scholarly journals 'Critical Ingredients of Success': Exercise for Men : Exploring the Preferences and Experiences of Men Who have Had a Diagnosis of Cancer

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Colleen Kendrick

<p>Evidence demonstrates the benefits of exercise for those with a cancer diagnosis and there is an increasing recognition of the need to tailor exercise opportunities for specific patient groups. However, little is known about the preferences and experiences of exercise in men who have had a diagnosis of cancer. In May 2011, the Waikato/Bay of Plenty division of the Cancer Society of New Zealand introduced a supervised, circuit-based group exercise programme specifically for men. Given this was the first known such programme in New Zealand, this study involved a process evaluation of the programme‘s development and implementation. The aims of the study were to explore the experiences of the men who participated, to investigate their preferences for exercise, and identify factors essential to the ongoing design and delivery of acceptable, accessible and appropriate exercise programmes for men. The 10 male participants and the physiotherapist who delivered the programme were interviewed about their experiences of the 6 week programme. The men were aged 62-80 years with a median age of 69, had diverse professional and personal backgrounds, varied types and stages of cancer and a wide range of physical fitness. The interview data were analysed using an inductive, thematic approach. The programme met the men's needs and each felt invigorated for attending. The men all wanted the programme to continue. Four major themes emerged: 1) the importance of a safe, inclusive programme, 2) camaraderie and the impact of competition and humour, 3) acceptability of the programme and its purpose, and 4) the overall value of the programme. This research builds on existing knowledge and contributes to a deeper understanding of the utility and feasibility of a group-based exercise programme for men, and the factors that need to be considered in designing further programmes. Practicalities, possibilities and implications for practice and future research are discussed. These include the use of simple transferable resources and the ease in which this flexible programme could be further developed and expanded, the value of a multidisciplinary approach, and the potential multiple benefits for men‘s health care.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Colleen Kendrick

<p>Evidence demonstrates the benefits of exercise for those with a cancer diagnosis and there is an increasing recognition of the need to tailor exercise opportunities for specific patient groups. However, little is known about the preferences and experiences of exercise in men who have had a diagnosis of cancer. In May 2011, the Waikato/Bay of Plenty division of the Cancer Society of New Zealand introduced a supervised, circuit-based group exercise programme specifically for men. Given this was the first known such programme in New Zealand, this study involved a process evaluation of the programme‘s development and implementation. The aims of the study were to explore the experiences of the men who participated, to investigate their preferences for exercise, and identify factors essential to the ongoing design and delivery of acceptable, accessible and appropriate exercise programmes for men. The 10 male participants and the physiotherapist who delivered the programme were interviewed about their experiences of the 6 week programme. The men were aged 62-80 years with a median age of 69, had diverse professional and personal backgrounds, varied types and stages of cancer and a wide range of physical fitness. The interview data were analysed using an inductive, thematic approach. The programme met the men's needs and each felt invigorated for attending. The men all wanted the programme to continue. Four major themes emerged: 1) the importance of a safe, inclusive programme, 2) camaraderie and the impact of competition and humour, 3) acceptability of the programme and its purpose, and 4) the overall value of the programme. This research builds on existing knowledge and contributes to a deeper understanding of the utility and feasibility of a group-based exercise programme for men, and the factors that need to be considered in designing further programmes. Practicalities, possibilities and implications for practice and future research are discussed. These include the use of simple transferable resources and the ease in which this flexible programme could be further developed and expanded, the value of a multidisciplinary approach, and the potential multiple benefits for men‘s health care.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 016264342198997
Author(s):  
Sojung Jung ◽  
Ciara Ousley ◽  
David McNaughton ◽  
Pamela Wolfe

In this meta-analytic review, we investigated the effects of technology supports on the acquisition of shopping skills for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) between the ages of 5 and 24. Nineteen single-case experimental research studies, presented in 15 research articles, met the current study’s inclusion criteria and the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) standards. An analysis of potential moderators was conducted, and we calculated effect sizes using Tau-U to examine the impact of age, diagnosis, and type of technology on the reported outcomes for the 56 participants. The results from the included studies provide evidence that a wide range of technology interventions had a positive impact on shopping performance. These positive effects were seen for individuals across a wide range of ages and disability types, and for a wide variety of shopping skills. The strongest effect sizes were observed for technologies that provided visual supports rather than just auditory support. We provide an interpretation of the findings, implications of the results, and recommended areas for future research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Géraldine Fauville ◽  
Anna C. M. Queiroz ◽  
Erika S. Woolsey ◽  
Jonathan W. Kelly ◽  
Jeremy N. Bailenson

AbstractResearch about vection (illusory self-motion) has investigated a wide range of sensory cues and employed various methods and equipment, including use of virtual reality (VR). However, there is currently no research in the field of vection on the impact of floating in water while experiencing VR. Aquatic immersion presents a new and interesting method to potentially enhance vection by reducing conflicting sensory information that is usually experienced when standing or sitting on a stable surface. This study compares vection, visually induced motion sickness, and presence among participants experiencing VR while standing on the ground or floating in water. Results show that vection was significantly enhanced for the participants in the Water condition, whose judgments of self-displacement were larger than those of participants in the Ground condition. No differences in visually induced motion sickness or presence were found between conditions. We discuss the implication of this new type of VR experience for the fields of VR and vection while also discussing future research questions that emerge from our findings.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 240-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anisah Dickson ◽  
Laura B. Perry ◽  
Susan Ledger

International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes are growing rapidly worldwide, driven in part by their global reputation and concept-driven, inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning. This thematic review of a range of literature sources examines the impact of IB programmes on teaching and learning, highlighting trends, challenges, and benefits. Findings of the review revealed that most of the studies, both qualitative and quantitative, examined stakeholders’ perspectives or self-reported experiences of IB programmes; a very small number used research designs that control for confounding factors or allow causal inferences to be drawn. A wide range of stakeholders report that IB programmes develop research and critical thinking skills, intercultural appreciation and global awareness, as well as cultivate collaborative working cultures and creative pedagogical practices among teachers. Challenges include extra demands on teachers for lesson planning and assessment, additional stress for teachers and students, and competing demands and expectations with national requirements. Recommendations are provided which may guide future research endeavours.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Pamela Jean Backhouse

<p>International literature has focused on paraprofessionals working with students with disabilities in schools and similarly there is some investigative research on teacher aides working with children with disabilities in New Zealand schools. However there is little enquiry into Education Support Workers (ESWs) perspectives of working with children with disabilities in New Zealand Early Childhood Education settings. This study is intended to contribute to addressing this important gap in the literature. ESWs are allocated as primary supports for children with disabilities who need extra learning support and require intervention. This qualitative and quantitative research study is positioned within a sociocultural framework of the Te Whāriki (1996) Early Childhood curriculum which promotes inclusive practices for all children. One-hundred and three ESW respondents from the kindergarten sector completed and returned a questionnaire. Data collection included the role and proximity of an ESW, the child’s interactions with others, and the ESW’s relationship with the child with disabilities. The results revealed ESWs have a wide range of roles and responsibilities in their work with children with disabilities. They work in collaboration with teachers in determining their work with a child and integrate a child into the environment. The development of social skills and involving everyone in the child’s learning was a top priority. Also included was the building of relationships between the child, peers, teachers, and parents. In this study ESWs used a combination of positions such as working alongside, hovering, opposite, and behind and at the same time the child primarily interacted with the ESW, teachers, and peers. Even though there were some ESWs who worked exclusively with a child, the child still interacted in combination with the ESW, teachers, and peers. This result showed inclusion of others irrespective of the ESW’s close proximity. The ESW’s relationship with a child was reported as warm, caring, and positive and also described as very close, perhaps due to the nature of support for some children. This study explored ESWs’ perspectives on their work with children with disabilities and used self report. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed in the context of the ECE curriculum. Although some insight has been generated by ESWs’ participation in this study, there is still an urgent need for future research to ensure Ministry of Education policy and practice line up for children with disabilities and their families, in order for them to receive an equitable fair education as valued members of our community.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lesley Wright

<p>The sexual behaviour of young emergent adult women in New Zealand has become a target of media attention and commentary. Moralising language is prevalent in the public discourse, describing young women negatively with respect to character and psychology. Research investigating the increase of cultural artefacts such as hooking up or casual sex is often risk-focused, concentrating predominantly on detrimental impacts such as STIs, rape-risks, and depression. Some feminist analyses describe behaviour as postfeminist or as examples of false consciousness. Despite these positions, young New Zealand women are engaging in these and other non-relationship sexual activities in growing numbers, suggesting that current approaches are failing to capture salient explanatory information. Due to the negative impacts of social constraints such as the sexual double standard, traditional femininity and moralising social commentary on young women it is important to present a more holistic image of their behaviour so as to provide a deeper explanatory view which better accounts for young women’s experiences and motivations. In this study I utilise a mixed method research design to access a wide range of participants on a sensitive research topic. A self-selecting sample of 163 young women aged between 18 and 30, recruited from various university campuses around New Zealand, completed an online survey. From this group 18 heterosexually-identifying young women were selected to participate in instant messaging, email and face to face interviews, and an online discussion group. To analyse the material they provided I use a Third Wave feminist theoretical lens in order to give primacy not only to their voices but also their claims to agency and the importance of subjective positionality. I use Sexual Script Theory as a framework to illuminate the impact of cultural dialogues on individuals, and space was conceptualised as a way to illustrate performances and agency. Results suggest that young New Zealand women are strongly affected by risk-focused and moralising dialogues to the effect that they have internalised a risk-focused cultural script that guides their sexual interactions and behaviours within socio-sexual culture in constrained and avoidant ways. Other performed scripts such as ‘good girl’ femininity, traditional masculinity, and the normative performance of heterosex also presented as barriers to subjective sexual experience/development. However, many young women in this study were resistant to some of these scripts, as evidenced in their attempts to occupy traditionally masculine and/or social spaces where non-normative behaviours are (partially) permitted. Their behaviour suggests critical engagement with their socio-sexual environment and some awareness of script elements that dictate acceptable feminine behaviour, and how these constraints can be (at least temporarily) resisted as a means to not only developing sexual subjectivity but also to refashioning modern femininity.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Havsteen-Franklin ◽  
Megan Tjasink ◽  
Jacqueline Winter Kottler ◽  
Claire Grant ◽  
Veena Kumari

Crisis events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can have a devastating effect on communities and the care professionals within them. Over recent years, arts-based interventions have helped in a wide range of crisis situations, being recommended to support the workforce during and after complex crisis but there has been no systematic review of the role of arts-based crisis interventions and whether there are cogent themes regarding practice elements and outcomes. We, therefore, conducted a systematic review to (i) define the arts-based change process used during and after crisis events, and (ii) explore the perceptions of intermediate and long-term mental health benefits of arts-based interventions for professionals in caring roles. Our search yielded six studies (all qualitative). All data were thematically aggregated and meta-synthesized, revealing seven practice elements (a safe place, focusing on strengths and protective factors, developing psychosocial competencies to support peers, emotional expression and processing, identifying and naming the impact of the crisis, using an integrative creative approach, and cultural and organizational sensitivity) applied across all six studies, as well as a range of intermediate and long-term benefits shared common features (adapting, growing, and recovering; using the community as a healing resource; reducing or preventing symptoms of stress or trauma reactions, psychophysiological homeostasis). The ways in which these studies were designed independently from one another and yet used the same practice elements in their crisis interventions indicates that there is comparability about how and why the arts-based practice elements are being used and to what effect. Our findings provide a sound basis and meaningful parameters for future research incorporating quantitative and qualitative approaches to firmly establish the effectiveness of art-based interventions, and how arts can support cultural sensitivity, acceptability and indicated outcomes, particularly those relating to stress and trauma during or following a crisis.


2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395171986054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Felzmann ◽  
Eduard Fosch Villaronga ◽  
Christoph Lutz ◽  
Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux

Transparency is now a fundamental principle for data processing under the General Data Protection Regulation. We explore what this requirement entails for artificial intelligence and automated decision-making systems. We address the topic of transparency in artificial intelligence by integrating legal, social, and ethical aspects. We first investigate the ratio legis of the transparency requirement in the General Data Protection Regulation and its ethical underpinnings, showing its focus on the provision of information and explanation. We then discuss the pitfalls with respect to this requirement by focusing on the significance of contextual and performative factors in the implementation of transparency. We show that human–computer interaction and human-robot interaction literature do not provide clear results with respect to the benefits of transparency for users of artificial intelligence technologies due to the impact of a wide range of contextual factors, including performative aspects. We conclude by integrating the information- and explanation-based approach to transparency with the critical contextual approach, proposing that transparency as required by the General Data Protection Regulation in itself may be insufficient to achieve the positive goals associated with transparency. Instead, we propose to understand transparency relationally, where information provision is conceptualized as communication between technology providers and users, and where assessments of trustworthiness based on contextual factors mediate the value of transparency communications. This relational concept of transparency points to future research directions for the study of transparency in artificial intelligence systems and should be taken into account in policymaking.


1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Nutley ◽  
Peter C. Smith

Objectives: Increasingly health care performance data are being disseminated in the form of ‘league tables' of health care providers, with the implication that such publication helps purchasers select the better providers, and spurs providers into improvements. This paper examines progress to date. Methods: Three stages of the league table process are considered: measurement, analysis and action. Results: A wide range of measurement schemes are now in place, although the emphasis has been on process variables and mortality as a measure of outcome. Several analytical techniques have been deployed to help users make sense of league tables, and to help determine the causes of variations in reported performance. The weakest aspect of current methods relates to the use to which such analysis is put. Conclusions: A haphazard approach to using league table data exists, with few reports on the impact of publication. A variety of directions for future research into the use of performance data are needed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. 565-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo-Yao Lee ◽  

New Zealanders are exposed to multiple natural hazards. The country has experienced major disasters in the past, but recent decades have been relatively uneventful.1This paper reviews the New Zealand approach to civil defence emergency management (CDEM), as introduced by the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 (the CDEM Act). The approach promotes co-operative planning and sustainable management of hazard risks through the “4Rs” - reduction (of risks), readiness, response and recovery. It recognises the central government’s roles of national coordination, and emphasises the responsibilities of regional CDEM Groups, local government and communities for managing local hazard risks. The paper reviews various initiatives to illustrate that capacity building is a collective effort requiring active involvement across central and local government, nongovernmental agencies, communities and all individuals. New Zealand’s preparedness is examined from several perspectives, including: the level of public preparedness, lessons learned from real emergencies, a national exercise programme, and a monitoring and evaluation programme. The paper concludes that New Zealanders are making progress but difficulties remain in persuading all parties to work towards the vision of a “Resilient New Zealand.” 1. This paper was submitted before the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that struck the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand (where the second largest city Christchurch is located) on 4 September 2010. Fortunately, no deaths and only a few serious injuries were reported as a result of the earthquake. The impact on buildings, infrastructure and economy, and psychosocial effects are being assessed as the paper is being finalised. However, the event is set to become the most costly disaster so far in New Zealand history. It will also be the most significant real test for many years of New Zealand’s emergency management arrangements, but it is too soon for an assessment in this paper of their effectiveness.


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