Because transitional care is a grossly under-developed care process in nursing homes, these findings will likely have immediate implications for practice and research. Findings will provide nursing home administrators and staff with resources to develop and evaluate care in nursing homes; further, the findings will help to create targets for protocol and care process development to strengthen existing practice and address deficiencies. Findings will provide researchers with resources for studying transitional care in diverse samples of nursing homes, which should facilitate development of testable hypotheses for needed intervention studies. In addition, the local interaction strategies findings in the study may generalize to other settings of care, where interdependent staff work is required to establish connections, information networks, and to coordinate care among multiple staff members.</p> / Dissertation

The purpose of this research is to investigate strategies and outcomes of school-based curriculum management in elementary schools of Kaohsiung City. This research is designed with different personal background and school circumstance variables. It also provides suggestions for Education Bureau, Kaohsiung Government while managing local school curriculum. Moreover, the researcher discussed the behavior and meaning of school-based curriculum management and its specific effects and strategies to build an efficacious interactive model for curriculum. Method for collecting data in this research is mainly through questionnaires. Questionnaires were sent to 8 people per elementary school in Kaohsiung, including Principlals, Directors of Academic Studies, Managers of Teaching Branch or Research and Development Branch, and 5 members from Curriculum Development Committee. Questions about strategies of curriculum management (curriculum leading, member communication, learning group organization, potential encouragement, and facilities support) and outcomes of curriculum management (curriculum organization, curriculum design, curriculum evaluation, curriculum knowledge and curriculum resources combination) are both involved in the questionnaire. 456 questionnaires were sent and 432 valid questionnaires are collected. Data are analyzed quantitatively by mean, standard deviation, T-test, one-way ANOVA and Pearson Product-moment Correlation etc. Based on the statistics and analyses, conclusions are as followed: 1. Different personal background variables lead significant diversity on strategies of curriculum management. 2. Different school circumstance variables lead unsignificant diversity on strategies of curriculum management. 3. Different personal background variables lead significant diversity on outcomes of curriculum management. 4. Different school circumstance variables lead unsignificant diversity on outcomes of curriculum management. 5. Strategies of curriculum management is significant diversity to outcomes of curriculum management. 6. Strategies of curriculum management is significant correlateion to outcomes of curriculum management. According to the conclusions, the researcher also addressed advice for local educational institution, school administrators and further research.

Given the conflicting research results on the effectiveness of whole-school reform models (Nunnery, 1998; Stringfield & Herman, 1997; American Institutes for Research, 1999; U.S. Department of Education, 2004), there is a need to focus on the evaluation procedures of whole-school reform organizations. Because the ultimate goal is to improve school performance, it should also be a goal of each whole-school reform organization to design a comprehensive data collection system to evaluate each school’s performance. A comprehensive reporting system was developed for a school reform organization, the Accelerated Schools Project (ASP). Using the steps of the research and development process recommended by Borg and Gall (1989), this study: (a) developed a theoretical framework for the reporting system, (b) identified data that should be collected in the reporting system, (c) performed a field test with an expert panel of educational professionals, (d) developed a preliminary form of the reporting system, (e) performed a main field test with principals and coaches in the ASP network, (f) reported field test results, (g) revised the preliminary reporting system, (h) developed a website for the reporting system, and (i) provided recommendations for the completion, dissemination and implementation of the system in accelerated schools across the nation. This study has important implications for both the ASP community and for the entire whole-school reform community. For the ASP community, the reporting system could be used: (a) to collect data in all accelerated schools across the nation (b) as a longitudinal database of information to monitor data on each ASP school, and (c) to generate school summary reports on ASP schools. These data will assist researchers in measuring the effectiveness of the ASP model on student achievement and other important variables. For the whole-school reform community, the method used in this study could be replicated in other school reform organizations to develop a comprehensive reporting system. By providing consistent data for school reform organizations to evaluate the impact of their models on students and schools, educational researchers will be better equipped to understand each model’s impact, and thus will better understand the diverse research results on school reform effectiveness.

Background: Constructive alignment (CA) is a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the alignment between the intended learning outcomes (ILOs), teaching and learning activities (TLAs) and assessment tasks (ATs) as well as creation of a teaching/learning environment where students will be able to actively create their knowledge. Objectives: This paper aims at investigating the extent of constructively-aligned courses in Computer Engineering and Informatics department at Dalarna University, Sweden. This study is based on empirical observations of teacher’s perceptions of implementation of CA in their courses. Methods: Ten teachers (5 from each department) were asked to fill a paper-based questionnaire, which included a number of questions related to issues of implementing CA in courses. Results: Responses to the items of the questionnaire were mixed. Teachers clearly state the ILOs in their courses and try to align the TLAs and ATs to the ILOs. Computer Engineering teachers do not explicitly communicate the ILOs to the students as compared to Informatics teachers. In addition, Computer Engineering teachers stated that their students are less active in learning activities as compared to Informatics teachers. When asked about their subjective ratings of teaching methods all teachers stated that their current teaching is teacher-centered but they try to shift the focus of activity from them to the students. Conclusions: From teachers’ perspectives, the courses are partially constructively-aligned. Their courses are “aligned”, i.e. ILOs, TLAs and ATs are aligned to each other but they are not “constructive” since, according to them, there was a low student engagement in learning activities, especially in Computer Engineering department. / <p>Högskolepedagogik, högskolepedagogisk utbildning, BHU</p>

Self-rated health (SRH) is an outcome commonly studied by demographers, epidemiologists, and sociologists of health, typically measured using an ordinal scale. SRH is analyzed in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies for both descriptive and inferential purposes, and has been shown to have significant validity with regard to predicting mortality. Despite the wide spread use of this measure, only limited attention is explicitly given to its unique attributes in the case of longitudinal studies. While self-rated health is assumed to represent a latent continuous and dynamic process, SRH is actually measured discretely and asymmetrically. Thus, the validity of methods ignoring the scale of measurement remains questionable. We compare three approaches to modeling SRH with repeated measures over time: linear multilevel models (MLM or LGM), including corrections for non-normality; and marginal and conditional ordered-logit models for longitudinal data. The models are compared using simulated data and illustrated with results from the Health and Retirement Study. We find that marginal and conditional models result in very different interpretations, but that conditional linear and non-linear models result in similar substantive conclusions, albeit with some loss of power in the linear case. In conclusion, we suggest guidelines for modeling self-rated health and similar ordinal outcomes in longitudinal studies. / text

This study examined the relationships between consumer demographic/VR service variables and employment outcomes/weekly earnings/level of education for 25,218 individuals ranging from 15 to 18 years old with learning disabilities from the Rehabilitation Services Administration data in 2012. To explore predictors of employment outcomes and the level of education, the participants were randomly split for cross-validation purposes into Sample 1 and Sample 2. A separate logistic regression was run for each sample, and variables (e.g. African American, job placement, college training, and occupational training) were statistically significant in predicting successful employment outcomes. In addition, service variables including African American status, college training, and occupational training were found to be statistically significantly to predict the level of education for transition-aged youth with learning disabilities. Weekly earnings for White males and females combined were statistically higher than African American males and females combined. Suggested hypotheses and implications for practice and future research are provided. / text