scholarly journals Against Amateur Economies: Spec Work Competitions and the Anti-spec Movement

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Creative Workers ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
The Impact

The rise and rise of the amateur cultural producer has been greeted with a spectacular amount of celebratory rhetoric, in both popular and academic writing . It has also been criticised, often for the inferior quality of amateur productions compared to the fruits of professional labour. But apart from that by a small number of journalism scholars, little empirical research has been carried out with professional creative labourers about the impact of amateur economies on their work, and their responses to amateur production practices. This article addresses that gap, and also counterbalances the dominant celebratory discourse by focusing on an initiative that is critical of amateur economies and that emerges from creative workers themselves: the anti-spec movement within design industries. Anti-spec activists campaign against speculative (or spec) work, which is seen as one problematic materialisation of crowdsourced, amateur economies. Here, it is argued that responses to spec work can be understood in relation to designers’ ethics and values and the extent to which they feel that these are thrown into question by amateur activity.

Uncovering Implicit Learning Theories in the Humanities: A Study of Grantmaking at Illinois Humanities

2020 ◽  
Vol 122 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-38
Author(s):  
Christopher G. Pupik Dean ◽  
Maggie Schein ◽  
Sheena Kang ◽  
David Kidd ◽  
Mel Webb ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Implicit Learning ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Learning Theories ◽  
Systematic Assessment ◽  
Qualitative Thematic Analysis ◽  
The Impact

Background/Context In recent years, the humanities have frequently been described as “under attack” or “in crisis” in both popular media and academic writing. In this climate, it is particularly critical to develop a stronger understanding of the value of the humanities. While there are many theoretical arguments about their value, the base of empirical research that is focused on understanding how the humanities make a contribution to human development is not as robust as the theoretical arguments. Developing the base of empirical research requires the development of assessment tools that are grounded in humanistic practice and the implicit learning theories employed by humanists. Objective This study seeks to uncover and describe the implicit learning theories employed by a sample of humanist practitioners who applied for and received funding from the public humanities organization Illinois Humanities (IH) between 1981 and 2012. Research Design This project used qualitative analysis to study 89 grant proposals that were submitted to and funded by IH between 1981 and 2012. This archive was analyzed in a three-stage process. Through qualitative thematic analysis, we identified and coded elements of the archive that provided data about humanistic craft practice. We used the results of this analysis to conduct a secondary analysis of the elements of craft logic and to identify implicit learning theories. Findings/Results Our findings revealed that the humanists who received grants from IH engaged the craft logic of the humanities in ways that could be grouped into themes and tended to apply one of seven implicit learning theories to their work. Three implicit learning theories were shared by ten or more grants across the sample: cultivating understanding through analysis, cultivating understanding through imaginative engagement, and cultivating appreciation. Conclusions/Recommendations We propose that the analytic approach we describe here helps make the logic underlying humanistic practice explicit and thereby lays the foundation for the development of systematic assessment strategies authentic to programs that deploy common humanistic methods and goals. This can provide humanists and humanities organizations with a better and more explicit understanding of how their own practices work as drivers of human development and to construct an analytic framework for empirically assessing the impact of the humanities on participants and students in humanities programs.

scholarly journals Peer Review: A Tool to Enhance the Quality of Academic Written Productions

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 30
Author(s):  
Maria Fernanda Poveda de Brusa ◽  
Liliya Harutyunyan
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Communicative Competence ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Future Research ◽  
English Class ◽  
Individual Knowledge ◽  
Long Term Impact ◽  
The Impact

Higher education focuses on promoting the training of autonomous, critical professionals who adapt to the ever-more demanding labor market. To achieve these objectives, it is necessary to rethink teaching practices in order to allow the student to be the main actor and modeler for their learning process. Previous studies based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory have shown that learning should be treated as a socio-cultural activity. Indeed, according to this approach, individual knowledge is firstly constructed at a social level. Peer review, for its part, is a learning tool based on the sociocultural approach. It allows students to achieve higher levels of autonomy and critical thinking. This research’s aim is, on the one hand, to analyze the effect of peer review on the quality of academic essays and, on the other, to examine the way in which linguistic and communicative competence in academic writing are affected. This experimental study was carried out with 68 level B1 + students (32 men and 36 women) in a private university in Ecuador during one academic year. After the statistical analysis, it is concluded that peer review has a positive impact on academic writing. However, the impact is higher in the communicative competence than in the linguistic competence. This result is aligned with previous research, which shows that students tend to prioritize message over form. Future research should investigate peer review’s long-term impact upon students and their ability to transfer skills acquired in English class to other subjects, or even to professional contexts.

Administrative justice and empirical legal research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Hertogh
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Administrative Practice ◽  
Legal Perspective ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Effective Instrument ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Administrative Justice

For many years, most studies on administrative justice were written from a doctrinal legal perspective. More recently, however, administrative justice has also become the subject of a growing body of empirical research. This chapter provides an overview of empirical administrative justice research in three fields: administrative decision-making, redress mechanisms, and the impact of redress mechanisms on administrative practice. In legal doctrine, ‘legal instrumentalism’ has become central to thinking about administrative justice. However, the findings from empirical research provide little support for the underlying assumptions of instrumentalism. In this way, empirical legal research forces us to rethink the relationship between administrative law and administrative justice. The chapter concludes that while in some cases law and legal institutions may be an effective instrument to promote administrative justice in other cases, the direct impact of law is severely limited and law may even have a negative effect on the quality of administrative justice.

scholarly journals The Story of Writing: From Classical Rhetoric to Rhetoric and Composition

2022 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
I. B. Korotkina
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Rhetoric And Composition ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
10Th Anniversary ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Writing Research ◽  
Research Competences ◽  
Two Stages ◽  
The Impact

Written to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the rubric “Academic Writing and Research Competences” established by the journal’s late editor-in-chief Mikhail Sapunov, the paper focuses on the origins of academic writing and traces its development in terms of rhetoric. The five stages of classical rhetoric are interpreted as five key components of academic writing: research, logic, culture, knowledge, and language. This approach helps visualize academic writing as a wholesome model composed of cognitive and linguistic elements, describe the impact of this model on the rhetorical and publishing conventions of the global academic discourse, and define the problems in knowledge construction as deviations from the model’s unity in various sociocultural contexts. The study concludes that the low quality of an academic text may result from either losing the predominance of the first two stages of rhetoric (invention and arrangement) or of the other three (style, memory, and delivery). The former signifies an ideological pressure on researchers to substitute their own rhetoric with quotes from canonized sources, whereas the latter provokes them to disregard language and style as inferior to research, because of which texts diminish in clarity. In either case, communication lacks in efficiency. The study of academic writing in the historical perspective contributes to better understanding of the latest trends in its development and elicits the problems which impede the quality of Russian scholarly and academic texts.

The Empirical Research about the Impact on the Accounting System Changes to Earning Quality - Taking Manufacturing of a-Shares as an Example

2013 ◽  
Vol 423-426 ◽  
pp. 2211-2215
Author(s):  
Jun Li ◽  
Bin Mei ◽  
Su Fang Li
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Earnings Quality ◽  
Listed Companies ◽  
Accounting System ◽  
Quality Of Accounting Information ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms ◽  
Earning Quality ◽  
The Impact

In order to investigate whether changes in the accounting system of mandatory significantly improve the quality of accounting earnings of listed companies, this paper uses empirical research methods and takes A-shares listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen manufacturing industry in the year of 2004-2009 as samples to analyze. The results show that with the constant reform and improvement of Chinese accounting system, the earnings quality of a share shows a significant upward trend on the whole, which demonstrates the changes in the accounting system can promote the earning quality to some extent. At the same time the research discover also shows that simple changes in accounting standards does not improve the quality of accounting information, unless it is accompanied by supporting the strong legal and enforcement mechanisms.

scholarly journals Controlling Effectiveness Model — empirical research results regarding the influence of controlling on organisational performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-42
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Bieńkowska
Keyword(s):  
Job Performance ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Management Support ◽  
Mediation Model ◽  
Organisational Performance ◽  
Effectiveness Model ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Correct Implementation

AbstractThe article aims to explain how controlling influences an organisation as a whole, considering the job performance of employees and managers. It describes the development and verification of the Controlling Effectiveness Model, which characterises the impact, the place of each variable and the direction of each relationship in the effort to shape organisational performance. The hypothesis was verified with the help of empirical research, which was conducted with 264 organisations operating in Poland. The survey took place in October 2019. The authors of the article used the CAWI method. Efforts had been made to ensure a diversified research sample encompassing various organisational characteristics. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and the sequentially mediated regression model were used to verify the hypothesis. The empirical research allowed confirming a statistically significant indirect impact of the quality of controlling on organisational performance. This relationship depends on the job performance of managers and employees. The analysis of the impact made by controlling on the job performance of employees and managers as we as the organisational performance resulted in a mediation model (the Controlling Effectiveness Model) and confirmed the effect of controlling on organisational performance through the impact on job performance of managers and employees. The article has practical implications. The organisations that decide to implement controlling should focus on the quality of this management support method. It is not enough to simply implement controlling as organisations need to ensure the correct implementation. In this context, it is also relevant to properly shape functional, organisational and instrumental controlling solutions (tailored to the characteristics of the organisation as a whole, as well as to the environmental conditions, under which the organisation operates), which determine the quality of controlling.

scholarly journals The Moderating Role of IT in Process of Shaping Organizational Performance by Dynamic Capabilities of Controlling

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 889
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Bieńkowska ◽  
Katarzyna Tworek
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Dynamic Capabilities ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Main Tool ◽  
Multiple Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Role Of It ◽  
The Impact

IT solutions have a significant role in supporting controlling processes, as well as in shaping the performance of organization as a whole. The aim of this article is to examine the impact of controlling dynamic capabilities on organizational performance through quality of controlling and verify the role of IT support for the obtainment of benefits for the organization as a whole. The empirical verification of hypotheses was done on the sample of 229 organizations functioning in Poland. The presented results of empirical research allowed for the construction of a model demonstrating the impact of dynamic capabilities of controlling on organizational performance through quality of controlling. Next, it was concluded that IT dynamic capabilities as well as IT reliability moderates the influence of dynamic capabilities of controlling on organizational performance. Methods of statistical description and estimation were used for the empirical research (based on the questionnaire as a main tool of data gathering), esp. multiple linear regression analysis with mediator and moderators was performed using SPSS Macro Process.

Self-Compassion and Quality of Life in Adults Who Stutter

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 2097-2108
Author(s):  
Robyn L. Croft ◽  
Courtney T. Byrd
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Social Connectedness ◽  
The Self ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Self Compassion ◽  
Adults Who Stutter ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify levels of self-compassion in adults who do and do not stutter and to determine whether self-compassion predicts the impact of stuttering on quality of life in adults who stutter. Method Participants included 140 adults who do and do not stutter matched for age and gender. All participants completed the Self-Compassion Scale. Adults who stutter also completed the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering. Data were analyzed for self-compassion differences between and within adults who do and do not stutter and to predict self-compassion on quality of life in adults who stutter. Results Adults who do and do not stutter exhibited no significant differences in total self-compassion, regardless of participant gender. A simple linear regression of the total self-compassion score and total Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering score showed a significant, negative linear relationship of self-compassion predicting the impact of stuttering on quality of life. Conclusions Data suggest that higher levels of self-kindness, mindfulness, and social connectedness (i.e., self-compassion) are related to reduced negative reactions to stuttering, an increased participation in daily communication situations, and an improved overall quality of life. Future research should replicate current findings and identify moderators of the self-compassion–quality of life relationship.

Surgery for Lung Cancer and the Consequences for the Swallow

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (13) ◽  
pp. 162-168
Author(s):  
Pippa Hales ◽  
Corinne Mossey-Gaston
Keyword(s):  
Lung Cancer ◽  
Treatment Options ◽  
Vocal Cord Palsy ◽  
Subsequent Treatment ◽  
Physiological Reserve ◽  
Palliative Phase ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Swallow Function

Lung cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers across Northern America and Europe. Treatment options offered are dependent on the type of cancer, the location of the tumor, the staging, and the overall health of the person. When surgery for lung cancer is offered, difficulty swallowing is a potential complication that can have several influencing factors. Surgical interaction with the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) can lead to unilateral vocal cord palsy, altering swallow function and safety. Understanding whether the RLN has been preserved, damaged, or sacrificed is integral to understanding the effect on the swallow and the subsequent treatment options available. There is also the risk of post-surgical reduction of physiological reserve, which can reduce the strength and function of the swallow in addition to any surgery specific complications. As lung cancer has a limited prognosis, the clinician must also factor in the palliative phase, as this can further increase the burden of an already compromised swallow. By understanding the surgery and the implications this may have for the swallow, there is the potential to reduce the impact of post-surgical complications and so improve quality of life (QOL) for people with lung cancer.

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