Participation - Science topic

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Nothing to do with planning This is a specialized subject, and the role of participation is always late in the day, relevant to minor effects. To my mind and I am lone in this, The effect of J.Jacobs on American cities was totally minimal. Those cities were not planned, most of them, they were divided to sell plots at maximum profits. The ills of plans are very complex and require a wide and reach experience. Citizens are not ever aware of the long term effect of planning, as peoples status , mind and needs change every generation.

This sounds very interesting Peyman! Of course, participants' experiences of participating in qualitative studies needs to be explored and documented. As a qualitative and narrative inquirer I have engaged with participants with an intention to elicit their stories of lived experiences. I can confirm that they do share with us (researchers) stories they have not shared with anyone else. I think that as qualitative researchers, we have focused on generating data and reporting findings. I like your view which directs us to the perspective of participants.

With all due respect to others who have posted, we should not jump to talking about tools before we have determined what we want to accomplish with our discussions. This is called Requirements-Based Planning, in which we determine what we want to accomplish, and then select the learning techniques and tools that will achieve the outcome (see the book chapter linked below for much more detail about this technique).

My sense of the question is that you are asking what online course learning activities could serve as a replacement for asynchronous threaded discussions. In other words, it sounds like you want to substitute some other kind of online learning activity.

So my question is "what do you want to accomplish with your discussions?"

In my online courses, my goal in using discussions/forums is to promote critical thinking. For this outcome goal, threaded asynchronous discussions work well, because students have time to think through their answers and make thoughtful posts. I give them guidelines about when their initial posts and replies must be made, but I also give them choices about which threads to pursue.

Maybe you have a different outcome goal for discussions and, for example, required live synchronous chat might be a better choice.

Remember, it is backward to select a tool and then try to figure out how to use it. FIRST determine your outcome goals/requirements/expectations, and then structure your learning activities (including discussions) to allow students to achieve those outcomes.

You are welcome, looking forward to see the questionnaire

Inviting students to apply, but usual caveats apply. Alternatively when recruiting professionals, if we could not offer "money", we could propose "meaning". What is the importance of our research to them or to the general public?

PARTICIPATION-SCALE is the another scale to measure participation restriction. its also valid and reliable scale and it has also language validation.

Some food for thoughts on democracy under amorality can be found here in this paper:

Yes. Please see my update just posted.

Thank you Khalid ,

I appreciate your help

 Hi Kelvin and Jonathan,

Thank you both for your comments and suggestions, they are of great help.

Kind Regards

Holly

this article may help you

Tecnología en Radiología e Imágenes Diagnóstica, pensionado, docente con 10 años de experiencia.

Scrap Python is the way

@Isil Dijkstra

You may find the scale for goal orientation in the attach paper and adapt it according to your study.

Hi Huaming,

Thanks for pointing me in the (embarrassingly obvious) correct direction for the ARWU rankings. :-) I'm at the very beginning of this search.  You wouldn't happen to have any intel on QS 2010-12 rankings would you? Their website goes back to only 2013 as far as I can tell.

All the best,

Kenneth

There are different types of participation. The researcher has to operationalize  the concept, for example 'meaningful participation'. 

- Contributory approach of participation (e.g. participation in road building, irrigation, water supply projects at the local level by sharing the cost with either NGOs or with the local government. This is, generally, called passive participation because policy are ready-made and local people do not have any right to change the policies.

- Community development approach of participation. In this case local people partly have rights to formulate the program activities and implementation processes. This approach of participation is meaningful if one compares with the contributory approach of participation.  

- Empowerment approach of participation. In the approach local people formulate the project concept, implement and participate in each steps as a decision maker.

I like the following statement of A. T. Arinatne,

"Everybody speaks of people's participation. A bureaucrat going into a rural area in his brand new imported jeep, and having a few words with the village people, comes back to his office and speaks jubilantly of 'People's participation in planning'. This is just puppy-cock" 

You can go for Apache Spark with Scala/java/python . apache spark is opensource software which enables to do wide range of data analytics including real time , automation , Real time monitoring, IoT projects. Have a look onn Apache Spark ecosystem with the data collection tool like Flume , kafka you can acheive your current requirements.

Cooperative work by a team can produce remarkable results. But this question does not make clear what the purpose of the exercise is. In our day, most organizations embrace the notion of teamwork. The justification is that teams are better at solving problems and learn more rapidly and with more effect than individuals. But is a team the best organizational structure for what an organization sets out to accomplish? Not necessarily. Given the potential weaknesses and threats associated with teams, they should only be used in situations where their strengths and the opportunities they offer are critical. That is when

So, only based on a clear understanding of why teams, or groups here, are necessary can one advise on the need for heterogeneity or, conversely, homogeneity. Working in Teams, available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228533148_Working_in_Teams, expands on this.

As you say, 15 is well above normal recommendations. And in my experience, it would be very difficult (probably impossible) to manage effectively (not to mention that most likely many of the subjects would engage very little!). If you don't want to do as Oscar suggested above and split the group into 2 (I'd probably split it into 3x5), you could *try*:

(1) having multiple facilitators. We've done this (for a group of 8) with one facilitator leading the discussion, and the second watching for non-verbal cues, missed participants etc.;

(2) have a strongly structured discussion e.g. using charts or maps or some such cues - maybe gathered in an earlier phase of your research - to structure and constrain the discussion. For example we've used social network data and sociograms of communication networks within the group as a "focus" for group discussion.

Alan.

Wow very helpful, thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

I agree with the above explanations. Neutral value should not be removed to maintain the credibility of the scale and reproducibility of results.

Regards 

SM Najim

It becomes another variable. So variable 1 is "had an opinion" versus "had no opinion" versus "did not answer" and variable 2 is the Likert scale response that is relevant only for the subgroup of responders that had an opinion. There are then two analyses. The first uses variable 1. The second removes all surveys with a missing answer or an "I don't know" and then proceeds with the analysis.

The fundamental problem is that the people answering "I don't know" may form an important sub-group within your surveyed population. Excluding them entirely will bias your results or you will have to carefully redefine your population to acknowledge that you results do not apply to everyone.

digitization bring transparency and enhances accountability of the employees in the organisation. it  enables new routes to market and faster development of products and services, ultimately transforming the customer experience, operational processes and business models which at the end helps in improving organisational performances. 

Hi there,

I would also recommend Prolific Academic - the data I have collected there has been very reliable and fast. As the previous response mentioned, it's more expensive than MTurk but I find it better.  More selection criteria for the sample, and respondents appear to be very conscientious.  I checked my account and they have a special offer whereby if you use this link https://www.prolific.ac/rr?ref=SYJDKFSI they will give you (and I) a discount.  Good luck with your research!

Libby

Check prospensity score matching ( modeling the group assingnment using pre interventional covariates).

This is a great introduction:

Hope that helps, best wishes, Manuel

Hello Shahrzad

These are available from RG:

Milfont, T. L., & Duckitt, J. (2010). The environmental attitudes inventory: A valid and reliable measure to assess the structure of environmental attitudes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30(1), 80-94.

Metin, M. (2010, December). A study on developing a general attitude scale about environmental issues for students in different grade levels. In Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching (Vol. 11, No. 2, p. 3). Hong Kong Institute of Education. 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong.

Is there anything useful in this:

Environmental Attitudes. Thomas A. Heberlein. Madison, Wisconsin (see p.9)

Very best wishes,

Mary

Try "Sociometrics" - group interaction was what it was designed for.

Although I agree that an interest in "lived experience" leads to phenomenology, I would recommend that you think your research question carefully.

For instance, you mentioned in your post a population but not an experience. That is, you would like to "explore lived experiences of [what experience?] among footballers with mental health issues" You may wish to explore their experience of their mental issues or that of their football experience, or something else entirely.

Second, you mention a narrative analysis. this draws from a whole other set of literature. Just to confuse you, some literature on narrative research (many times but not always discerned from narrative inquiry or narrative analysis) refers to itself as phenomenological.

That said, I would recommend (givven your confessed constructionist stance and assuming that you are aware of its seeming incompatibility with descriptive phenomenology Giorgi style), that you go with IPA (Smith, Flowers, and Larkin, 2009) or hermeneutic phenomenology (Van Manen, 1990/1997, 2014). But first decide which experience(s) you are interested in.

Best of luck.

Cobi.

I suppose, the question is: what do you call "disorder". There are many conditions that appear abnormal on tests (abnormal mammograms for e.g.) that dont actually have bad outcomes. Then there is the condition of highly sensitive and lower specificity that picks up conditions that should not be there. Finally you have to consider this in light of the baseline prevalence (or expectation) of the condition and interpret tests accordingly

Dear Morgan,

The same methods that are used in the teaching can not be used

in adult education process. The possible consequences of this education at the individual level are:

• passivity of students and lack of critical attitude;

• distance between theory and practice;

• lack of "questioning" of reality.

The Adult Student have their own opinion, tastes and different behavior

a child, hence the need for different teaching techniques and more

appropriate to its context and reality.

Dear Colleague, you have here double problem. 1. how to provide the anonymity  - so if this is the main than they should not provide any identifiers. and 2. how to make sure that each respondent answered the survey only once.

from your basic question i assume that you don't actually need consent form - since free-will participation in survey is consent in the act, unless you are dealing with something for what you need additional consent.

Regarding the technical/moral dilemma - consult some literature on online survey methodology.

Dear Nader,

could you describe your setup in more detail please? More specifically:

One more request: please, please, next time ask about the data analysis BEFORE you collect your data. I experienced situations in the past when the only advice I was able to give was: throw the data away (because it cannot serve its purpose) and start again. Well, in your case I am still optimistic.

Best regards,

Jan

Dear Helena, you may have to develop it, because you are studying novelty, self-betterment or improvement, socialization and familiarity (what we are used to doing).  Have a look at this paper.  You will get some good ideas.  Your self-betterment or self improvement may be like 'personal goal achievement'.  (I love running!)

"This study reports the development of an instrument to assess the motives of marathon runners. The Motivations of Marathoners Scales (MOMS) contains 56 items distributed across nine scales. Content areas covered included health orientation, weight concern, self-esteem, life meaning, psychological coping, affiliation, recognition, competition, and personal goal achievement. Adequate internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha range .80 to .93), retest reliability (intraclass Rs range .71 to .90), and factorial validity of the scales were demonstrated. Assessment of the relationship between individual MOMS scales and other variables of conceptual relevance documents early evidence for the convergent and, discriminant validity of the instrument. Future uses of the MOMS are discussed in light of theoretical, empirical, and practical considerations."

1. If you started the study with 120 samples and the 8 samples is excluded due to  incomplete information, You can consider all the 120 samples for analysis. 

2. If after data cleaning, only 112 samples met the inclusion criteria, you can also go ahead with 112 samples for analysis and give justification for that. If possible you can collect information from 8 more samples and do the analysis with 120 samples.

Witkin, H. A., Oltman, P., Raskin, E., & Karp, S. (1971). " A manual for the

embedded figures test (GEFT)" . Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

IVA+PLUS

Use Xamarin to develop one. It is easy enough and you can customize. Bonus: it works on iOS and Android.

Yes, there is. Most times students with disabilities are not supported by their peers or the institution is enabling their participation in recreational activities. These include access to and from the venues. 

Many thanks,

Debra

Hi,

you can do any approach. However, for me, I prefere to go with the study questions or hypotheses; one by one. Considering chapter 4 is only presenting the data analysis results without any interpretations from the reseachers.

In chapter 5, you can compare your result against the literature and add your own comments and explanations for the results.

hope this help

The non-participant observer researcher is usually a 'stranger' - they do not normally belong to the scene. They have no recognisable normal role/ part to play, are purely observers and do not participate in the scene or events. They are likely to stand out or be obvious. Their presence may affect how those they are observing 'feel' about being observed and this could alter the way they behave and distort the data. Their task is to establish a non-threatening presence and blend in as unobtrusively as possible so their presence is accepted and largely ignored. In contrast, the participant observer researcher has a natural legitimate presence in the area. They participate in activities and are engaged in the setting. In the case of a nurse or other health professional, they are recognised as having a role in the area and belong to the scene. They may already have a relationship with those they are observing and can build on this. Their interactions and presence are part of the normal routine and they are accepted by the 'locals'. To this extent the participant observer becomes or is naturally embedded in the scene and their presence attracts little, if any, attention by those being observed. The value of participant observation is that the presence of the researcher is not expected to cause the people being observed to change their behavior and that the researcher can interact to probe and clarify understanding. Though traditionally associated with ethnography and cultural immersion, this form of observation can raise ethical questions if seen to be 'covert' research. Normally, the participant researcher does not conceal the research and in being open can come and go from the scene without distorting the data being collected. 

Salvatore,

I perhaps wasn't clear. Your response suggests you thought I was suggestion one should include a covariate if its predicts the outcome (which one generally should).

In general if one is sampling from two random variables then the model that accounts for variability in both (e.g., objects and participants) will appear to have less statistical power than the model that averages over one random variables (thus ignoring its variability). Of course the latter model has spuriously high power because it ignores a source of variance in its error term.

I'm thinking of a situation where for example:

- 30 participants each rate the same 30 objects for some outcome (Y) and under conditions defined by a factor (X)

- both participants and objects are sampled from some larger population or possible population

The researcher is in interested in whether X has an effect on Y.

As both participants and objects are random factors and are fully crossed (each participant occurs which each object) then the standard error of the test of X on Y is a function of Var[p] + Var[o] where Var[p] is the variation among participants and Var[o] is the variation among objects. It follows that unless either variance is zero then the standard errors of the correct test will be larger than if you ignore variability in one of the random variables.

I have had a sheet where each students ranks the participation of all participants and then they get an average of all scores to count towards participation.  That way everyone feels involved and has a stake in the responsibility.

Deleting trials or the deleting participant which scattered is not clear

 I will suggest that you carry out a qualitative research on the topic using the expert communicators as your respondents. Use in-dept interview as your data gathering method. From the responses you will obtain, you can deduce what the majority opinion is.

Yes - for "I don't know," check out Smith et al (2002) The Comparative Psychology of Uncertainty Monitoring and Metacognition, in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. For multi-option treatments of SDT, try Sridharan's work on "multialternative detection tasks". And maybe Wagner 1993 "On measuring performance in category judgment..."-- H-sub-u could be a simple alternative. As a side note, it might seem weird but "forced choice" more technically refers the situation in which two (or more) stimuli are shown on each trial, not the situation in which the subject is forced to make a choice. Best regards.

I think the work of my colleague Pauline Lipman might be of great interest to you - she closely follows the budget cuts and closing of schools in Chicago.  Hope this helps!

Thanks, Paul and Bob.  These measures are a good fit for what I'm looking for.

We analyzed the participation by the level of participation in decision-making process, focused on users of social organizations.

If your are interested in this particular work, don´t hesitate...

Hi. I would be also interested. thanks

A thoughful summary of the topic is found in 

Azfar, O., S. Kahkonen, A. Lanyi, P. Meagher and D. Rutherford (1999). Decentralization, Governance and Public Services: The Impact Of Institutional Arrangements. IRIS Working Paper (mimeo): 35.

Decentralization is often considered a "mixed bag" or double-edged sword...

proponents point to the advantages of "moving the government closer to the people" (World Bank /WDR 1993) - which, in theory, keeps officials on their toes, allows citizens to monitor public performance, and offers people a choice of different service/tax packages.

Supporting Literature includes

Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty : Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press.

Paul, S. (1992). "Accountability in Public Services: Exit, Voice and Control." World Development 20(7): 1047-1060.

Tiebout, C. (1956). "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures." The Journal of Political Economy 64(5): 416-424. (people vote with their feet for the best service/tax packages)

Skeptics, on the other hand, point to

a) higher elite capture (due to less central oversight and more local discretion)  

b) lack of local government capacity 

c) loss of economy of scale effects (hence, loss of potential welfare gains)

Critical aspects are well described in:

Prud'homme, R. (1995). "The dangers of decentralisation." World Bank Research Observer 10(2): 201-220.

Tanzi, V. (2001). Pitfalls on the Road to Fiscal Decentralization. Washington DC, Global Policy Paper No. 19, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Bardhan, P. and D. Mookherjee (2005). Decentralization and Local Governments in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge, MIT Press

Thus, to improve accountability and participation - I believe one has to thoroughly understand the political economy (actors, powers, interests, incentives, drivers of action) in a given location... then, based on the different potential pros and cons (as outlined above), a thoughtful approach can be identified 

Hope this helps,

Best wishes

Christian 

I agree with you Kathryn that incentives need approval from a IRB or ethics committee and may affect the validity of one's study by introducing bias. Community involvement is also key to success of most research projects. The delphi technique is a bit different from the usual research techniques in that your "study participants" are not co-located in any community. they are in a virtual world. It involves contacting "experts"in a particular field usual through post or email to get some consensus on a particular matter. These experts may be scattered all over the world and stand to gain nothing from your study. You need them to assist you and you have to do what it takes to get their responses.

Dear Shannon Madore,

TNF-alpha is an inducible protein which needs a stimulation for its biosynthesis. Basal plasma level in healthy volunteers is usually undetectable. I guess these volunteers are healthy. If not so, you can check the lower detection limit of the kit used. 

Sonja it is an interesting question and of extreme importance to the stakeholders of organizations. I am interested in conflict from the perspective of reducing its effects by a systematic management of stakeholders needs and expectations etc and has been addressed to some degree in MSS 1000:2014 which can be downloaded free from the web via http://www.thecqi.org/Community/Special-Interest-Groups-SIGs/Integrated-Management-Group/Research-and-reports/ 

I will share my initial thoughts. 

I believe that all conflict relates back to the values, needs, expectations and aspirations of the stakeholders. Some conflicts may be traded by stakeholders during negotiation while others are more difficult or even non-negotiable. I think it would be good to devise a classification system for the stakeholder potential conflict types and a scale of severity. In a stakeholder analysis I believe it is possible to identify potential conflicts subjectively similar to the methodologies used in hazard identification.

I think it may be useful to look at a few types of conflict to get a feel for why they exist e.g. GMO crops, euthanasia. religious conflicts, built environment conflicts etc. 

The emotional response to conflict varies according to the individual and while some may thrive on it others may experience extreme stress.

Probably you can find something as usability.

Dear Pamela,

That will depend upon your research goals. I will suggest you to start with simple descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, CV etc.) Then, you might want to compare groups (gender, age etc) using T and U statistics ou ANOVA. Also, Factorial Analysis (FA) is a good tool in order to reduct the number of indicators and define new variables (dimensions) based on your indicators. Thus, regression analysis might be the better statistical procedure, after the FA, to present your more relevant findings.

Good luck and best regards,

E B Abbade

May I suggest you contact EAP organizations such as Morneau Shepell in Canada?  These organizations tend to provide the wellness programs in larger organizations, and may be able to assist?

Margie I. Mayfield. Toy libraries: Promoting play, toys, and family support internationally. Early Child Development and Care. Volume 87, Issue 1, 1993.

You might kill 2 birds with one stone: Assuming that there's any benefit to the participant practicing the task ahead of time outside the scanner (e.g., to ensure they are familiar with the task) you might have them practice in another room if available, under the cover story that they are "the other participant" for a participant already in the scanner. Carry on the charade of synchronizing a couple practice runs with the non-existent participant, and "terminate the experiment" early, for example saying that their participant was feeling unwell, or was showing too much head movement (this will also remind them to keep still during the scan). Tell them that you are contacting the next participant to see if they can come a bit early to be "the other participant" for your real participant, and they should have no difficulty in believing that there is another person in another room doing the same task that they just performed.

Modal and mass participation factors are highly correlated. That is the higher the cumulative participation factor, the higher the cumulative mass participation. Meanwhile many codes, such as ASCE 7, define the minimum No. of modes based on the mass participation.

That's a very good question, Andreas, because participation can mean so many different things, from simply asking employee for input to a purposeful and active shared leadership approach (also known as distributed leadership).  It's also very true that senior leadership has the greatest impact. Muhammad - you ask about culture.  Yes, culture is the primary driver of many organizational aspects, from employee performance and engagement to customer service approaches, but senior leaders are the primary driver of organizational culture.  I have found using an assessment tool for organizational culture provides much greater foundation for deep change than engagement surveys and similar.  That is because the former focuses on actual behaviours in the organization whereas the latter is more a snapshot in time that provides some indicators that suggest needed behavioural change but rarely identify specifics.  Behavioural change at an organizational level has to start with the senior leaders, because if they don't change then then cannot expect others to do so. 

There are usually some ethical regulations to protect human subjects in research. The consent of the people is one important requirement. You will need to be cleared by your university or another body in your country. This clearance shows that your research complies with ethical standards required when carrying out research with human subjects. Thanks.

yeah try Virtual University Uganda,You can get them on web,just google VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY UGANDA.they will be glad to assist you

After taking a peak within the Mental Measurement Yearbook and preliminary search engines, I'm not pulling anything. This may open the opportunity to capture the goal orientation of the students through direct qualitative questioning.

It may be forward of me to say, but I'd love to collaborate with you if this is a direction of interest. I've been a part of several discussion within my university regarding this matter and I plan to implement a few assessments within in the course I teach this Fall to see what may come about.

Yes, statins could reduce expression of CD40L in the endothelium cells and in the plaques' inflammatory cells so recommen statin ,after non cardiac surgery.

You must investigate three different variables such as "active learning period"  "students' performance" and "pedagogical added value". You can measure all of them but only separately because the first one refers to the time factor, second one for the students' output and third one to the teacher's efficiency.

It would be a good way if you have some assistant for testing and observation because different units of teaching probably gives you different indicators.

In a football match, in a rowing competition or a tug of war, the team in which every player contributes and performs the assigned role, has much better chances to win! This is true for employees participation as well. They should perform their defined roles and responsibilities, they should be provided with a conducive entrepreneurial environment by the management for free exchange of ideas.

I wouldn't go to the extent of claiming that protest is an indicator of sc. It is definitely an outcome of it (because people are connected & therefore in possession of a crucial resource that makes protest possible) but to say that it is an indicator per se, I think that's stretching it a bit. I haven't come across any publication on that yet, but from what I can gather, the network that enable / facilitate the protest from the very beginning is more appropriate to be considered as an indicator for sc, not the protest itself. You see, some scholars opined that even the mafia organizations possess high level of social capital, but it is not the outcome of the group (e.g. organized crime) that indicates their level of social capital. Instead it is their close relationship (their family-like structure of organization) that contributes towards their pool of social capital. Once they have this family thing going, then the outcomes will follow. So, there's a whole another layer in between social capital and the outcome (i.e. that family-bonding thing) that is more appropriate to be considered as the indicators. I don't know if I make any sense at all, but that's how I can put it. Excuse my long and winding rant, English is not my mother tongue, so I have a bit of a difficulty expressing my ideas in a concise manner. But then again, if you look at the vastness of situations that such a concept can be applied to, protest could somehow be justified as one of the indicators, but I'd be wary about doing it. My point is we must be careful in making such claims. Sc has been heavily criticised already for being too broad and become meaningless as an analytical tool. Personally I love the idea of sc, and I think its very useful, that is why I'm not too keen to see it being watered down and eventually lose its potential as an analytical tool. Btw, Daniela, if you ever come across such publication, do share with us, I'm getting curious as well (especially with this protest thing going on pretty intensely in Egypt and elsewhere...). Cheers.

Dear Faisal, I guess futhermore that your interest is more focused on role of women in developed countries. In any case I think, participation at local level is not a question of any qualification of possible participants. It's more a question to identify the real problems (including gender specific problems). May be, it's to find some topics in your sense under the umbrella of poverty and/or agriculture.

Here is a link with few open aspects also to the role of women in European frame:

MAy be, it can give you some more ideas.

Do you now the GWP-Toolbox (www.gwptoolbox.org). Here, you can find also differnet case studies - also in this field?.

Good luck.

Dear Wolfgang,

You're touching on a long-standing debate. Not even within psychology is there a consensual definition, let alone a "grand unified theory". Work motivation, to use but one example, if it is ever defined at all in papers, is often referred to as "a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual's being, to initiate work-related behaviors, and to determine its form, direction, intensity, and duration" (Pinder, 1998, p.11). Indeed, whilst the early theories in the 1940s and 1950s (e.g., Maslow, McClelland) invoked intrinsic needs as the primary drivers of motivation, later theories (e.g., Vroom, 1964) assumed an expectancy-by-subjective value calculus, with expectancy and value both driven by internal-personal and external factors. In the 1970s, Hackman and Oldham emphasised the importance of external factors in the form of job characteristics. In contemporary work, both internal and external factors are taken into account when explaining work motivation. As far as I can see, the situation is similar in other areas, e.g. Educational Psychology.

When we consult companies, we therefore work eclectically, taking a broad range of internal and external factors in sight to get to the resources people have to boost their motivation.

If you would like to find out more, I can point you to specific papers.

Best,

Christian.

I have looked closely at this question of measuring participation in a stroke population. There are a lot of participation measures out there and they measure different concepts of participation. I have recently published a paper in Arch Phys Med Rehabil.: Tse, T., Douglas, J., Lentin, P., Carey, L.M. Measuring participation after stroke: A review of frequently used tools. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2013;94:177-92. This paper looks at the psychometric properties of the most frequently used participation measures in stroke as well as what Activities and Participation domains of the ICF the measures test. This paper could be useful for you in deciding on which participation measure to use for your specific purpose.

The discussions on African women are quite interesting. However, on a cautionary note, one cannot speak of “Africa” as if it might be a single, unitary culture. That is not true. While Maria who has started this thread is obviously not African, nor might not have ever been to Africa, from knowledge of geography and history as well as several avenues of interaction with people from Africa, one point is clear, “there is no Africa” in the sense of a single culture or national entity. Thus, we should not speak of “Africa” in the same way we might speak of Spain, Italy, Ireland or Germany. While I acknowledge that there is no single “Africa” there are definite similarities that cut across most African tribes and cultures. In discussing African women, gender studies enjoin comparative focus on the women.