Simulations allow people to experience events as if they were happening in the real world in a way that is safer and less expensive than live training. Despite improvements in realism in simulated environments, one area that still presents a challenge is interpersonal interactions. The subtleties of what makes an interaction rich are difficult to define. We may never fully understand the complexity of human interchanges, however there is value in building on existing research into how individuals react to virtual characters to inform future investments. Virtual characters can either be automated through computational processes, referred to as agents, or controlled by a human, referred to as an avatar. Knowledge of interactions with virtual characters will facilitate the building of simulated characters that support training tasks in a manner that will appropriately engage learners. Ultimately, the goal is to understand what might cause people to engage or disengage with virtual characters. To answer that question, it is important to establish metrics that would indicate when people believe their interaction partner is real, or has agency. This study makes use of three types of measures: objective, behavioral and self-report. The objective measures were neural, galvanic skin response, and heart rate measures. The behavioral measure was gestures and facial expressions. Surveys provided an opportunity to gain self-report data. The objective of this research study was to determine what metrics could be used during social interactions to achieve the sense of agency in an interactive partner. The results provide valuable feedback on how users need to see and be seen by their interaction partner to ensure non-verbal cues provide context and additional meaning to the dialog. This study provides insight into areas of future research, offering a foundation of knowledge for further exploration and lessons learned. This can lead to more realistic experiences that open the door to human dimension training.

The objective of this study is to investigate ableism and social support networks in the healthcare setting. Social support networks play an important role in combating emotional distress in healthcare. They provide disabled patients a method for defending against the negative effects of ableism among other stressors. By definition, ableism refers to perceptions that disability is abnormal and undesirable. Ten healthcare providers in central Florida (i.e., in nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and primary care offices) were interviewed, using in-depth face-to-face qualitative interviewing. Participants were asked questions relating to the effects of ableist language on patients with disabilities as well as the role of social support networks in combating related stress. Throughout the process of data analysis, five major themes arose as most relevant to the research questions proposed: (1) Traditional Social Support, (2) Online Networks as a Source of Informational Support, (3) Concerns about Ableist Language, (4) External Sources of Patient Social Support, and (5) Accommodation and Accessibility. Results indicated a strong preference for traditional social support, as opposed to online support. Traditional social support is offered through accommodation of caregivers, availability of social workers, and creation of support groups. Benefits of online support networks are viewed mainly in terms of fulfilling the informational needs of patients with disabilities. Additionally, while some accommodations for patients with disabilities were described, these dealt primarily with alterations to the physical environment. Results showed a lack of attention paid to ableism in the healthcare field, particularly instances occurring in communication practices. Overall, there is room for improvement in the healthcare field concerning accommodations for patients with disabilities.

No description available.

Topics within small-group communication have been explored in many contexts, such as work group, organizational meeting, or online network. This area of discipline is considered crucial because this type of communication assimilates interpersonal relations within a social setting. Two elements that largely affect small-group communication dynamics are anonymity and social identity. This research invokes previous research in anonymity and social identity within small-group communication pertaining to the level of agreement and the level of group attraction through a series of experiments. Anonymity in small-group communication context is defined as a condition where the group members are not identifiable. To create anonymity among group members, this study utilized the benefit of a chat room in computer-mediated communication (CMC), which allows group members to participate in group discussion anonymously without the fear of being judged. It is argued that groups communicating synchronously via CMC would have a higher agreement than those communicating face-to-face (FtF) because the anonymity in CMC eliminates all of visual cues and therefore, unites all group members. It is also argued that members in groups in FtF are more likely to be interpersonally attracted than those in CMC. Thus, members communicating via FtF would have larger cumulative group attraction than those in CMC. Meanwhile, social identity in small-group communication context is defined as the tendency of a group member to associate with fellow members who share similarities with him or her and hold prejudice against members who are different than him or her. The element of social identity that was being activated in this study was the gender identity. This was done through using a gender-related case, an opinion scale, and distributing participants into groups of different gender compositions. It is argued that single-gender groups would have higher level of agreement and group attraction than mixed-gender groups. The experiment assigned participants into six different groups. The groups communicated via FtF or via CMC. In each setting, there were male-only groups, female-only groups, and mixed-gender groups. The only statistically significant result from the experiments suggested that in CMC, female-only groups had a higher level of agreement than mixed-gender groups. However, there were also differences of mean agreement between female-only groups in FtF and female only groups in CMC. Those communicating via CMC had higher agreement. In terms of level of group attraction, there was not any significant result in any condition. This finding suggests that in CMC, groups that are exclusively females are more conducive than other gender compositions in reaching agreement. Meanwhile, the lack of significance in group attraction between FtF and CMC suggests that people have become more familiar with anonymous CMC settings allowing them to substitute the available textual cues for visual cues.

We live in a world that is broken by sin, where the only permanent thing is change. The cause of man’s sin was that the koinonia relationship between man and God had been severed. After Adam and Eve feel into sin, a spiritual darkness in the history of man began. Man was unable to rebuild the communication and relationship that he had with God. God came through the calling of Abram (Abraham) to restore some of the koinonia relationship we need. In the New Testament, Jesus came and restored the way to God, but something is still missing. This koinonia relationship will only be totally fulfilled when Jesus comes again to take us home. God’s instrument to experience true koinonia is the church. The koinonia that was lost and restored in Jesus. The church of today has lost some of the koinonia that the first church experienced, by becoming program orientated. The church is at this moment in a transformation process, where it is rediscovering the importance of being a mission-minded balanced loving community that is experiencing koinonia in relationships. The small group is thé vehicle that could help the church rediscover the koinonia, which people and the world need. This will only become true when we have a broader insight of the small group ministry in a local missionary-minded community (congregation). The small groups ministry is not a tool to use. You start a small group ministry in your local congregation because this is the way you were created. To truly understand the local church and the way we were created, we need to look back. We need to look back to creation, and how God created us, and to remind us of the Triune God’s, Father, Son and Spirit’s functioning in community. Only when the church realizes again that we are created in God’s image, will we look at our mission responsibilities and not-yet-believers in a new way. Namely, God’s way. / Thesis (DD (Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Science of Religion and Missiology / unrestricted

The problem of this study was to determine the effectiveness of small group counseling in reducing the attrition rate and in altering the adjustment and values of freshmen in a community junior college.

Existem 82 Faculdades de Nutrição no Estado de São Paulo. Dessas, a sua totalidade possui a disciplina Bioquímica na grade curricular, apontando sua importância para os cursos de Nutrição. Entretanto, levantamentos preliminares com alunos do curso de Nutrição da USP apontaram desinteresse destes para com as disciplinas de Bioquímica. Os motivos mais citados foram a desvinculação da Bioquímica com a área de atuação/interesse do nutricionista, o método aplicado e a distância entre professor e aluno. A presente pesquisa concentrou-se em resolver os problemas levantados, alterando o currículo e propondo um método, diferente dos até então aplicados em cursos de Bioquímica para a Nutrição, baseado no ensino colaborativo derivado da teoria de Vygotsky. Constatou-se ausência de critérios dos alunos que permitissem diferenciar informações científicas das advindas do senso comum, veiculadas pela Internet ou revistas de grande circulação. Como o desenvolvimento desta capacidade crítica é exatamente um dos objetivos mais reiteradamente propostos para a formação de profissionais, decidiu-se iniciar os alunos na literatura científica e posteriormente na atividade científica. Para tanto, foi estabelecida a atividade propedêutica ao trabalho científico. Esse trabalho procurou: 1- Vincular precocemente as disciplinas com a área de atuação profissional, enfatizando a importância da Bioquímica para a Nutrição. 2-Promover o desenvolvimento da capacidade crítica, por meio de discussões e trabalho em equipe. 3- Buscar o aprendizado significativo. 4- Familiarizar os alunos com o modelo de método científico presente em artigos científicos e com a forma estabelecida de fazer ciência na universidade. 5- Mostrar a importância da formação científica. 6-Desenvolver a atitude científica. 7- Desenvolver habilidades de redação científica, espírito crítico e busca e seleção de informações, bem como a apresentação e avaliação de trabalhos. As disciplinas foram elaboradas para que fossem aplicadas no formato de grupos de discussão, com participação ativa dos alunos nas aulas. O desempenho dos alunos nas disciplinas do curso de Bioquímica e nas atividades paralelas foi muito expressivo com médias muito superiores à nota de aprovação. Todos os dados permitem afirmar que as disciplinas envolvidas no projeto foram bem avaliadas pelos alunos que a cursaram. Essas avaliações, associadas ao desempenho dos alunos nas avaliações somativas, permite concluir que o método aplicado no curso de Bioquímica da turma da Nutrição revela algumas qualidades educacionais / There are 82 Nutrition Colleges in São Paulo state. All of them have the subject Biochemistry included in their curriculum, which demonstrates its importance for the Nutrition course. However, preliminary research with the students of University of São Paulo\'s Nutrition course showed lack of interest from them regarding Biochemistry. The reasons most commonly stated were the lack of a link between Biochemistry and the areas of interest/work of the nutritionist, the teaching method and the distant relationship between professors and students. The present research focused on solving the issues raised, modifying the curriculum and proposing a method which differs from the ones used in Biochemistry courses applied to Nutrition, based on the collaborative teaching derived from Vigotsky\'s theory. It was reported that students lack criteria to differ scientific information from those based on common sense, those found on the internet or on magazines of wide circulation. Since the development of this analytical ability is precisely one of the most reiterated goals in the formation of the professional, it was decided to initiate students into the scientific literature and afterwards into the scientific practice. In order to do so it was established the introductory activity to scientific work. This project has attempted to: 1- Precociously link the subject to the area of work, emphasizing the importance of Biochemistry to Nutrition. 2- Promote the development of analytical skills, through discussions and group work. 3- Seek meaningful learning. 4-Make the students familiar to the model of scientific method presented in scientific articles and the established way to make Science at university level. 5- Show the importance of scientific formation. 6-Develop the scientific attitude. 7- Develop skills on scientific writing, critical spirit and searching and selecting information, as well as presenting and assessing projects. The subjects were elaborated to be applied in the format of discussion groups, with the active participation of the students in class. The performance of the students in the subject of Biochemistry and in the parallel activities was significantly better, presenting marks way above the average. Based on the available data it can be affirmed that the subjects involved in the project were well-evaluated by the students who took the course. These evaluations, associated to the students\' performance on the summary evaluations, lead to the conclusion that the method applied on the Biochemistry course of the Nutrition class reveals some educational qualities.

The current study evaluated the implementation of evidence-based reading interventions using a multifaceted implementation measurement approach. Multilevel modeling was used to examine how three direct measures of implementation related to each other and to student academic outcomes and to examine patterns of implementation across time. Eight instructional groups were video taped weekly for nine weeks, and pre- and post-test assessments were given to 31 at-risk kindergartners from two schools using established evidence-based practices. Each implementation measure represented a different measurement approach (i.e., discrete behavioral measurement, global ratings) and focused on different aspects of implementation (e.g., structural, process, or multicomponent elements). Overall, results of this analysis indicated that (a) the implementation tools were highly correlated with each other, (b) only the multicomponent tool independently accounted for group differences, (c) together the multicomponent and process-oriented measures appear to account for additional variance in group differences, and (d) there were no significant trends in implementation across time as measured by any of the tools, however there were significant differences in trends over time between groups when using the structural measure. Implications for research and practice are discussed, including the importance of taking a multifaceted approach to measuring implementation and aligning implementation measures with program theory.

The goal of the presented research was to examine the relationship between relational satisfaction and nonverbal interpretation during a conflict. Specifically, we hypothesized that participants who reported being dissatisfied with their closest relationship would be more likely to make negative interpretations of facial expressions during a conflict episode. Participants completed a survey that measured their relationship status, level of satisfaction, and interpretations of descriptions of facial expressions being made during a series of conflict scenarios. Developing a better understanding of the role of nonverbal behaviors may help encourage healthier conflict management

This project seeks to understand the construction of a personal narrative concerning a primary parental figure using the process of collaborative autoethnography. In order to properly encapsulate the author’s lived experience, primary influential factors were considered imperative in allowing for a fuller representation. Thus, the author’s story joins those of her siblings to highlight the paradoxical process inherent in unearthing one’s singular perception. This project primarily aims to explore the complexity of autoethnography while simultaneously interrogating the cultural discourse surrounding motherhood and academic writing. By having a close and personal understanding of the subject matter as well as the research participants, the author was provided a unique glimpse into the ways family stories are both co-constructed and individually recounted