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The purpose of this paper is to describe the development, implementation and impact evaluation of an interactive theater-based workshop by the ADVANCE program at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). The workshop is part of a larger institutional transformation program funded by the National Science Foundation.

This institutional transformation program relied upon a systems approach to diagnose potential causes for the underrepresentation of women faculty in certain disciplines. This revealed that increasing awareness of, and reducing, implicit gender bias among members of faculty search committees could, in time, contribute to increasing the representation of women faculty at UNH. A committee charged with developing a faculty workshop to achieve this change identified interactive theater as an effective faculty training approach. The committee oversaw the development of customized scripts, and the hiring of professional actors and a facilitator to implement the workshop.

The workshop’s effectiveness in fulfilling its goals was assessed using faculty hiring and composition data, program evaluations, participant interviews and questions in an annual faculty climate survey. Findings indicate that the representation of women faculty increased significantly at UNH since the implementation of the interactive theater workshop. Analysis of the multiple sources of data provides corroborating evidence that a significant portion of the increase is directly attributable to the workshop.

This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of interactive theater-based workshops in an academic environment and of the systems approach in diagnosing and solving organizational problems.

Struggling writers and students with disabilities tend to have difficulties with multiple aspects of the writing process. Therefore, in this chapter, we describe Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD; Harris, Graham, Mason, & Friedlander, 2008). SRSD is a writing intervention with extensive research demonstrating its effectiveness for improving the writing quality of struggling writers and students with disabilities when implemented by both teachers and researchers in a variety of educational settings. We also describe an ineffective writing practice, stand-alone grammar instruction. Although this type of grammar instruction is explicit, it is removed from an authentic writing context, and decades of research have demonstrated its negative effects on students’ writing quality. We close the chapter with recommendations for future research on SRSD as well as general suggestions for teachers who provide writing instruction to struggling writers and students with disabilities.

This chapter explores the ethical challenges related to the study of children in highly complex and sensitive family circumstances where intimate partner violence has taken place. Drawing on eight months of ethnographic fieldwork at a women’s refuge in Denmark, the author unpacks and discusses three key ethical aspects of conducting research with children: gatekeepers and consent, researcher positionality, and participant confidentiality. These aspects highlight the centrality of trust when undertaking sensitive research with children. In qualitative research, trust is often described as an important aspect of the research process, but research rarely takes into account that trust can vary according to the relationship or research context. What spurred these reflections was questions asked by some of the mothers about what their child had told the author. Examples of this kind illustrate the complex role and positionality of the researcher when seeking to enter and explore the everyday lives of children living in complex family circumstances. Furthermore, the notion of trust brings attention to how different relationships of power – in this case between children and mothers – can influence the research encounter. The chapter concludes with a discussion of children’s own positionality in research about their experiences and life worlds, and calls for researchers to be ethically mindful about how powerful dynamics that emerge during research can support (or hinder) children’s rights as research participants.

Many students in the United States struggle to achieve proficiency in writing. Writing is an important skill to develop, as it is a way for students to communicate what they know and integrate knowledge and critical thinking skills. A lack of writing proficiency can have a significant impact on academic performance in secondary school and on postsecondary outcomes. Improving writing instruction requires theoretically sound, scientifically validated teaching practices, including assessments and instructional methods. It also requires that teachers are well prepared to implement such practices, including using assessment data to tailor instructional methods to meet the needs of students who experience significant writing difficulties. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of advances in research and practice related to validated teaching practices designed to improve the writing outcomes of students with intensive needs, and to describe an innovative way to prepare and support teachers to implement such practices.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has provoked considerable debate. Initial expressions of CSR can be traced back to the seventeenth century. However, the ideal of socially responsible business was most evident after the depression of the 1930s and the post-war period in the 1950s. CSR was, by then, mainly influenced by values of philanthropy and principles of the welfare state, and mostly centred on corporations’ charitable donations which provided social welfare for materially deprived families and individuals. In the 1980s, there was a marked shift to the neoliberal ideals of profit maximisation and free regulation in corporate activities and this fed through into CSR practices. We argue that these conflicting ideals of CSR create divergent discourses where corporations on the one hand proclaim a lack of self-interest and a duty of care towards host societies, and on the other hand legitimise corporation’s self-interested preoccupation with profit. Divergent care versus profit discourses influence how legislators, CSR experts, corporations and NGOs understand and practise CSR in host societies. In this chapter, we examine how welfare and neoliberal ideologies contribute to divergent discourses of duty of care and profit, and how these discourses influence corporations’ decision-making about their social responsibility. The chapter concludes by proposing alternative ways for rethinking political and economic relationships between communities and corporations, in order to move beyond the limits of the current discourses of duty of care and profit.

Policy-capturing is an experimental technique potentially capable of providing powerful insights into the cognitive bases of work-related decision processes by revealing actors’ “implicit” models of the problem at hand, thereby opening up the “black box” of managerial and organizational cognition. This chapter considers the strengths and weaknesses of policy-capturing vis-à-vis alternative approaches that seek to capture, in varying ways, the inner workings of people’s minds as they make decisions. It then outlines the critical issues that need to be addressed when designing policy-capturing studies and offers practical advice to would-be users concerning some of the common pitfalls of the technique and ways of avoiding them.

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of a novel offender personality disorder (OPD) higher education programme and the research evaluation results collected over a three-year period. Data from Phase 1 was collected from a face-to-face mode of delivery, and Phase 2 data collected from the same programme was from an online mode of delivery because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Phase 1, three modules were developed and delivered in a fully face-to-face format before the pandemic in 2019–2020 (n = 52 student participants). In 2020–2021 (n = 66 student participants), training was adapted into a fully online mode of delivery in Phase 2. This mixed-methods study evaluated participant confidence and compassion. Pre-, post- and six-month follow-up questionnaires were completed. Qualitative interviews were conducted across both phases to gain in-depth feedback on this programme (Phase 1: N = 7 students, Phase 2: N = 2 students, N = 5 leaders). Data from Phase 1 (face-to-face) and Phase 2 (online) are synthesised for comparison.

In Phase 1 (N = 52), confidence in working with people with personality disorder or associated difficulties improved significantly, while compassion did not change. In Phase 2 (N = 66), these results were replicated, with statistically significant improvements in confidence reported. Compassion, however, was reduced in Phase 2 at the six-month follow-up. Results have been integrated and have assisted in shaping the future of modules to meet the learning needs of students.

Further research into the impact of different modes of delivery is important for the future of education in a post-pandemic digitalised society. Comparisons of blended learning approaches were not covered but would be beneficial to explore and evaluate in the future.

This comparison provided informed learning for consideration in the development of non-related educational programmes and, hence, was of use to other educational providers.

This paper provides a comparison of a student-evaluated training programme, thus providing insights into the impact of delivering a relational-focused training programme in both face-to-face and online distance learning delivery modes. From this pedagogic research evaluation, the authors were able to derive unique insights into the outcomes of this programme.

Movies have mesmerized audiences for years, crossing boundaries of race, gender, age, culture, and nationality. They have also been used to teach people how to lead. One text that zeroes in on the essence of leadership is The Leadership Challenge, by Kouzes and Posner (2002). Through their research, they have highlighted five practices of effective leaders. It is our intent to share how we apply movies to teach the tenets of the groundbreaking leadership research of Kouzes and Posner, with proven ideas that work with students of leadership in any setting.

Using movies to teach leadership is a winning strategy; however, diligent planning is required to incorporate them successfully into leadership education. Movies are entertaining, informative, energizing, and educational, if used skillfully. The more facilitators use film, the more skilled they will become and the more the participants will benefit.

Relatively limited attention has been paid to the academic needs of students with emotional and behavioral difficulties. Effective interventions are needed to support these students academically, behaviorally, and socially. The purpose of the concurrent studies reported here was to investigate the effectiveness of academic support in writing for fourth- and fifth-grade students (six boys, two girls) and second- and third-grade students (seven boys, one girl) with writing and behavioral difficulties. The Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) approach was implemented as a tier-2 intervention within a comprehensive, integrated three-tiered model of prevention including academic-, behavioral-, and social-skills components. Students learned an on-demand writing strategy for their state writing-competency test. Dependent measures included number of story writing elements, total number of words written, and writing quality. Fourth- and fifth-grade students who completed the intervention improved in total number of story elements. There were mixed results for the total number of words written and writing quality. Second- and third-grade students did not improve their total number of story elements, total words written, or writing quality. Students in both studies scored the intervention favorably, while there were mixed reactions from teachers. Findings, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed. Implications for the construct of evidence-based practice (EBP) are also explored, including concerns regarding frequent assessment of writing throughout intervention regardless of stage of instruction in the SRSD model.

This chapter addresses the perceptions versus facts divide as the United States experiences an eruption of facts, opinions, and untruths in web-facilitated environments. It addresses how traditional and newer media undermine social justice and political inclusion in ways lingering beyond Donald Trump’s presidency. A competitive environment encouraging journalists to publicize rumor and gossip is addressed. The reliance of individuals on the personal experience of mental models, heuristics, and perceptions to separate fact from fiction is examined. Powerful influences of self-interest and political allegiance are explored. In the context of a deeply divided nation, libraries are seen as having the capability of implementing confidence-building measures to bridge the rift in their communities and organizations. The roles of information educators in advancing democracy through promoting useful theories and effective interlanguages are considered. The value of pragmatism, a philosophy promoting engagement in reformist projects possibly acceptable in conservative and mixed ideological environments is addressed. Economically advanced nations committed to equality and inclusion may find the US experience to be both a warning of potential roadblocks and a guide as to how such obstacles may sometimes be positively addressed.