Digital Commons Network^™

Factors Impacting Nursing Assistants To Accept A Delegation In The Acute Care Settings: A Mixed Method Study, Carol Crevacore, Linda Coventry, Christine Duffield, Elisabeth Jacob

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Aims: To investigate the experience of nursing assistants being delegated nursing tasks by registered nurses. Design: Mixed method explanatory sequential design. Methods: A total of 79 nursing assistants working in an acute hospital in Australia completed surveys that aimed to identify their experience of working with nurses and the activities they were delegated. The survey data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Interviews with 11 nursing assistants were conducted and analysed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis. Results were triangulated to provide a richer understanding of the phenomena. Results: Most nursing assistants felt supported completing delegated care activities. However, there was …

Bioethics As A Dynamic Issue: Holistic Approaches To Understanding And Applying Ethics To Study Design, Taiye Winful

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

Anthropologists have challenged bioethicists to incorporate more holistic approaches to applying ethics in ‘real world’ situations. Where bioethicists tend to use systematic philosophical approaches to moral dilemmas, anthropologists apply malleable approaches designed to be responsive to variable cultural contexts. For example, anthropologists emphasize the importance of community and the effects of social issues, political economy, and cultural tradition in decision-making. This difference in approach contributes to the contentious relationship between anthropologists and bioethicists. Despite nuanced perspectives, anthropologists have not enjoyed a durable role in shaping contemporary bioethics.

The lack of nuance becomes problematic when researchers attempt to reconcile ethical issues …

An Exploration Of Defensive Mediatization Strategies And Motherhood Media Decision-Making, Emily B. Young

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative study focused on media-related decision-making in motherhood, with mediatization theory serving as a framework for the research. The study began with an overview of recent changes to motherhood and family media use. The purpose of this study was to explore the problem of how mothers make decisions about their children’s media use. After providing a basic overview of the changes to motherhood and family media use, as well as establishing the purpose and problem for the study, the literature on relevant topics for this study was discussed. Primarily, the literature review focused on mediatization theory. Next, the survey …

Young Adults’ Cohabitation And Dating Decisions During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Exploration Of Romantic And Developmental Context, Tyler B. Jamison, Jeremy B. Kanter

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant upheaval for couples and families, particularly in terms of living arrangements. Emerging adults had to make quick decisions about where and with whom to shelter in place. In this grounded theory study, we explored how 22 young adults, predominantly living in the United States, navigated relationship decisions during the pandemic. The results suggest that participants were intentional about their choices, particularly in terms of moving in together (or not). The pandemic sometimes changed the timing of cohabitation or the pace of dating relationships; however, these decisions unfolded in tandem with common developmental tasks, such as …

Children First: Women’S Perspectives On Evacuation At Fuego Volcano And Implications For Disaster Risk Reduction, Beth A. Bartel, Ailsa K. Naismith

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 2

As major drivers of behavior during crisis, cultural norms influence how disasters differentially affect people of different genders. Cultural gender norms also impact how authorities and at-risk populations approach disaster risk reduction strategies. At Fuego volcano, Guatemala, we applied qualitative methods to investigate women’s experiences of the evacuation process after a paroxysmal eruption on 7–8 March 2022. While participants’ experiences and decisions varied, we identified how gender influences evacuation dynamics within communities at Fuego volcano, including who evacuates and who decides at the community and household levels. We find that communities prioritized women for evacuation with the children and elderly …

Assessing Determinants Of Participation In Conservation Programs In The U.S., Manita Ale

Department of Agricultural Economics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has implemented conservation programs through Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA). Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) are some of them. These programs provide financial and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers to adopt land management practices that generate environmental benefits. In this study, we explore the determinants of participation in conservation programs (CRP, CSP, EQIP) in Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska. For this, we use a unique survey-based data set comprising observations from row crop farmers in these states. We are …

Judging Better Together: Understanding The Psychology Of Group Decision-Making On Panel Courts And Tribunals, Brian M. Barry Dr

Articles

While the psychological phenomena that affect group decisionmaking have been thoroughly investigated for decades, how these phenomena apply to decision-making by judges on panel courts is under-examined. This article examines the main psychological phenomena of group decision-making, both positive and negative, and considers their implications for panel courts and other groups of professional legal decision-makers such as adjudicators serving on tribunals. This article argues that experimental studies on judges and adjudicators testing the effects of these phenomena would improve understanding of legal decision-making by these groups and could help to devise ways to improve their decision-making processes to reach higher …

A Probabilistic Formalisation Of Contextual Bias: From Forensic Analysis To Systemic Bias In The Criminal Justice System, M. Cuellar, J. Mauro, Amanda Luby

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Works

Researchers have found evidence of contextual bias in forensic science, but the discussion of contextual bias is currently qualitative. We formalise existing empirical research and show quantitatively how biases can be propagated throughout the legal system, all the way up to the final determination of guilt in a criminal trial. We provide a probabilistic framework for describing how information is updated in a forensic analysis setting by using the ratio form of Bayes’ rule. We analyse results from empirical studies using this framework and employ simulations to demonstrate how bias can be compounded where experiments do not exist. We find …

The Value Of Education: School Policy Decisions During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elika W. Somani

Individually Designed Interdepartmental Major Honors Project

During the COVID-19 pandemic, lacking national U.S. policies, wide variation and conflict over chosen public school policy decisions emerged. What factors and guidelines informed the decision-making process in K-12 public schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and who were the key stakeholders? This study examines three school district types – a large city, medium city, and small-town – across Minnesota as case studies to unpack how policy decisions were made during the pandemic. Stakeholder interviews uncovered that the school decision-making process was a) connected to a district's political opinions, b) made by the superintendent and school board, c) primarily influenced by …

Noise Pollution, Patrick Barry

Reviews

The authors of Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment are a trio of intellectual heavy hitters: Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman, constitutional law scholar Cass Sunstein, and former McKinsey consultant (and current management professor) Olivier Sibony. As prolific as they are prominent, the three of them have collectively produced over fifty books and hundreds of articles, including some of the most cited research in social science. If academic publishing ever becomes an Olympic sport, they’ll be prime medal contenders, particularly if they get to compete as a team or on a relay. Their combined coverage of law, economics, psychology, medicine, education, …

Making Decisions About Asynchronous And Synchronous Engagement Strategies: Access And Inclusion, Jessica Lantz, Eric M. Stauffer, Jamie Calcagno-Roach, Andrea H. Adams, Kristen S. Shuyler, Aaron Noland, Juhong Christie Liu

Libraries

This chapter conceptualizes an inclusive framework for decision-making in the selection of synchronous or asynchronous technologies to enhance engagement in online learning. Technologies are discussed in light of their utilization and value for course and curriculum design and development in online environments, with the considerations of providing sustained support, and optimizing technology and teaching efficacy. The content presented in the chapter will benefit those who develop and support synchronous and asynchronous learning environments to address challenges when transferring courses to online or hybrid modes.

Noise Pollution, Patrick Barry

Law & Economics Working Papers

The authors of Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment are a trio of intellectual heavy hitters: Nobel-prize winner Daniel Kahneman, constitutional law scholar Cass Sunstein, and former McKinsey consultant (and current management professor) Olivier Sibony. As prolific as they are prominent, the three of them have collectively produced over fifty books and hundreds of articles, including some of the most cited research in social science. If academic publishing ever becomes an Olympic sport, they’ll be prime medal contenders, particularly if they get to compete as a team or on a relay. Their combined coverage of law, economics, psychology, medicine, education, …

The Benefit Of Gratitude: Trait Gratitude Is Associated With Effective Economic Decision-Making In The Ultimatum Game, Gewnhi Park, Charlotte Vanoyen-Witvliet, Jorge A. Barraza, Benjamin U. Marsh

Faculty Publications

The current research investigated the role of gratitude in economic decisions about offers that vary in fairness yet benefit both parties if accepted. Participants completed a trait/dispositional gratitude measure and then were randomly assigned to recall either an event that made them feel grateful (i.e., induced gratitude condition) or the events of a typical day (i.e., neutral condition). After the gratitude induction task, participants played the ultimatum game (UG), deciding whether to accept or reject fair offers (i.e., proposer: responder ratio $5:5) and unfair offers (i.e., proposer: responder ratios of $9:1, $8:2, or $7:3) from different proposers. Results showed that …

What Is Cultural Misappropriation And Why Does It Matter? 03-31-2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Noncompliance With Safety Guidelines As A Free-Riding Strategy: An Evolutionary Game-Theoretic Approach To Cooperation During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jose C. Yong, Bryan K. C. Choy

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Evolutionary game theory and public goods games offer an important framework to understand cooperation during pandemics. From this perspective, the COVID-19 situation can be conceptualized as a dilemma where people who neglect safety precautions act as free riders, because they get to enjoy the benefits of decreased health risk from others' compliance with policies despite not contributing to or even undermining public safety themselves. At the same time, humans appear to carry a suite of evolved psychological mechanisms aimed at curbing free riding in order to ensure the continued provision of public goods, which can be leveraged to develop more …

Administrative Law In The Automated State, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

In the future, administrative agencies will rely increasingly on digital automation powered by machine learning algorithms. Can U.S. administrative law accommodate such a future? Not only might a highly automated state readily meet longstanding administrative law principles, but the responsible use of machine learning algorithms might perform even better than the status quo in terms of fulfilling administrative law’s core values of expert decision-making and democratic accountability. Algorithmic governance clearly promises more accurate, data-driven decisions. Moreover, due to their mathematical properties, algorithms might well prove to be more faithful agents of democratic institutions. Yet even if an automated state were …

Gender Differences In Moral Influences On Adolescents’ Eyewitness Identification, Toni Spring, Herbert D. Saltzstein, Leeann Siegel

Publications and Research

In this study, 232 (89 11- to-12-year-olds, 71 13- to-14-year-olds; 72 15- to-16-year-olds) students recruited from grades 6th–11th in an urban public high school participated in a study of eyewitness identification. The focus of this study was on the effects of age, gender and moral orientation on decisional bias and, as a secondary outcome, on accuracy (using signal detection analysis). The primary purpose of this and previous studies in this series is to uncover implicit moral decision-making in decisional bias. In this study the perpetrator, the bystanders and the foil were all females. Prior to completing the eyewitness identification task, …

Surrogates And Artificial Intelligence: Why Ai Trumps Family, Ryan Hubbard, Jake Greenblum

School of Medicine Publications and Presentations

The increasing accuracy of algorithms to predict values and preferences raises the possibility that artificial intelligence technology will be able to serve as a surrogate decision-maker for incapacitated patients. Following Camillo Lamanna and Lauren Byrne, we call this technology the autonomy algorithm (AA). Such an algorithm would mine medical research, health records, and social media data to predict patient treatment preferences. The possibility of developing the AA raises the ethical question of whether the AA or a relative ought to serve as surrogate decision-maker in cases where the patient has not issued a medical power of attorney. We argue that …

Promoting Healthy Decision-Making Via Natural Environment Exposure: Initial Evidence And Future Directions, Meredith S. Berry, Meredith A. Repke, Alexander L. Metcalf, Kerry Jordan

Psychology Faculty Publications

Research within psychology and other disciplines has shown that exposure to natural environments holds extensive physiological and psychological benefits. Adding to the health and cognitive benefits of natural environments, evidence suggests that exposure to nature also promotes healthy human decision-making. Unhealthy decision-making (e.g., smoking, non-medical prescription opioid misuse) and disorders associated with lack of impulse control [e.g., tobacco use, opioid use disorder (OUD)], contribute to millions of preventable deaths annually (i.e., 6 million people die each year of tobacco-related illness worldwide, deaths from opioids from 2002 to 2017 have more than quadrupled in the United States alone). Impulsive and unhealthy …

Designing And Revising A Course Using Evidence-Based Teaching (Ebt) In Higher Education, Becky Sumbera

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This is a Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy submission project.

During a year-long New Faculty Learning Community experience, the writer looked at evidence-based teaching (EBT) through an Action Research model to re-structure a Higher Education course to increase students’ ability to turn theory into successful professional practices through active learning. After analyzing the threshold concepts for an Educational Administration Credential course, the following needs were found: (1) to deepen administrator candidates’ problem-solving skills through discussion-based learning and reflection; (2) to deepen administrator candidates’ skills in equity-based decision-making through relevant case studies; and (3) to apply inquiry-based structure to model and measure the …

Escalation Of Commitment And Heuristics In Outdoor Leadership: How Poor Education Can Impact Outdoor Leaders’ Decisions, Perry A. Darby

Student Publications

This study combines established escalation of commitment theory with research specifically aimed at understanding the role of heuristics in the field of outdoor leadership in order to create an understanding of decision-making processes in this context. Current decision-making frameworks taught to outdoor leaders rely on these theories but has yet to undergo rigorous testing as to its effectiveness. This study gave current decision-making education to one group and a control education to another group and found no significant differences between the two when asked to respond to the same situation. This finding suggests that further research into decision-making frameworks in …

Executive Decision-Making: Piloting Project Echo® To Integrate Care In Queensland, Perrin Moss, Nicole Hartley, Jenny Ziviani, Dana Newcomb, Trevor Russell

Project ECHO Bibliography

Introduction: A Queensland project team secured grant funding to pilot Project ECHO®, a telementoring model, to drive vertical and horizontal integration across paediatric, education and primary care services. This study sought to understand what influenced healthcare executives’ decision-making processes to organisationally commit to and financially invest in the pilot proposal within an organisational context.

Theory and Methods: A phenomenological approach methodology was adopted to investigate healthcare executives’ conscious decision-making processes. Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders were conducted alongside project documentation analyses to create a thematic framework.

Results: The qualitative thematic analysis identified five key themes that influenced the decision-making processes …

Values, Risks, And Power Influencing Librarians' Decisions To Host Drag Queen Storytime, Diana Floegel, Sarah C. Barriage, Vanessa Kitzie, Shannon M. Oltmann

Information Science Faculty Publications

This paper reports preliminary qualitative findings from a survey of public library staff who work at libraries that have and have not hosted drag queen storytimes (DQS), a popular but contested children's program. Three constructs—values, risks, and power—are developed to describe how individual, library, and institutional forces combine to determine whether DQS occur. Findings contribute to limited scholarly work on DQS by including locations that have not hosted DQS and by engaging critically with how institutional forces shape library staffs' decision-making around DQS. It is critical to understand factors contributing to this decision-making to inform contextually appropriate strategies for encouraging …

Principals' Perspectives Of Mindfulness For Leadership And Equity, Corinne Brion, Gina L. Gullo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Purpose: The current study sought to explore principals’ perspectives of definitions and uses of mindfulness in their leadership and equity practices.

Design: The primary researcher observed and interviewed eleven school principals using qualitative methods during the course of this study.

Findings: Four themes developed from principals’ definitions of mindfulness: (1) awareness and attention, (2) present centeredness, (3) modeling listening and respect, and (4) decision-making processes. The principals’ actions also presented ethical mindedness in their equity pursuits and reflection in their general leadership practices, despite establishing the presence of a stigma around mindfulness.

Research limitations/implications: Beyond the limitations of qualitative …

Understanding The “Gut Instinct” Of Expert Coaches During Talent Identification, Alexandra H. Roberts, Daniel Greenwood, Mandy Stanley, Clare Humberstone, Fiona Iredale, Annette Raynor

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Coaches are an integral part of talent identification in sport and are often used as the “gold standard” against which scientific methods of talent identification are compared. However, their decision-making during this process is not well understood. In this article, we use an ecological approach to explore talent identification in combat sports. We interviewed twenty-four expert, international-level coaches from the Olympic disciplines of boxing, judo, and taekwondo (age: 48.7 + 7.5 years; experience: 20.8 + 8.3 years). Findings indicated that when coaches identify talent they rely on “gut instinct”: intuitive judgements made without conscious thought, used to direct attention to …

Effects Of Different Types Of Forensic Evidence On Arrest Probability: Toward A New Typology Of Evidence, Morgan Steele Ph.D.

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Forensic evidence is an important component in criminal justice decision - making. Yet, few studies have examined the effectiveness of the various macro - types of forensic evidence in facilitating arrest. This article analyzed over 4000 case files from five cities to determine how the collection and analysis of three macro - types of forensic evidence (Classification, Identification, and Progenitor) affect the probability of arrest across five different crime types. The results of several sets of logistic regression analyses suggest that forensic evidence affects the probability of arrest, but that the impact is not consistent across different types of crime …

Duty Or Safety? Exploring Emergency Service Personnel's Perceptions Of Risk And Decision-Making When Driving Through Floodwater, Mozumdar Ahmed, Katharine A. Haynes, Matalena Tofa, Gemma Hope, Melanie R. Taylor

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: Part B

Vehicle-related flood fatalities and rescues due to driving through floodwater are a significant emergency management issue for emergency services. To reduce fatalities, injuries, and costs associated with this risky driving behaviour it is essential to develop strategies to stop or reduce the incidence of people driving through floodwater. In Australia, people are told not to enter floodwater – on foot or in vehicles – with the phrase ‘If it's flooded, forget it’ widely used in official messaging. As first responders responsible for floods, storms and tsunamis, Australian State Emergency Service (SES) personnel are working in flood conditions regularly and are …

Examiners' Decision‐Making Processes In Observation-Based Clinical Examinations, Bunmi S. Malau-Aduli, Richard B. Hays, Karen D'Souza, Amy M. Smith, Karina Jones, Richard Turner, Lizzi Shires, Jane Smith, Shannon Saad, Cassandra Richmond, Antonio Celenza, Tarun Sen Gupta

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background: Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) are commonly used to assess the clinical skills of health professional students. Examiner judgement is one acknowledged source of variation in candidate marks. This paper reports an exploration of examiner decision making to better characterise the cognitive processes and workload associated with making judgements of clinical performance in exit‐level OSCEs.

Methods: Fifty‐five examiners for exit‐level OSCEs at five Australian medical schools completed a NASA Task Load Index (TLX) measure of cognitive load and participated in focus group interviews immediately after the OSCE session. Discussions focused on how decisions were made for borderline and clear …

Humor Improves Women’S But Impairs Men’S Iowa Gambling Task Performance, Jorge Flores‑Torres, Lydia Gómez‑Pérez, Kateri Mcrae, Vladimir López, Ivan Rubio, Eugenio Rodriguez

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is a popular method for examining real-life decision-making. Research has shown gender related differences in performance, in that men consistently outperform women. It has been suggested that these performance differences are related to decreased emotional control in women compared to men. Given the likely role of emotion in these gender differences, in the present study, we examine the effect of a humor induction on IGT performance and whether the effect of humor is moderated by gender. IGT performance and parameters from the Expectancy Valence Model (EVM) were measured in 68 university students (34 men; mean …

A Psychometric Evaluation Of The Family Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale Among Surrogate Decision-Makers Of The Critically Ill, Grant A. Pignatiello, Elliane Irani, Sadia Tahir, Emily Tsivitse, Ronald L. Hickman Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Objectives The purpose of this study was to report the psychometric properties, in terms of validity and reliability, of the Unconscious Version of the Family Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Scale (FDMSE). Methods A convenience sample of 215 surrogate decision-makers for critically ill patients undergoing mechanical ventilation was recruited from four intensive care units at a tertiary hospital. Cross-sectional data were collected from participants between days 3 and 7 of a decisionally impaired patient's exposure to acute mechanical ventilation. Participants completed a self-report demographic form and subjective measures of family decision-making self-efficacy, preparation for decision-making, and decisional fatigue. Exploratory factor analyses, correlation coefficients, …