A Q study: exploring the purpose of transdisciplinary dairy advisory services in Denmark

Background Structural changes in dairy farming increase farm complexity, thereby inducing a need to combine herd health management, technological solutions, legislation, and human relations among farmers, farm workers, and advisors. This complex situation may require ‘transdisciplinary advisory service’, i.e., a highly integrated network of both non-academic and different academic disciplines. While working in these networks, advisors need to offer specialized knowledge from their own field, interact in a dynamic relationship between different types of professions and facilitate complex processes. The objectives of this study were: (1) to identify and describe different advisor and farmer styles based on their reasons to engage in transdisciplinary advisory services at farm-level, (2) to identify any possible conflicting perspectives between advisors and farmers’ demand, and (3) to discuss these styles and conflicts in the context and future of advisory services for dairy herd health and production management. Results Using Q methodology, we explored the purpose of transdisciplinary advisory service on dairy farms. The results were derived from correlations between 40 statements for 25 advisors and 33 statements for nine farmers. We identified three similar styles among advisors and farmers, characterized as: (1) the teamwork and knowledge-focused style, (2) the production and economy-focused style, and (3) the economy and strategy-focused style. These styles included reflections on financial aspects, production, knowledge-exchange and the teamwork process itself. In addition, different emphasis on animal welfare, farm strategy and follow-up procedures between the styles became evident. Conclusions This Q-study suggests three comparable styles between advisors and farmers. The main differences between the styles related to the teamwork process and purpose, follow-up process, financial aspects, farm strategy, and operational production objectives. Therefore, styles and expectations should be explored and discussed to create a mutual understanding within a farmer-advisor(s)-team, and to clarify the farmer’s needs and demands, and how the advisors can best meet these expectations. This study illustrates the importance of exploring different advisor and farmer styles to get a mutual understanding of the purpose of the transdisciplinary collaboration.

Teacher�s Strategies to Overcome Students� Difficulties When Implementing Time Token Arends Method in Learning Speaking English

This study concerned with the teacher�s strategies in learning speaking English. This research is focused on how the teacher overcomes the students� weaknesses in learning speaking English when implementing Time Token Arends method. By using a descriptive qualitative research within a teacher of MA Al-Bairuny as a subject of its research found that: (1) the student had difficulty in inhibition such as: difficulty in starting to speak because of being worried of making mistakes, difficulty in answering the question from the teacher, and they felt nervous and shy to speak in front of the class. (1) The teacher used �Look in the Face� strategy to overcome the difficulties; (2) the teacher used �Communication� strategies to overcome the students� difficulties in nothing to say, such as: students had no idea to speak, student got difficulty to express what he wanted to speak, and student had no bravery to express their thought; (3) the teacher used �Interdependence� strategies to overcome the students� difficulties in un-event participant; (4) the teacher used �Responsibility� strategies to overcome students� difficulties in mother tongue used, such as: students felt easier for communication each other using Java Language, so they ignored the teacher�s instruction for speaking English; (5) then, after the learning process, teacher made a schedule for this group to evaluate their teamwork process in order to give them motivation and evaluation. Thus, the students� improvement on their speaking skill has been the aim of the research.

Effects of Multicultural Teamwork on Individual Procrastination[Abstract]

Aim/Purpose: [The full version of this paper is published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Lifelong Learning (IJELL) https://doi.org/10.28945/4617] The purpose of this study is to discover usage differences in task performance by students of different cultures, by examining procrastination patterns from a national cultural perspective, exploring the effect of multicultural virtual teamwork on student’s individual procrastination. Background: This study aims to examine higher-education entrepreneurial learning in the con-text of multicultural virtual teamwork, as actually performed during participation on a Global Entrepreneurship course. Methodology: In the examined course, there were 177 participants, from 3 different countries: United Kingdom, France and Israel. The students were grouped into 40 multicul-tural virtual (not face-to-face) teams, each one composed of at least participants of two countries. This research is based on analysis of objective data collected by Moodle, the LMS used in the In2It project, in its built-in log system, from the Global Entrepreneurship course website, which offer students diverse entities of information and tasks. The primary methodology of this study is analytics of the extracted data. Contribution: This study aims to discover the effects of multicultural teamwork on individual procrastination, while comparing the differences between cultures, as there are only a few studies exploring this relation. The uniqueness of this study is also by using and analyzing actual data of student procrastination from logs, while other studies of procrastination in multicultural student teams have measured perceived procrastination, collected using surveys. Findings: Results show statistical differences between countries in procrastination of individual assignments before team working: students from UK were the most procrastinators and Israeli students were the least procrastinators, but almost all students procrastinated. However, the outcome of the teamwork was submitted almost without procrastination. Moreover, procrastination in individual assignments performed after finishing the multicultural teamwork, dramatically decreased to 10% of the students' prior individual procrastination. Recommendations for Practitioners: The results from this study, namely, the decline of the procrastination after the multicultural virtual teamwork, can be used by global firms with employees all over the world, working in virtual multicultural teams. Such firms do not need to avoid multicultural teams, working virtually, as they can benefit from this kind of collaboration. Recommendation for Researchers: These results can be also beneficial for academic researchers from different cultures and countries, working together in virtual multicultural teams. Impact on Society: Understanding the positive effect of virtual multicultural teamwork, in mitigating the negative tendency of students from diverse cultures to procrastinate, as concluded in this study, can provide a useful tool for higher education or businesses to mitigate procrastination in teamwork processes. It can also be used as an experiential learning tool for improving task performance and teamwork process. Future Research: The relation between procrastination and motivation should be further examined in relation to multicultural virtual teams. Further research is needed to explore the effect of multicultural virtual teamwork during the teamwork process, and the reasoning for this effect.

Effects of Multicultural Teamwork on Individual Procrastination

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study is to discover usage differences in task performance by students of different cultures, by examining procrastination patterns from a national cultural perspective and exploring the effect of multicultural virtual teamwork on students’ individual procrastination. Background: This study aims to examine higher-education entrepreneurial learning in the context of multicultural virtual teamwork, as performed during participation on a Global Entrepreneurship course. Methodology: The methodology consists of quantitative comparative data analytics preceding and subsequent to intercultural team activities. This research is based on analyses of objective data collected by Moodle, the LMS used in the In2It project, in its built-in log system from the Global Entrepreneurship course website, which offers students diverse entities of information and tasks. In the examined course, there were 177 participants, from three different countries: United Kingdom, France and Israel. The students were grouped into 40 multicultural virtual (not face-to-face) teams, each one comprised of participants from at least two countries. The primary methodology of this study is analytics of the extracted data, which was transferred into Excel for cleaning purposes and then to SPSS for analysis. Contribution: This study aims to discover the effects of multicultural teamwork on individual procrastination while comparing the differences between cultures, as there are only a few studies exploring this relation. The uniqueness of this study is using and analyzing actual data of student procrastination from logs, whereas other studies of procrastination in multicultural student teams have measured perceived procrastination, collected using surveys. Findings: The results show statistical differences between countries in procrastination of individual assignments before team working: students from UK were the most procrastinators and Israeli students were the least procrastinators, but almost all students procrastinated. However, the outcome of the teamwork was submitted almost without procrastination. Moreover, procrastination in individual assignments performed after finishing the multicultural teamwork dramatically decreased to 10% of the students’ prior individual procrastination. Recommendations for Practitioners: The results from this study, namely, the decline of the procrastination after the multicultural virtual teamwork, can be used by global firms with employees all over the world, working in virtual multicultural teams. Such firms do not need to avoid multicultural teams, working virtually, as they can benefit from this kind of collaboration. Recommendation for Researchers: These results can be also beneficial for academic researchers from different cultures and countries, working together in virtual multicultural teams. Impact on Society: Understanding the positive effect of virtual multicultural teamwork, in mitigating the negative tendency of students from diverse cultures to procrastinate, as concluded in this study, can provide a useful tool for higher education or businesses to mitigate procrastination in teamwork processes. It can also be used as an experiential learning tool for improving task performance and teamwork process. Future Research: The relation between procrastination and motivation should be further examined in relation to multicultural virtual teams. Further research is needed to explore the effect of multicultural virtual teamwork during the teamwork process, and the reasoning for this effect.