Exploring Research Data Hosting at the HKUST Institutional Repository

Abstract

The profusion of data created by modern research has brought about increasing discussion on the practice of data management and the development of such infrastructure. Many universities and libraries are exploring how to address this issue using institutional repositories, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Library being one of them. As part of the exploration, the author conducted a case study of datasets at major institutional repositories. This paper visits the issues relating to data archiving, reports common practices of data treatment at institutional repositories, and presents a list of recommendations for experimenting data archiving at the HKUST Institutional Repository.     

Are Private Schools Better Than Public Schools? Appraisal for Ireland by Methods for Observational Studies

In observational studies the assignment of units to treatments is not under control. Consequently, the estimation and comparison of treatment effects based on the empirical distribution of the responses can be biased since the units exposed to the various treatments could differ in important unknown pretreatment characteristics, which are related to the response. An important example studied in this article is the question of whether private schools offer better quality of education than public schools. In order to address this question we use data collected in the year 2000 by OECD for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Focusing for illustration on scores in mathematics of 15-years old pupils in Ireland, we find that the raw average score of pupils in private schools is higher than of pupils in public schools. However, application of a newly proposed method for observational studies suggests that the less able pupils tend to enroll in public schools, such that their lower scores is not necessarily an indication of bad quality of the public schools. Indeed, when comparing the average score in the two types of schools after adjusting for the enrollment effects, we find quite surprisingly that public schools perform better on average. This outcome is supported by the methods of instrumental variables and latent variables, commonly used by econometricians for analyzing and evaluating social programs.     

Domestic violence and South Korean women: the cultural context and alternative experiences

The present research contributes to the growing body of cross-cultural research on domestic violence. This is accomplished by answering the question of how severity of intimate partner abuse varies for (1) women incarcerated for the homicides of their male partners (2) abused women who sought domestic violence shelter, short of killing their intimate assailants, and (3) a group of South Korean females outside of domestic violence shelters or prison. The article concludes with a discussion of potential policy implications of the findings as well as promising directions for future research.     

Disrupting the status quo: exploring culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies for young diverse learners

This article highlights four qualitative studies that examine young diverse populations (i.e. middle-class African-American learners, Latinx immigrant children, emergent bilingual writers, and teachers of low-socioeconomic African-American learners) using culturally relevant and culturally sustaining pedagogies as our theoretical lens. The research questions are (1) What are the features of classrooms that support culturally sustaining learning for young children? (2) What social, cultural, and linguistic resources do learners draw upon when engaging in culturally sustaining spaces? Findings in this paper indicate that (a) children need critical safe spaces to foster CSP (b) children draw knowledge from varied resources and (c) teachers’ must be able to navigate policies to implement practices that utilize students’ cultural referents.     

The Availability of Supervision in Routine Mental Health Care

Clinical supervision is an embedded resource for practice quality in community mental health organizations. Supervision has been found to increase provider competence and decrease stress. In addition, supervision has been associated with service user outcomes including decreased depressive symptoms. However, little is known about the availability and nature of supervision in real world settings. The primary aims of this study were to identify available supervision and the extent to which contextual factors are related to that availability. The data source for this study was a multi-state and multi-site (N?=?14) NIMH-funded trial survey of providers (N?=?273). Supervision was measured by hours per week (quantity) and by utilization of best practice activities (content). Univariate, Chi square, independent samples t-tests, and ANOVA analyses were used to assess supervision content and quantity and to examine subgroup differences. Participants reported an average of 2.17 h of supervision per week and 28.6% of participants endorsed best practice content. Supervision quantity varied significantly across sites (p?<?0.05) and program type (p?<?0.05) while content did not. Individual role within the organization had a significant relationship with reported supervision content (p?<?0.001). In these settings, staff in organizations are exercising discretion in how to utilize supervision within the available time. Supervision time also varied by program type, increasing with the intensity of services. Findings demonstrate that reports of availability vary according to position within the organization and the intensity of services within a given program type. Implications for workforce development, access to quality services, and implementation of evidence-based practices are discussed.     

Challenging Dominant Discourses: Peer Work as Social Justice Work

ABSTRACT

People with mental illnesses are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, and discourses concerning the medical model, criminalization, and criminality dominate the intervention landscape for this population. Using a critical postmodern lens, 45 in-depth interviews with peer specialists who had incarceration histories were analyzed to understand how they approach their work. Peer specialists with incarceration histories constructed new identities through their training and peer work by valuing experiential knowledge. Even in the face of power differentials, they challenged dominant discourses directly and indirectly and advocated for various forms of help for the people with whom they worked.     

Electronic Gaming Machine (EGM) Environments: Market Segments and Risk

This study used a marketing-research paradigm to explore gamblers’ attraction to EGMs based on different elements of the environment. A select set of environmental features was sourced from a prior study (Thorne et al. in J Gambl Issues 2016b), and a discrete choice experiment was conducted through an online survey. Using the same dataset first described by Rockloff et al. (EGM Environments that contribute to excess consumption and harm, 2015), a sample of 245 EGM gamblers were sourced from clubs in Victoria, Australia, and 7516 gamblers from an Australian national online survey-panel. Participants’ choices amongst sets of hypothetical gambling environments allowed for an estimation of the implied individual-level utilities for each feature (e.g., general sounds, location, etc.). K-means clustering on these utilities identified four unique market segments for EGM gambling, representing four different types of consumers. The segments were named according to their dominant features: Social, Value, High Roller and Internet. We found that the environments orientated towards the Social and Value segments were most conducive to attracting players with relatively few gambling problems, while the High Roller and Internet-focused environments had greater appeal for players with problems and vulnerabilities. This study has generated new insights into the kinds of gambling environments that are most consistent with safe play.     

Environmental Factors in the Choice of EGMs: A Discrete Choice Experiment

EGMs are a form of entertainment, and the gambling environment is an important contributor to the overall experience. Logically, to select a play-environment, EGM gamblers must choose the platform through which to access the EGM (e.g., internet, mobile application or land-based venue), a particular provider (e.g., specific website, app vendor or branded casino), and the game itself (e.g., based on graphical theme or bonus features; Thorne et al. in J Gambl Stud, 2016. doi: 10.1007/s10899-016-9601-2). A discrete choice experiment was conducted to identify the features of the platform, provider and game that are most strongly preferred by EGM gamblers. Participants were 245 EGM gamblers from clubs in Victoria, Australia and 7516 EGM gamblers from an Australian online panel. Results indicate that the ideal environment for the average gambler consists of: gambling at a club that is close to home; with a group of friends; in a relatively quiet place that has air conditioning, cheap food and a large space to play in; on a classic game with quality animations and small bet sizes; where you feel safe and secure; and where there is a wide variety of other games to play when you are done. Segmenting these results by problem-gambler status highlights important differences in preferences between problem and non-problem gamblers. Problem gamblers are less likely to give weight to the company they share and have a preference for larger venues. Using a powerful paradigm from marketing research, the present study was able to determine the relative value of different features of the EGM gambling environment, and also contributes important insight towards what constitutes a safer environment for recreational play.