Search results

In the past decade, microfinance institutions (MFIs) have experienced a boom in innovations of lending products, partly fueled by donors who see microfinance as the next promise to alleviate poverty. Examples of these new products are the combination of credit with health or life insurance, business and health education, savings products, and the adoption of (or conversion to) individual loan liability. The add-on features generally aim at reducing the vulnerability of clients while contributing to asset creation, hence improving repayment rates and the sustainability of the service. The product innovations typically result from organizations striving to extend outreach, increase impact, and promote sustainability. As in other industries, MFIs typically decide whether to adopt new strategies based on other MFIs’ success with the innovations. Many new microlending products and approaches continue to be developed. However, MFIs must generally rely on qualitative and descriptive case studies and anecdotal evidence on the effectiveness of these innovations to decide whether to implement the new strategies. The usual case study approach does not provide tangible evidence that can enable other organizations to know what changes can be expected if they were to adopt similar product changes.

Placing gifted and talented students together organizationally is not a substitute for appropriate services. The placement or program model fundamentally serves as a vehicle to group or organize students together but programming, in practice, sometimes referred to as a service delivery model, is not the same thing as service. Placement is a management strategy. It must be coupled with curriculum and instructional modifications in order for substantial and positive academic and social–emotional effects to occur for gifted and talented students. Specifically, the program placement model is only as good as the curriculum and instructional models provided within that placement. This chapter provides descriptions and research evidence of the macro program models used for serving gifted students and more commonly used program placement models for grouping gifted students together within the traditional school day and beyond. Non-negotiable components and future directions are also discussed within the context of placement.

This chapter looks at the role qualitative evaluation can play in the external review of the Probation Service, the development of an evaluation framework for ongoing assessment and how it can be used to develop new elements of the service. How is this different from the use of existing data by the service?

This takes us to the kind of information that is used by the probation service, to make judgements about the effectiveness of its programmes and the impact on offenders. The main contention is that this is in the main quantitative data, and reports on levels of re-offending. The data is standardised so that it can be used to make comparisons between different types of sentence and criminal justice intervention.

Our contention is that this information is limited in what it says for two main reasons. Firstly, quantitative data tends to report on impact, that is whether an offender has committed another crime after engagement with the probation service, or whether there are patterns of behaviour between offences, individual circumstances and the likelihood or re-offending. In short, the data is a snapshot of whether an offender has changed his or her behaviour or not. However, this chapter will illustrate how quantitative data misses an understanding of how behaviour changes and why behaviour does not change. As a result, this leaves the service with a limited understanding of how it is working.

Secondly, the chapter will argue that the existing probation framework itself creates quite specific definitions of which data is relevant and which data is not relevant. We will give examples of narratives that offenders offer in group sessions that provide rich material about their lives, pressures and offence. But evidence suggests that this information is not used to inform programmes, re-assess and review an offender's own progression towards re-offending or a life without crime.

In recent years, many new and interesting business models for Internet-based selling have emerged with the advent of electronic commerce, one of which is the Internet-based group-buying. Since group-buying can be quickly built and removed, and the consumers can pay a lower price for the product through it, the group-buying can be a new online promotion form. In this chapter we build up a two-period pricing model for a supply chain when a supply chain member utilizes group-buying program to promote its products. In detail, we consider a supply chain consisting of a supplier and a retailer, where the supplier or retailer may launch a group-buying program to promote the products via a group-buying web site in the promotion period (i.e., the first period), as well as the supplier may sell its products through the retailer traditionally in both periods. Utilizing game theory, we derive the equilibrium decisions of the two supply chain members in three different scenarios, that is, (i) there is no group-buying program, (ii) the supplier launches a group-buying program, and (iii) the retailer launches a group-buying program. Analysis of the equilibrium decisions illustrates the following results: (i) both, the supplier and the retailer, will set low prices in the promotion period and high prices in the regular period; (ii) this trend will be enhanced when a group-buying program occurs, especially when such program is launched by the supplier; (iii) while the retailer can always benefit from a group-buying program, the supplier’s profit may be reduced under certain conditions; and (iv) in spite of the fact that the supplier’s profit may be damaged by the group-buying program, when the two supply chain members decide to launch a group-buying program, the unique equilibrium is that the supplier will launch such a program.

A meta-evaluation is an assessment of evaluation practices. Meta-evaluations include assessments of validity and usefulness of two or more studies that focus on the same issues. Every performance audit is grounded explicitly or implicitly in one or more theories of program evaluation. A deep understanding of alternative theories of program evaluation is helpful to gain clarity about sound auditing practices. We present a review of several theories of program evaluation.

This study includes a meta-evaluation of seven government audits on the efficiency and effectiveness of tourism departments and programs. The seven tourism-marketing performance audits are program evaluations for: Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Minnesota, Australia, and two for Hawaii. The majority of these audits are negative performance assessments. Similarly, although these audits are more useful than none at all, the central conclusion of the meta-evaluation is that most of these audit reports are inadequate assessments. These audits are too limited in the issues examined; not sufficiently grounded in relevant evaluation theory and practice; and fail to include recommendations, that if implemented, would result in substantial increases in performance.

This chapter reviews 30 years of Advances in Group Processes. Its primary purpose is to study the part the series has played in the advances in the study of group processes that have taken place between 1984 and 2014.

This chapter places the 30 years of Advances in Group Processes in the context of the changes that took place between small groups research in the 1950s and group processes research in the 1980s and beyond.

Analyzing the policies of Advances in Group Processes and its contents, this chapter reflects on its role in the advances in group processes that have taken place since the 1980s. Between 1950 and 1980, small group research reinvented, reconceptualized, and reinvigorated itself as group process research. Between the two periods, small group research, its applied research, and its research programs became increasingly theory-driven and its concept of the group and its levels increasingly analytic. As a consequence of these changes, the concept of the field itself became increasingly analytic. The changes between the two periods in its theory, research, application, programs, and in its concept of the group and the way the field was conceptualized led to marked advances in group process research in the 90s and beyond – to more theory, more impact of it on application, and more, and more cumulative, growth of it. Advances in Group Processes was at once a reflection of the changes that took place between the two periods and a driving force in the advances in group processes research that have taken place ever since.

Advances in Group Processes is a fundamental resource for the development of theory and research on small groups and group processes. This chapter provides an overview of its contributions and places them in the context of the development of the field as a whole.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to assess the effects of twenty-five years of the Group Processes Conference on advances in the study of group processes that have taken place between 1988 and 2014.

This chapter places the twenty-five years of the Group Processes Conference in the context of the changes that have taken place between small groups research in the 1950s and group processes research in the 1980s and beyond.

Between the 1950s and 1980s small groups research reinvented, reconceptualized, and reinvigorated itself as group processes research. In this period, small groups research, its applied research, and its research programs became increasingly theory-driven, and its concept of the group and its levels increasingly abstract, general, and analytic. As a consequence of these changes, the concept of the field itself became increasingly analytic. The Group Processes Conference was at once a reflection of these changes and a driving force in the subsequent advances in group processes research. It both quickened and amplified the effects of individual-level factors and of thirty years of Advances in Group Processes on the transformation of the field and was also, like Advances in Group Processes, a driving force in the subsequent advances in group processes research. The present chapter concludes with an analysis of the mechanisms of the effects of the Group Processes Conference on group processes research.

The program for the twenty-fifth year of the Group Processes Conference celebrates its effects on the field of group processes research.

This chapter reviews findings from the literature on the use of cohort programs in personnel preparation programs. Twenty-four investigations examining cohorts in higher education were identified: fourteen studies examined elementary, middle, or secondary education programs; seven studies described special education programs; and three described educational leadership cohort programs. Findings support the use of cohorts across special education, general education, and educational leadership personnel preparation programs. Reported positive benefits included social-emotional support, improved collaboration, communication, academic support, and reduced attrition. However, several studies also revealed unintended negative consequences. Such unintended consequences included negative interpersonal conflicts, development of cliques, and conflicts between students and faculty. Findings are discussed for future research and practice.

We start from the assertion that the concept of “global citizenship” is neither simple nor stable. Rather, it is a contentious idea that is often uncritically based upon assumptions of the “global” and “citizenship” as positives. In geography, however, the “global” and how it relates to the idea of the “local” is a complex and debated concept. Drawing upon critical geographic theories of scale, we suggest that the concept of global citizenship should be thoroughly interrogated to understand its problems and paradoxes as well as its possibilities. In this chapter, we offer one such interrogation grounded in the experiences of designing and implementing the Parks and People experience. We identify tensions within the program such as how to sell the program, how to navigate between individual and group experiences, and how to simultaneously support one-time encounters and ongoing relationships. In exploring these tensions, we demonstrate how the everyday practices of “global citizenship” are enmeshed in uneven geographies of privilege. We suggest that our goal should not be to separate ourselves from such inequality, but, rather, to face the complexities of the relationships we are trying to foster in the name of promoting social justice.