Non-government organization study awards: enhancing successful completion of social work qualification

ABSTRACT

The current study used a sequential, exploratory mixed-method design to explore how a social work study scholarship implemented in Aotearoa New Zealand impacted on recipients’ qualification completion and their professional and practice competence. Phase one involved 13 individual interviews with past award recipients which described how the study award impacted on their qualification completion. Thematic analysis was used to extract themes. These themes were examined in the second phase through a quantitative battery completed by 107 past recipients to examine their professional and practice competence. The findings from interviews showed the award enabled recipients to complete their studies and improve their social work practice without causing undue stress or financial pressure on the recipient and their family. Quantitative analysis corroborated and extended these findings to demonstrate that the award contributed to lifting the level of social work knowledge, competence, and skills in the recipients. Accompanying the successful qualification completion, these qualified social workers were equipped with essential skills, promoting social work values and competence to contribute and safeguard the benefit of children, families, and communities. The awards offered a ‘wrap around’ support and was not limited by age or ethnicity but provided a support system to achieve qualification completion.     

Extending Bayesian back-calculation to estimate age and time specific HIV incidence

Lifetime Data Analysis - CD4-based multi-state back-calculation methods are key for monitoring the HIV epidemic, providing estimates of HIV incidence and diagnosis rates by disentangling their...     

Spaces of Muslim Identity in Inverness,Scotland

Each generation of immigrants has its own challenges; for example, how to maintain already constructed identities among first generation immigrants and how to construct identities of the second generation of immigrants. Numerous literature suggests that the previous studies on these topics have been conducted within larger cities such as London, Glasgow or Edinburgh. This article examines how Muslim immigrants in a small city maintain and modify some aspects of their religious and cultural identities. The data consist of 30 interviews conducted with first and second generation of Muslim immigrants in Scotland, analysis of which suggests the size of the city does not appear to affect daily Muslim practices nor their ability to maintain Muslim identity. Rather, access to shared spaces, such as Inverness Masjid and the local halal meat shop, become critical to how Muslim's maintain and modify their identity in a new place.     

The Eurasian Economic Union: Development Prospects and Possible Obstacles

This article analyzes the development prospects and problems for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). It examines issues of integration within the EAEU, as well as interactions with other countries, both CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) and non-CIS. The main problem of integration within the EAEU is the dominance of redistributive motives over productive ones. This article assesses the extent of Russian oil and gas transfers to EAEU partners and the impact of tax maneuvers on their size. It shows that the creation of mechanisms for redistributing profits within the EAEU will allow a positive economic effect to materialize from free trade agreements with non-CIS countries. The article assesses the risks for the EAEU related to Russia’s introduction of a unilateral ban on food imports from countries on the sanctions list and to the possible establishment of tariffs on trade with Ukraine.     

From sex objects to bumbling idiots: tracing advertising students’ perceptions of gender and advertising

While much attention has been given to critiquing sexism and stereotyping in advertising texts, less weight is afforded to examining the gendered opinions and worldviews of the practitioners who create such texts and even less focus on such attitudes as held by advertising students—the next generation of advertisers. This paper is concerned with exploring advertising students’ attitudes towards representations of the sexes in adverts, and how this may reflect their gendered opinions more generally. Analysing individual, semi-structured student interviews (n = 12) reveals that, while there was widespread acknowledgement that sexual objectification of women in advertising remains prevalent, there was a discursive turn towards a concern for men and boys, and assertions that misandry has emerged as a concerning and unwelcome trend in advertising imagery and texts. This was bolstered by a less prevalent theme; one which lauds the figure of the “tomboy” and thereby serves to privilege the male experience.     

Volunteering in Retirement and Its Impact on Seniors Subjective Quality of Life Through Personal Outlook: A Study of Older Australians

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This study examines the subjective quality of life of globally expanding senior citizens post-retirement, from a...     

Modeling time series data with semi-reflective boundaries

Time series data are increasingly common in many areas of the health sciences, and in some instances, may have natural boundaries serving as performance guidelines or as thresholds associated with adverse outcomes. Such boundaries may be labeled as semi-reflective, in that the time series values have an increased chance of returning towards middle levels as the boundaries are approached, but boundaries can still be breached. In this paper we review a model that was previously proposed for such data and we investigate its statistical properties. Specifically, this model consists of a third-order auto-regressive projection component, parameterized as a constrained linear combination of linear, flat, and quadratic trends, and an error term that uses a logistic regression model for its sign. We describe and compare a previously-proposed estimation method with a modified version thereof, using computer simulations, as well as data examples from heart monitoring and from a driving simulator. We find that the two methods tend to give different results, with the modified technique having lower bias and more accurate confidence intervals than the previously-proposed method.     

Farmers’ Risk‐Based Decision Making Under Pervasive Uncertainty: Cognitive Thresholds and Hazy Hedging

Researchers in judgment and decision making have long debunked the idea that we are economically rational optimizers. However, problematic assumptions of rationality remain common in studies of agricultural economics and climate change adaptation, especially those that involve quantitative models. Recent movement toward more complex agent‐based modeling provides an opportunity to reconsider the empirical basis for farmer decision making. Here, we reconceptualize farmer decision making from the ground up, using an in situ mental models approach to analyze weather and climate risk management. We assess how large‐scale commercial grain farmers in South Africa (n = 90) coordinate decisions about weather, climate variability, and climate change with those around other environmental, agronomic, economic, political, and personal risks that they manage every day. Contrary to common simplifying assumptions, we show that these farmers tend to satisfice rather than optimize as they face intractable and multifaceted uncertainty; they make imperfect use of limited information; they are differently averse to different risks; they make decisions on multiple time horizons; they are cautious in responding to changing conditions; and their diverse risk perceptions contribute to important differences in individual behaviors. We find that they use two important nonoptimizing strategies, which we call cognitive thresholds and hazy hedging, to make practical decisions under pervasive uncertainty. These strategies, evident in farmers' simultaneous use of conservation agriculture and livestock to manage weather risks, are the messy in situ performance of naturalistic decision‐making techniques. These results may inform continued research on such behavioral tendencies in narrower lab‐ and modeling‐based studies.