Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Teaching Happiness: Developing And Assessing A Happiness Course, Charles Hammersley

Journal of Tourism Insights

Can “happiness” be taught? In the spring of 2015 the Northern Arizona University’s Parks and Recreation Management program introduced a new course, PRM 205 Happiness. A study of the fall 2015 PRM 205 Happiness courses (campus section and distance section) were conducted to determine if the PRM 205 Happiness course resulted in measurable changes in student “happiness” scores. Also, if there were any differences between campus and distance delivery modes and student “happiness” scores. A Pre-test / Post-test survey design using the Fordyce Emotions Questionnaire (Fordyce, 1988) was conducted on both a campus class (N=49) and a distance class (N=23). …

Considerations For Measuring The Impact Of Policy-Relevant Research, Megan Collado, Lauren Gerlach, Caroline Ticse, Katherine Hempstead

The Foundation Review

Philanthropy, and the research and analysis it supports, has an important role to play in informing policy and making government more effective. Yet all too often, foundations and other research funders struggle to understand whether and how their investments have affected policy.

This article highlights the findings of an 18-month pilot project conducted by AcademyHealth to help the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation better understand the impact of a subset of the foundation’s research grants, across investment types, on health insurance coverage and health reform, and to help inform how the foundation may more systematically track and measure the impact of …

Network Evaluation In Practice: Approaches And Applications, Madeleine Taylor, Anne Whatley, Julia Coffman

The Foundation Review

As more funders support networks as a mechanism for social change, new and practical knowledge is emerging about how to build and support effective networks. Based on extensive review of different types of networks and their evaluations, and on interviews with funders, network practitioners, and evaluation experts, the authors have developed an accessible framework for evaluating networks.

This article describes the evaluation framework and its three pillars of network assessment: network connectivity, network health, and network results.

Also presented are case examples of foundationfunded network evaluations focused on each pillar, which include practical information on evaluation designs, methods, and results, …

Dominican Resort Tourism, Sustainability, And Millennium Development Goals, Vinod Sasidharan, Marilyn E. Hall

Journal of Tourism Insights

The tourism industry continues to be touted as the main income and employment generator for Caribbean nations. In the Dominican Republic (DR), international tourism has become one of the largest industries and is a major contributor to the country’s economic growth. A recent trend in the DR is the development of luxurious residential resort complexes and private resort cities, mainly designed and created for foreign ownership. The Dominican government support for such projects has been very strong due to the economic propensity of these high-end resorts to assist the country in generating local opportunities for stable employment, creating basic infrastructure, …

Practice, Practice, Practice: Preliminary Findings From An Evidence-Based Practice Funding Initiative At The Peter And Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation, Nicholas G. Randell

The Foundation Review

· The Tower Foundation supported a five-year initiative to support the implementation of evidencebased practices (EBP). The average award was a three-year award of $84,050.

· The underlying grantmaking theory of change was that behavioral health providers could bring empirically tested protocols to their communities and sustain them over time if supported by long-term funding to support the real costs of implementation (e.g., training, technical assistance, adherence to program protocols, and cultural change).

· Grantees cited the high cost of training, certification, and recertification – especially in the face of high staff turnover – as a primary challenge to implementing …