Genetic nutrition programmes – disappointment or empowered health? Exploring consumer engagement to understand social health change

Purpose This research aims to gain insight into how consumers interact with a commercially available genetic nutrition programme, DNAfit, to explore health change via an intervention. Design/methodology/approach Focus groups were conducted between June and October 2019, pre-, during- and post-intervention, with a total sample of 14 younger (aged 25–44 years) and 14 mature (aged 45–65 years) cohorts from New Zealand. Qualitative thematic analysis was completed with the help of NVivo software. Findings Younger participants in this study engaged less overall with DNAfit, felt the service did not match their lifestyles and did not encourage their believability of genetic personalised nutrition (GPN). In contrast, mature participants had positive engagement with GPN, as their motivation to use the service fit with their motivation for longevity. Overall, social uptake in health changes based on GPN is likely to depend on life stage. Originality/value This paper adds to limited social marketing research, which seeks novel avenues to explore how consumers engage with GPN technologies to drive social change, assisting social marketers on how to more effectively deliver health programmes that allow consumer-driven interaction to build health capabilities.

Feeling, Seeing, and Thinking

What has been learned through science is that the human body is not a separate part of the environment. Indeed, both organic and non-organic energies are exchanged in every instant of life. As the spectrum of electromagnetic energies used in virtual media devices has expanded, there are increasingly vast amounts of non-organic energies bombarding living matter, and there are consequences of this bombardment being paid by those whose bodies are more sensitive to these energies. Electromagnetic frequency (EMF) sensitivity has brought hundreds of people to rural Green Bank, West Virginia. This chapter follows the journey of one such individual, who has engaged her body, mind, and heart to reclaim her life through engaging in physical and mental grounding, rewiring her brain, and achieving mind-heart entrainment. Further, the authors suggest that with the easement of pain, her time-sharpened and expanded senses appear to have contributed to positive engagement with subtle energies.

Higher Education Student´s Emotions

This article presents the perception of 611 students from public universities in Mexico about online classes in pandemic times. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Vygotsky's contributions are taken, especially those related to emotional manifestations. It is concluded that the most important factor in this change is the emotions that are identified as an impulse to act during online classes, given the didactic and pedagogical components, resources, and supports for students that promote learning. This proposes a framework for considering the emotional aspects of positive engagement in students learning online. There is evidence of some balance between the advantages and disadvantages of online education. It also suggests that women perceive more negative emotions such as disappointment and frustration in the online education experience. The teacher, being a vicarious learning model, can innovate in education by promoting peripheral participation with other playful activities that involve abstract, applied, and situated learning.

Development and acceptability of a brief, evidence-based Dementia Awareness for Caregivers course in low- and middle-income countries

Background Knowledge of and attitudes towards dementia vary across countries, and for caregivers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), access to information can be challenging. There is an urgent need for brief, easily accessible and culturally appropriate educational courses for caregivers of persons with dementia, providing much needed information whilst addressing important psychological concepts such as stigma. Methods An international and multidisciplinary team developed Dementia Awareness for Caregivers (DAC) courses in four stages: (1) scoping review and module agreement, (2) development of an International template (DAC-International) containing a standardised process for adding information, (3) development of local DACs using a standardised format and (4) acceptability of courses in Brazil, India and Tanzania. Findings The DAC-International was developed, comprising three modules: ‘What is dementia?’; ‘Positive engagement’ and ‘Caring for someone with dementia’. Three local versions were developed from this (DAC-Brazil, DAC-India and DAC-Tanzania), where additions of country-specific information included prevalent stereotypes and the addition of culturally relevant case studies. An initial field test was conducted in each country ( n = 85), which indicated acceptability to participants. Conclusions The methods used here resulted in culturally valid and acceptable educational courses for carers of people with dementia. Future work will consist of large-scale, formal evaluations and the development of additional local courses.

Social media engagements of music videos on YouTube’s official artist channels

As social platforms become essential in promoting songs, many artists create an official channel on YouTube and encourage their fans’ engagements. However, little is known about the effectiveness of official videos in generating fans’ media engagements. We conduct two empirical studies to investigate the relationship between official video attributes, media engagements and channel subscribers. First, we propose a model to explain how music video attributes facilitate the relative social media engagements of a video. Second, we test whether three types of social engagements are associated with an increase in official channel subscribers. To do so, we collect social media engagement data for the 2896 music videos uploaded between May 2016 and April 2019 by 105 artists who own their YouTube official artist channels. The empirical evidence shows that the official videos incorporating visual, performance and storytelling components can generate more positive engagement from the viewers, while audio-only videos exhibit lower overall engagement intensity. Furthermore, we find that active media engagement, such as leaving ‘comments’, contributes to the increase in channel subscribers beyond the effect of the number of registered videos. Our results suggest that highly involved music fans may show the active types of social engagements, such as leaving a comment on live and follow-up videos. In practice, our findings imply that YouTube creators need to incorporate visual-focused platform characteristics to stimulate in-depth social engagement.

Exploring EFL Students’ Reading Engagement in KWL Strategy

This research attempted to explore how the KWL strategy facilitates EFL students' reading engagement. The participants of this research were three students of an Islamic Senior High School. Using a case study design, the researcher describes EFL students' reading engagement by observing and engaging them in in-depth interviews. For gaining the data, the researchers used semi-structured interviews and the students' artefacts of the KWL tables. The interview session was conducted through WhatsApp audio-recording as a preferred interview media by the participants. The result of the research found that the KWL strategy gives positive engagement and self-assessment to EFL students with several stages. Other researchers are suggested to conduct further research on similar topics related to reading engagement in EFL students. Several research possibilities will expand this research. First, future researchers can complete this study by looking at the students' needs in the classroom. The results of this study revealed that students have difficulty with vocabulary.

Flip the Triangle: using quality improvement methods to embed a positive behaviour support approach on a medium secure forensic ward for men with intellectual disabilities

Incidents of violence and aggression are serious concerns on a secure ward for people with intellectual disabilities and are often met with increases in physical and restrictive interventions. However, these interventions are usually high risk for both patients and staff and are ineffectual in promoting long-term behaviour change. This study aimed to promote positive culture change and embed the evidence-based practice of positive behaviour support by shifting focus and efforts from the use of physical and restrictive interventions to manage crises to intervening positively and proactively to prevent crises from occurring. The key drivers for change involved increasing access to positive engagement opportunities, expanding the staff team’s repertoire of proactive interventions through training and skill development and supporting staff well-being and resilience. Change ideas occurred alongside a shift in culture that promoted the development of a learning culture, psychological safety and consideration of contextual fit. Quality improvement methods helped the project increase the rate of positive and proactive interventions from 70.65% in December 2018 to 97.18% in January 2020. Increases in staff’s knowledge, confidence and safety were also reported. Lessons and limitations of the project are discussed.

Exploring Positive School Attributes: Evidence From School Leader and Teacher Perspectives

The extent to which school stakeholders perceive positive school attributes remains unclear in the literature. This study seeks to provide an understanding of positive school attributes from the school leaders and teachers’ perspectives in the Malaysian school context. This study employed a qualitative case study research design with 14 informants selected from seven Malaysian secondary schools. The thematic analysis informed six emerging themes: (1) stimulating positive emotion, (2) promoting positive engagement, (3) fostering positive relationships, (4) cultivating positive meaning, (5) nurturing positive accomplishment, and (6) cultivating spirituality in expressing positive school attributes. Fostering positive relationships were specified as (1) teacher-teacher relationship, (2) teacher-student relationship, and (3) student-student relationship. Cultivating spirituality is a newly emerged theme that is added to the unique positive school attributes. These newly added components of the existing PERMA model can trigger further research in positive education studies.

Why am I seeing this? Deconstructing algorithm literacy through the lens of users

PurposeAs algorithms permeate nearly every aspect of digital life, artificial intelligence (AI) systems exert a growing influence on human behavior in the digital milieu. Despite its popularity, little is known about the roles and effects of algorithmic literacy (AL) on user acceptance. The purpose of this study is to contextualize AL in the AI environment by empirically examining the role of AL in developing users' information processing in algorithms. The authors analyze how users engage with over-the-top (OTT) platforms, what awareness the user has of the algorithmic platform and how awareness of AL may impact their interaction with these systems.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed multiple-group equivalence methods to compare two group invariance and the hypotheses concerning differences in the effects of AL. The method examined how AL helps users to envisage, understand and work with algorithms, depending on their understanding of the control of the information flow embedded within them.FindingsOur findings clarify what functions AL plays in the adoption of OTT platforms and how users experience algorithms, particularly in contexts where AI is used in OTT algorithms to provide personalized recommendations. The results point to the heuristic functions of AL in connection with its ties in trust and ensuing attitude and behavior. Heuristic processes using AL strongly affect the credibility of recommendations and the way users understand the accuracy and personalization of results. The authors argue that critical assessment of AL must be understood not just about how it is used to evaluate the trust of service, but also regarding how it is performatively related in the modeling of algorithmic personalization.Research limitations/implicationsThe relation of AL and trust in an algorithm lends strategic direction in developing user-centered algorithms in OTT contexts. As the AI industry has faced decreasing credibility, the role of user trust will surely give insights on credibility and trust in algorithms. To better understand how to cultivate a sense of literacy regarding algorithm consumption, the AI industry could provide examples of what positive engagement with algorithm platforms looks like.Originality/valueUser cognitive processes of AL provide conceptual frameworks for algorithm services and a practical guideline for the design of OTT services. Framing the cognitive process of AL in reference to trust has made relevant contributions to the ongoing debate surrounding algorithms and literacy. While the topic of AL is widely recognized, empirical evidence on the effects of AL is relatively rare, particularly from the user's behavioral perspective. No formal theoretical model of algorithmic decision-making based on the dual processing model has been researched.

Small Changes that Make a Great Difference: Reading, Playing and Eating with your Children and the Facilitating Role of Managers in Latin America

Parenting is challenging in today’s world. Dual careers, hyper-connectivity, and long distances take almost all our time, and parents must integrate their different roles. A direct impact of this hectic life is on the time parents spend with their children. Additionally, the role of fathers has gained importance, and it is important to understand his influence. In this chapter we will analyze the importance of the time fathers spend in positive engagement activities with their children, such as eating and reading with their children, and also how organizations, through their managers, can promote these positive engagement activities. Also, to show how context influences this relationship, we compare different countries in Latin America: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.