Postdoctoral Researchers in the UK: A Snapshot at Factors Affecting Their Research Output

Aims: This study aimed to identify the risk factors of using DSM to provide an insight into the inherent implications this has on dental professionals in practice and trainee professionals’ education. Materials and methods: Twenty-one participants (10 dental professionals and 11 undergraduate and postgraduate dental students) participated in this qualitative study using semi-structured interviews in a dental school in the UK. The interviews were analysed and categorised into themes, some of which were identified from previous literature (e.g., privacy and psychological risks) and others emerged from the data (e.g., deceptive and misleading information). Results: The thematic analysis of interview transcripts identified nine perceived risk themes. Three themes were associated with the use of DSM in the general context, and six themes were related to the use of DSM in professional and education context. Conclusions: This study provided evidence to understand the risk factors of using DSM in dental education and the profession, but the magnitude of these risks on the uptake and usefulness of DSM needs to be assessed.

Download Full-text

Factors affecting consultant attitudes to undertaking undergraduate medical student teaching in the UK: a systematic review

BMJ Open ◽

10.1136/bmjopen-2020-042653 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. e042653

Author(s):

Isobel Marion Harris ◽

Heather McNeilly ◽

Hani Benamer ◽

Derek J Ward ◽

Alice J Sitch ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Systematic Review ◽

Medical Students ◽

Student Teaching ◽

Data Extraction ◽

Undergraduate Medical Students ◽

Systematic Review Methodology ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

Persistent Problem ◽

Medical Student Teaching ◽

The Uk

ObjectiveThis systematic review aimed to explore consultant attitudes towards teaching undergraduate medical students in the UK.DesignSystematic review.MethodologyStandard systematic review methodology was followed. MEDLINE, EMBASE and OpenGrey were searched from inception to August 2019 to identify studies exploring senior doctors’ attitudes towards teaching undergraduate medical students. Two reviewers independently carried out key methodological steps including study screening/selection, quality assessment and data extraction. A narrative synthesis was undertaken.ResultsFive studies were included in the review dating 2003–2015. Two studies used questionnaires, and three used focus groups/semistructured interviews. Key findings identified across all studies were consultants generally found teaching undergraduate medical students enjoyable, and consultants identified time constraints as a barrier to teaching. Other findings were consultants feeling there was a lack of recognition for time spent teaching, and a lack of training/guidance regarding teaching students.ConclusionsThis is the first systematic review to explore senior hospital doctors’ attitudes towards teaching undergraduate medical students. Despite these five studies spanning 12 years, the same attitudes and issues regarding teaching are identified by all, suggesting lack of time particularly is a persistent problem regarding consultant-based teaching. An anecdotal impression is that consultants are no longer as enthusiastic about teaching as they once were, but it is evident over the 12 years of these studies that enjoyment levels, and presumably enthusiasm, have not changed significantly.

Download Full-text

An Exploratory Study of Organizational Governance in Publicly-Quoted Professional Service Firms

Organization Studies ◽

10.1177/0170840615571959 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 36 (6) ◽

pp. 779-807 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Mark E. Pickering

Keyword(s):

Professional Service ◽

Governance Structures ◽

Service Firms ◽

Professional Service Firms ◽

Organizational Governance ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

Ultimate Failure ◽

Publicly Owned ◽

The Uk ◽

Interpretive Scheme

There has been a trend of large professional service firms (PSFs) to move from the partnership form of ownership to alternative ownership forms. As part of this trend large, publicly-quoted accounting companies have emerged in Australia, the US and the UK. Research on how publicly-owned PSFs, including accounting companies, are governed, whether aspects of the governance of partnership persist, why particular governance interpretive schemes and associated structures and systems are implemented and implications for performance is sparse. This study explores the interpretive scheme of governance in two Australian publicly-quoted accounting companies and finds one of the companies to have mimicked the major attributes of the partnership interpretive scheme while the other company moved to a corporate form of governance eliminating all vestiges of the partnership interpretive scheme. Governance was found to have significant implications for the performance of the companies with moving from a partnership interpretive scheme contributing to the ultimate failure of one of the companies. The cases suggest that failed experiments in the governance of publicly-owned PSFs, a relatively recently emerged ownership form in some professions, may contribute to conflicting prior findings on the implications of ownership form for the performance of PSFs. Two alternative approaches to the introduction of corporate style governance structures and systems were identified with the findings suggesting potential benefits of evolution rather than revolution. Based on the findings, a theoretical model of the interpretive scheme of governance of publicly-traded PSFs is developed including factors affecting the interpretive scheme implemented and the introduction of more corporate-like governance structures and systems, potential performance implications of PSFs moving away from a partnership interpretive scheme and the conditions and contingencies under which the relationship may hold. The paper also extends the application of agency theory to publicly-owned PSFs.

Download Full-text

Research on the health of and interventions for family caregivers of people with dementia: a bibliometric analysis of research output during 1988–2018

10.21203/rs.2.15389/v1 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Hui Shi ◽

Chen Mao ◽

Jinling Tang ◽

Huiying Liang

Keyword(s):

Bibliometric Analysis ◽

Research Output ◽

Online Communication ◽

Annual Number ◽

Dementia Patient ◽

Dementia Caregivers ◽

People With Dementia ◽

The Usa ◽

Performance Statistics ◽

The Uk

Abstract Background: Dementia is a large and growing health problem, and since the majority of dementia patients live at home, caring responsibilities generally fall to family members. Caregivers are often inadequately supported by formal health services and have poorer psychological and physical health. Our study aimed to compare the contributions of publications from different countries, institutions and authors and present a bibliometric analysis to determine the future hotspots and trends in research on the health of and interventions for family dementia caregivers. Methods: Studies published during 1988-2018 were extracted from the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science. Each publication was evaluated to obtain the basic information. Bibliometric analysis was used to evaluate the number or cooperation networks of publications, countries, institutions, journals, citations, authors, references, and keywords. The resulting articles were analyzed descriptively, and data were produced for VOSviewer. Results: Five hundred forty-two articles were identified.The annual number of relevant publications has increased steadily since approximately 2006. The USA has the highest number of publications (36.2%), followed by the UK (12.9%). China entered late, but research there has developed rapidly. The most productive institution, journal, and author in this field are University College London, the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, and Orrell M from the UK, respectively. A co-occurrence analysis of keywords reveals a mainstream research focus on burden, depression, quality of life, and corresponding interventions for dementia patient caregivers. The keywords “psychosocial intervention”, “long-term”, “e-learning/online”, “communication”, and “qualitative research” reflect the latest hotspots, appearing in approximately 2017-2018. Conclusion: Our study details the performance statistics of and the main topics and trends in the research on the health of and interventions for dementia caregivers from 1988 to 2018 and provides a comprehensive analysis.

Download Full-text

Hedging in English texts written by lower secondary pupils attending Norwegian schools

Nordic Journal of Modern Language Methodology ◽

10.46364/njmlm.v6i1.411 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

James Jacob Thomson

Keyword(s):

Language Learners ◽

Second Language Learners ◽

The United States ◽

School Level ◽

The Novel ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

9Th Grade ◽

Written Texts ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Uk

This study analyses the use of hedges in English texts written by year nine[1] pupils attending Norwegian lower secondary schools. Hedges are quantified in a corpus of 82 pupil texts using a taxonomy consisting of five hedging categories: Adaptors, Rounders, Plausibility Shields, Explicit Markers of Author Involvement and Verbal Fillers (Prince et al., 1980; Salager-Meyer, 1994; Holmes, 1986). As the pupils are school-level second language learners of English, each device is also deemed to be either accurately or inaccurately used based on grammar, well-formedness and appropriateness (Fetzer, 2004). The analyses are compared across topic, holistic ratings and formality. Texts in the corpus are written about two topics: sports and literary analyses of the novel Holes (Sachar, 1998). Texts about sports contain significantly more hedges than texts about Holes. Comparing accurate and inaccurate categories across holistic ratings, different results were produced when considering topic. Informally written texts about sports contain higher frequencies of accurately used devices than formally written texts about sports. The results suggest that topic and formality are the most significant factors affecting hedging use in this corpus. While hedging frequency overall does not seem to correlate with holistic ratings, overuse and inaccurate use of hedges seems to affect quality. Based on the results, it is argued that pupils may benefit from exposure to a wide range of accurately used devices. [1] “Year 9” is a term usually used in the UK, synonymous with “9th grade” used in the United States, for pupils aged 13-14.

Download Full-text

How fast should social restrictions be eased in England as COVID-19 vaccinations are rolled out?

10.22541/au.161570484.42882509/v2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

David Miles ◽

Adrian Heald ◽

Mike Stedman

Keyword(s):

Healthcare Services ◽

Key Factors ◽

Healthcare Provision ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

Education Outcomes ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Standards Of Living ◽

Life Years ◽

The Uk ◽

The Impact

Vaccination against the COVID-19 virus began in December 2020 in the UK and is now running at 5% population/week. High Levels of social restrictions were implemented for the third time in January 2021 to control the second wave and resulting increases in hospitalisations and deaths. Easing those restrictions must balance multiple challenging priorities, weighing the risk of more deaths and hospitalisations against damage done to mental health, incomes and standards of living, education outcomes and provision of non-Covid-19 healthcare. Weekly and monthly officially published values in 2020/21 were used to estimate the impact of seasonality and social restrictions on the spread of COVID-19 by age group, on the economy and healthcare services. These factors were combined with the estimated impact of vaccinations and immunity from past infections into a model that retrospectively reflected the actual numbers of reported deaths closely both in 2020 and early 2021. It was applied prospectively to the next 6 months to evaluate the impact of different speeds of easing social restrictions. The results show vaccinations are significantly reducing the number of hospitalisations and deaths. The central estimate is that relative to a rapid easing, the avoided loss of 57,000 life years from a strategy of relatively slow easing over the next 4 months comes at a cost in terms of GDP reduction of around £0.4 million/life-year loss avoided. This is over 10 times higher than the usual limit the NHS uses for spending against Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) saved. Alternative assumptions for key factors affecting give significantly different trade-offs between costs and benefits of different speeds of easing. Disruption of non-Covid-19 Healthcare provision also increases in times of higher levels of social restrictions. In most cases, the results favour a somewhat faster easing of restrictions in England than current policy implies.

Download Full-text

A Conceptual Framework Outlining Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Earth as a Sustainable Building Material in the United Kingdom

European Journal of Sustainable Development ◽

10.14207/ejsd.2020.v9n3p241 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 241

Author(s):

Mohammad Sharif Zami

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Conceptual Framework ◽

Co2 Emissions ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Building Material ◽

Review Of Literature ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

Earth Construction ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

The Uk

Despite the fact that contemporary earth construction may open up new avenues to cutting down CO2 emissions, a review of literature reveals that there is sparse research to date identifying reasons behind why there may be resistance to earth construction as a sustainable construction material in the United Kingdom. The aim of this paper is to formulate a conceptual framework that facilitates a clearer understanding of factors affecting the acceptance of earth as a sustainable material in the UK. To achieve this aim, this study adopted a research methodological framework comprising of an extensive review of literature, the Delphi technique, and in-depth interviews. The conceptual framework provides insight into factors related to the UK context specifically including a lack of technological innovation, resources, well-established supply chain networks, training facilities in universities and building codes. These issues may be addressed through the promotion of earthen architecture as a method of cutting CO2 emissions and introducing earth construction modules in relevant degree programs. Keywords: conceptual framework, factors, building material, earth, environmental sustainability

Download Full-text