Evaluation of an upper extremity student-role functioning scale using item response theory

Millions of workers suffer from upper extremity (musculoskeletal) disorders. Many of these workers are predisposed to upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders because of early exposure to ergonomic risks as students. Computer usage for four or more hours remains the greatest risk for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders for workers and students alike. Developing preventative methods to reduce student exposure, and thus protect future workers from upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders later in life, requires an appropriate measure for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorder prevalence and related limitations for student functioning. Item response theory analysis was used to evaluate and further develop a upper extremity functioning scale for the student role.     

Introduction: moving youth participation forward

Given the emerging interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in youth participation, it is important to examine and assess carefully the promise and challenges of youth engagement.     

Pädagogische Beratung und psychoedukatives Coaching

This article presents a teaching concept that lets students of the educational fields acquire counselling qualifications along with their curriculum. The importance of offering this course at the university of Hamburg, where a first test-run is conducted, is discussed. Further, the theoretical background, course contents and structures of the planned addition qualification “educational counselling and psycho-educative coaching” are shown. Finally, the current implementation and its progression is described together with an accompanying survey.     

Ein Experiment zum Einfluss der Situation auf physische und psychische Nähe

The influence of the social situation on the physical distance and, as measured by a questionnaire, emotional intimacy between participants was experimentally studied (N = 90) in a cooperative, a competitive, and a neutral social situation. Results indicate that the physical distance was greatest under neutral conditions. The cooperative condition produced the strongest feeling of intimacy. It is argued that the neutral condition is irrelevant to the participants’ behaviour and level of attention to other persons. Further, intimacy can only arise if an interaction is both positive and relevant. The correlation between physical and emotional distance turned out to be relatively small, in accordance with the range usually given for attitudebehaviour correlations.     

Choice of Parametric Accelerated Life and Proportional Hazards Models for Survival Data: Asymptotic Results

We discuss the impact of misspecifying fully parametric proportional hazards and accelerated life models. For the uncensored case, misspecified accelerated life models give asymptotically unbiased estimates of covariate effect, but the shape and scale parameters depend on the misspecification. The covariate, shape and scale parameters differ in the censored case. Parametric proportional hazards models do not have a sound justification for general use: estimates from misspecified models can be very biased, and misleading results for the shape of the hazard function can arise. Misspecified survival functions are more biased at the extremes than the centre. Asymptotic and first order results are compared. If a model is misspecified, the size of Wald tests will be underestimated. Use of the sandwich estimator of standard error gives tests of the correct size, but misspecification leads to a loss of power. Accelerated life models are more robust to misspecification because of their log-linear form. In preliminary data analysis, practitioners should investigate proportional hazards and accelerated life models; software is readily available for several such models.     

对“三个代表”思想进课堂的思考

随着学习“三个代表”、实践“三个代表”的深入 ,“三个代表”思想如何进课堂是马克思主义理论课教学面临的现实问题。要讲清理论 ,掌握群众 ,体现“三个代表”思想的创新蕴意 ,必须解决好理论的“权威”与“维权”的矛盾 ;课堂中可能出现的“讲清”与“清讲”的矛盾 ;必须着眼于理论思维 ,全面梳理“三个代表”思想。     

Qualitätsmanagement: Entwicklung,Problemfelder und ein integrativer Lösungsvorschlag

Quality Management: History, problems and an integrative modelStarting with a critical examination of the history and the commonly known concepts and systems of Quality Management, the paper discusses a broader understanding of quality in a genuinely managerial perspective. This is shown by generating and applying five basic dimensions of the quality concept. An integrative concept of Quality Management is presented.     

Index of Authors Volume 55, 2001

Authors Index

Index of Authors Volume 55, 2001     

Quality of Life Indexes for National Policy: Review and Agenda for Research

A number of governments and public policy institutes have developed Quality of Life Indexes – statistics that attempt to measure the quality of life for entire states or regions. We develop 14 criteria for determining the validity and usefulness of such QOL indexes to public policy. We then review 22 of the most-used QOL indexes from around the world. We conclude that many of the indexes are successful in that they are reliable, have established time series measures, and can be disaggregated to study subpopulations. However, many fall short in four areas: (1) indexes vary greatly in their coverage and definitions of domains of QOL, (2) none of the indexes distinguish among the concepts of input, throughput, and output that are used by public policy analysts, (3) they fail to show how QOL outputs are sensitive to public policy inputs, and (4) none have examined convergent validity against each other. We conclude that many of these indexes are potentially very useful for public policy and recommend research to further improve them.