The Impact of a Task Clarification and Feedback Intervention on Restaurant Service Quality

Customer service is a key aspect of restaurant success, as performance has shown a reliable positive relationship with customer retention. However, waitstaff performance may deteriorate, as income from gratuities is often unrelated to service quality. The present study investigated the effectiveness of an intervention consisting of task clarification and task-specific feedback on restaurant service tasks and observed the relationship between task completion and gratuities. Three adult women servers participated during their regular working shifts at a local dine-in restaurant. Initially customer service task completion was low (36% on average across participants). Performance increased immediately following the introduction of the intervention, and all participants maintained 87.5%–100% task completion. Correlational analyses found that gratuities were unrelated to performance and may thus pose a problem for performance maintenance. Implications relating to feedback and payment schedules are discussed.     

From the Ghetto to the Ivory Tower: Gendered Effects of Segregation on Elite‐College Completion*

Objectives. To explore the continuing consequences of segregation for students in elite colleges and test whether male and female students experience the effects of segregation in different ways. Methods. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF, 1999–2003) are used to predict the odds of elite‐college graduation separately by gender. Theories on childhood gender socialization are addressed using OLS and logistic regression models to test for gendered pathways through which childhood segregation affects the likelihood of college graduation. Results. Males are exposed to higher levels of violence and disorder than females throughout childhood, and the gender gap in exposure grows as levels of segregation increase. The effect of segregation and its sequella on academic performance, however, appears to operate through different channels for males and females. Females experience significant negative effects of ongoing family stress, whereas males at elite colleges do not. Academic preparation, operating through college GPA, remains the single biggest factor affecting the likelihood of college graduation, although the strength of association is greater for males. Conclusions. Growing up in racially segregated environments affects long‐term educational outcomes in ways that are not gender neutral. Despite having reached the “ivory tower,” females and males continue to experience the effects of segregation, although in different ways and degrees.     

Infant Affect During Parent—Infant Interaction at 3 and 6 Months: Differences Between Mothers and Fathers and Influence of Parent History of Depression

Fifty families participated in mother‐infant and father‐infant still‐face interaction at infant ages 3 and 6 months as part of a study of affect in early parent‐infant relationships. Infants' positive and negative affect and parents' positive affect and physical play were coded from videotapes. Consistent with previous research, during the normal condition, mothers displayed more positive affect than did fathers, and fathers were more likely than mothers to display physical play. Infants were more positive with mothers than with fathers. Parents' positive affect but not parent gender predicted infants' positive affect at 6 months. During the still‐face condition, infants of parents with a lifetime history of depression were more likely to display negative affect and less likely to display positive affect than infants with no such parent history. Infants' affect was unrelated to parents' current level of depressive symptoms, which indicates the value of considering family history of psychopathology when examining individual differences in infants' affect.     

Working for Patients? The Right Approach?

This paper is a slightly revised version of a Memorandum requested by the House of Commons Social Services Select Committee to assist the Committee in its analysis of the White Paper Working for Patients (Cm 555). It was submitted to the Committee on 28 February 1989. The paper follows up the authors'earlier study of the reform of the NHS (Barr, Glennerster and Le Grand, 1988), prepared at the request of the Select Committee prior to the publication of the White Paper.
The success or failure of the White Paper depends crucially on the precise details of the way in which its proposals are implemented. The Working Papers, although providing some more information as to how the White Paper's proposals will be implemented, do not in the main address the issues that concern us here.
Given the inescapable tension between cost and quality, quality control will be absolutely critical if the incentives to economize on the use of resources are not on occasion to lead to unacceptable reductions in quality — reductions which might well apply differentially by socioeconomic group.     

Transnational patterns among Asian American and Latina/o American children of immigrants from Southern California

A growing literature has examined the prevalence of transnational engagement among children of immigrants. However, few studies have been equipped to analyse underlying dynamics that serve to impede or perpetuate transnational practices among them in the United States. In this article, we compare transnationalism narratives between 1.5- and second-generation children of immigrants to more fully adjudicate enduring transnational ties over time. Our analysis of 134 interviews from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study suggests that children of immigrants from Southern California conceptualise transnational experiences in diverse but remarkably similar ways. The meanings attached to transnational behaviours and identities employ certain patterns, and are often related to strength of kin-based ties, ethnic language fluency, and levels of structural access to the homeland. Moreover, findings indicate that the second-generation is nearly as transnationally engaged as the 1.5-generation. This provides novel but limited evidence in support of claims that transnational ties are sustained across generations.     

Multidimensional Racial Inequality in the United States

This paper measures racial inequalities in the US using a multidimensional ‘wellbeing’ approach that simultaneously considers the distributions of income, health and education. The primary objective is to examine trends in US wellbeing inequality with an emphasis on changes in racial composition. Data is taken from 1990 to 2007 and we observe increases in income inequality, a decline in education inequality and unchanged health inequality over the period. Taken together, these results show a slight increase in the dispersion in multidimensional wellbeing. Stratifying by racial groups shows that this increase is due to widening intra-racial inequalities while inter-racial differences remained unchanged. The method is also used to evaluate wellbeing across groups and we estimate black wellbeing to average around 76 % of whites, while persons from other races average approximately 93 %. Some other changes in composition occur through time and the results are shown to be robust to a number of changes in parametric weightings.     

Beware of Allies!

In science and technology studies (STS), reflexivity is not the foremost political or ethical concern that it is for some postmodernists, feminists, anthropologists, or those earnest students of Bourdieu. For us, reflexivity is a practical methodological concern. When reflexivity is raised in our scholarly communications it is, without irony, about crafting scientific communications (i.e., scholarly accounts like articles or books) reflexively. This paper therefore is an actor-network account of making reflexive actor-network accounts, specifically, in the process of writing-up qualitative research findings. It is a paper about research. It is a paper about the research process. As our empirical contribution, we report on research we previously conducted and about the subsequent steps we took toward a (publishable) way of reporting it. We are trying to honestly disclose how the process of preparing a reflexive account is more than merely a matter of cleaning-up the messiness of data, but also, and perhaps foremost, a process of finding, aligning, and occasionally distancing our accounts from our allies?—?in our case, actor-network theory (ANT) and reflexivity.     

Social Workers Can e-Learn: Evaluation of a Pilot Post-Qualifying e-Learning Course in Research Methods and Critical Appraisal Skills for Social Workers

Social workers are increasingly encouraged to become research minded and integrate research findings into their practice. However, there is a paucity of high-quality accessible training for social workers in research methods and critical appraisal skills. We developed an e-learning version of an MSc degree module to widen access to this kind of training and this paper presents the findings of an evaluation of a pilot of this e-learning course. To test the effectiveness of the e-learning environment in delivering research methods and critical appraisal skills training to social workers in comparison with a classroom group, we adopted a mixed methods approach which comprised concept mapping exercises, semi-structured interviews and evaluation questionnaires administered to the e-learners (n = 3) and a classroom comparison group (n = 12). Our analysis of the students' concept maps revealed no conspicuous differences in the quality of student knowledge changes that were a consequence of the mode of teaching delivery. The e-learners met the learning outcomes of the module to the same extent as the classroom group and were highly satisfied with the mode of delivery. Although this was a small pilot, it provided tentative evidence that social workers can use e-learning to develop evidence-based practice skills.     

Training care managers in risk assessment: Outcomes of an in-service training programme

Despite a recognition that social service workers require training in risk assessment, it would appear that there currently exists minimal information regarding appropriate models for risk assessment to underpin care managers' practice and, as a result, minimal discussion to inform considerations regarding appropriate training in this area. To date, not one study has appeared in the literature specifically examining whether in-service training provided to care managers actually results in changes to their work practices. This study provides results from an evaluation of an in-service training programme in risk assessment and demonstrates that the training had minimal impact on trainee behaviours. A number of reasons are offered as to why the training failed to transfer to practice; chief amongst these being insufficient time to learn the content of the training and factors associated with the specific work environment. Importantly, the particular model of risk assessment taught on the training programme was considered by care managers as far too time consuming and complicated to use, given the demands on their time and heavy workloads. It is suggested that if this particular risk assessment model is to be adopted by care managers, social services departments must ensure that such training is of appropriate duration to enable skills to be learnt, and that workplace contingencies are addressed to facilitate rather than hinder the use of training. These findings are considered to have practical significance for the design of similar short duration training programmes within social services.