User Involvement in Therapy: Couples' and Family Therapists’ Lived Experiences with the Inclusion of a Feedback Procedure in Clinical Practice

User involvement in therapy includes some form of feedback from the clients. The feedback guides the therapist and the clients toward a best possible result through a best possible therapy process. In recent years many different procedures for collecting feedback have been developed. In a previous study presented in this journal we explored the expectations therapists had before including the comprehensive clinical feedback procedure, Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (STIC), in their clinical practices. Our aim with this present study is to explore couples' and family therapists’ experiences with STIC from the perspective of user involvement. We found that the term ‘using STIC’ represented many different variations both between therapists and between the families each therapist worked with. Likewise user involvement, combined with a feedback procedure like STIC, was also a many faceted area. We discuss how therapists’ experiences may relate to the different aspects of user involvement in therapy.     

Reducing Electricity Use on Campus: The Use of Prompts,Feedback, and Goal Setting to Decrease Excessive Classroom Lighting

Energy conservation is an important factor in both sustainability programs and operating costs faced by organizations. The current study used visual prompts, performance feedback, and goals setting to reduce unnecessary classroom lighting on a college campus. A package intervention was applied weekly over a semester using a multiple baseline design across three units, with one unit serving as a baseline-only control. Signs were hung in classrooms and updated weekly. The signs asked users to conserve energy by turning off the lights when the room is not in use, and indicated progress toward a goal for the current room as well as the building overall. The combined treatment successfully reduced unnecessary classroom lighting and generated interest in campus sustainability programs.     

Effectiveness of Job Aids and Post Performance Review on Staff Implementation of Discrete Trial Instruction

Discrete-trial instruction (DTI) is a well-established instructional method for teaching children with autism. Accurate implementation of DTI procedures requires that staff be well trained. This study examined the effectiveness of job aids followed by post performance review of strengths, errors, and accuracy on discrete trial instructional accuracy in three participants who conducted DTI within their current job positions. Additionally, primary training procedures were embedded within a meta-shaping procedure, which involved the gradual and systematic introduction of three levels of behavioral components required for accurate implementation of the DTI sequence with mastery criteria set at 90% accuracy across all three levels. As demonstrated in a changing criterion within a multiple baseline design, staff demonstrated increases in DTI accuracy following the initiation of the job aid condition; however, some degree of performance-based feedback was required to establish high levels of procedural fidelity across the DTI sequence. Performance accuracy on maintenance probes remained at high levels. These findings provide support that job aids followed by performance-based feedback may be an effective and efficient method for shaping high levels of DTI procedural fidelity in staff. Additionally, gradual shaping of the DTI accuracy may scaffold performance, minimize errors, and increase social validity.     

El autoconcepto como factor condicionante de la eficacia del feedback sobre el rendimiento

Resumen

El objeto de esta investigación, llevada a cabo en una muestra de 118 alumnos de 5.° nivel de Educación Básica, fue el de comprobar la influencia del feedback en la ejecución de una prueba de contenidos académicos y si el autoconcepto del alumno mediatiza la eficacia del feedback. La muestra se dividió en tres categorías, según las puntuaciones obtenidas en un test de autoconcepto académico, y cada una de estas categorías se subdividió en tres grupos equivalentes, dándose a cada uno un tipo de feedback (positivo, negativo, neutro). En cuatro grupos el feedback resultó eficaz en el sentido esperado, siendo más receptivos los alumnos que tienen una opinión favorable de sí mismos.     

高校教学信息员制度的意义与实践问题的思考

学生在教学活动中处于主体地位,让学生参与学校管理及其制度建设,从学生角度了解课堂教学效果,反馈学生对课堂讲授、教学管理、教学条件、教学改革方面的意义和建议意义十分重大。从教学信息员的作用、存在的问题和在实践中如何更有效的促进教学管理工作的不断完善进行了探索。     

Motivating child welfare case managers: An application and extension of feedback information theory

No empirical studies in the child welfare literature have examined how job characteristics impact work motivation. The present study addresses this conspicuous research gap by surveying 419 county-based child welfare case managers across the state of New York. As predicted by feedback information theory, work motivation was enhanced by instrumental feedback and reduced when job complexity was introduced as a moderator. Consistent with the challenge–hindrance stress model, job control positively influenced job complexity's affects on the instrumental feedback–work motivation relationship. Findings advance the child welfare literature by demonstrating that the motivational effects of instrumental feedback are both conditional and dynamic.     

社会工作毕业生对专业教学的反馈——以天津师范大学社工毕业生为例

中国的社会工作教育自上个世纪90年代至今已有了很大的发展,大量社会工作毕业生已经可以从工作情境的实际需要出发对目前的社工教育提供丰富的反馈意见。本研究力图通过调查天津师范大学社工专业毕业生对专业教育的反馈情况,了解毕业生对课程设置和专业教学等方面的看法和评价,以期为今后社会工作专业的教育教学改革提供较为客观和现实的指导和建议。     

Independent student projects in undergraduate engineering statistics and quality control courses

This paper considers the use of independent student data collection and analysis projects in the teaching of engineering statistics and quality control. It describes the possible forms such projects can take, gives some details of their use at Iowa State University, and argues for their effectiveness in improving learning.     

Decreasing Delivery Drivers' Departure Times

Abstract

A performance feedback and goal setting procedure was used to improve the morning departure times for delivery drivers in a social services agency that provided meals to elderly clients. Daily group feedback with changing-criterion goal setting was delivered using charts in a publicly accessible area. Upon the onset of the intervention, performance improved significantly and accordingly reversed during the first withdrawal phase. These improvements were replicated in a second feedback phase but did not reverse in a second withdrawal phase. Individuals who were relatively low performers during the baseline phase saw their performance improve to equal that of relatively high performers during the intervention phases. This demonstration project replicates and extends a well-established OBM intervention to a transitional work environment.     

The Selection of Targets for Organizational Interventions

The current article focuses on the selection of targets for organizational interventions. It is argued that OBM has had an excessive reliance on adherence to organizational rules and procedures (process) as the source of target behaviors. Some potential problems with this pattern are identified and alternatives suggested.