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Our paper examines how ELT lecturers perceive the feasibility of implementing Peer Observation (PO) in synchronous online settings, drawing on their prior experiences with offline PO. We also aim to identify potential areas for synchronous online PO.

We employed semi-structured interviews with eight lecturers as participants. Data analysis included identifying keywords, transcribing and labeling responses, and sorting and categorizing the themes.

Firstly, our findings indicate that lecturers reported several benefits from conducting offline PO, such as identifying teaching weaknesses, learning new techniques of teaching, gaining motivation, and receiving peer feedback. Participants also agreed that synchronous online PO is feasible and may offer greater benefits, especially with the shift to online teaching. Finally, the interview data highlighted potential areas for observation in synchronous online settings, including both pedagogical and technological aspects.

Firstly, our study did not explore the potential and focus areas of synchronous online PO based on lecturers' actual experiences. Instead, we derived these potential and focuses from their experiences with offline PO. Secondly, the potential observation areas have not been validated.

This study aims to contribute to the existing literature by exploring the potential of synchronous online PO and identifying key aspects for observation. Furthermore, in terms of practical implications, our findings may serve as a basis for developing validated guidelines for synchronous online PO, involving more practitioners. Additionally, lecturers and higher education institutions can consider implementing synchronous online PO to enhance teaching quality.

Previous literature has discussed ELT teachers' perceptions of offline PO, but limited research exists on its implementation in synchronous online contexts. Additionally, identifying potential areas for observation in synchronous online PO remains a concern.

This chapter takes a closer look at outliers and extreme outliers identified in the data derived from a complete case treatment of missing values in the European and North American datasets and consistently observe significant negatively skewed distributions with high excess kurtosis across all industries. We then plot the density functions for return on assets (ROA) across different industries in the two datasets and find pervasive observations in the tails where negative returns and outlying observations constitute a frequent and recurring phenomenon. We analyze the persistency of outliers and find noticeable percentages of outlying over- and underperformers hovering around 3–6% dependent on industry context. We further analyze potential size effects associated with extreme negative skewness but do not find that (even sizeable) elimination of extreme values reduce the phenomenon. Finally, we analyze the percentage of firm observations that must be eliminated to reach at distributions that fulfill the characteristics of a normal distribution and reach at a substantial percentage of around 5–10% dependent on industry. To conclude, the often-assumed normally distributed performance outcomes are typically wrong and discards the substantial number of outliers in the samples.

The purpose of this study was constructed a behavioral observation scale for avoiding food waste from the point of view of Chinese cuisine, used as an evaluation tool to examine food waste in the process of food preparation for hospitality students in Taiwan.

The status of food handling in the preparation process was understood through a literature review and interviews. In addition, the indicators that may cause food waste behaviors were established, and the observation and self-evaluation scales of food waste behaviors in the preparation process were developed.

Avoiding water waste, removing excessive edible parts, avoiding waste on seasonings, avoiding cooking for too long and avoiding water stains in the cleaning process were considered by both the observers and the students as items for improvement in the cooking process. The results of this study will help in understanding the intervention in the teaching practice of avoiding students’ food waste behaviors.

This study can only be based on the test results of the current observation behaviors. Meanwhile, many factors need to be taken into consideration, such as the differences in the amount of knowledge students have about food waste, the differences in preparation techniques, and other different factors, which may lead to differences in the research results.

The behavioral observation and self-evaluation behavior scales of “exploring food waste behaviors in the preparation process” were developed and implemented for the current status. The differences between the results of the observation scale and the self-evaluation scale were compared. In addition, the behaviors that may cause students’ food waste were pointed out. Then, the direction of the teaching content was formulated, and the curriculum plan integrating the content of avoiding food waste into teaching was evaluated. Furthermore, the scales can be applied to kitchen staff handling food materials to understand the current situation of their food handling, which can be used as a driving tool for restaurants to reduce food waste.

This study aims to find suitable replacements for hypothesis testing and variable-importance measures.

This study explores under-used predictive methods.

The study's hypothesis testing can and should be replaced by predictive methods. It is the only way to know if models have any value.

This is the first time predictive methods have been used to demonstrate measure and variable importance. Hypothesis testing can never prove the goodness of models. Only predictive methods can.

This current research aims to reveal customers’ behaviours who purchased à la carte menu service in a chain hotel operating in Istanbul, Türkiye after the Covid-19 outbreak. In addition to this main objective, customers’ main course preferences, tipping, complaining, maintaining eating and drinking habits, local food preferences, photograph taking and food waste behaviours were determined as the sub-research objectives.

Qualitative research method was adopted, and naturalistic observation was chosen as the data collection tool in this study. Firstly, an observation form was created based on the literature. To ensure the content validity, seven experts (five researchers and two experienced hotel employees) were consulted on 15 July 2021. After revising the form, a pilot study was carried out between 4 August and 29 September 2021. By conducting the pilot study, it was aimed to prevent any unpredictable behaviours of customers. As a result, four new items were added to, and two items were removed from the form. Then, 341 customers who purchased à la carte menu service in the restaurant of the hotel chain were observed between 7 October 2021 and 28 January 2022.

It was revealed that 52% of the customers who purchased à la carte menu services did not make any reservations, while approximately 59% of the customers with reservations did not stay at the hotel in which the research was conducted. In addition, 69% of them started to eat meal together; 56% of them paid in “cash”; 48% of them preferred local food and beverages; 41% left food on the plate; and 43% of them gave tip. In contrast, very few customers (6%) engaged in complaint behaviour.

First, data were collected during the post-pandemic period when international travels were mostly restricted and thus, the researcher observed mostly Turkish customers at the restaurant. Second, only those customers sitting at the six tables close to the guest welcoming were observed. Third, just one observer took part in the data collection process. Fourth, the researchers chose one out of two restaurants of the hotel because only Asian cuisine was served and children under 12 years of age were not allowed to enter the other restaurant. Fifth, focusing on only a hotel and using naturalistic observation as a data collection tool may be shown among the limitations of this study.

This paper presents the customers’ behaviours who preferred à la carte menu service in a chain hotel operating in İstanbul, Türkiye after the Covid-19 outbreak. Although there are some studies focusing on changing of customer preferences during the post-pandemic period, “observation” was not preferred as a data collection tool by most of the researchers; hence, the findings of this study are useful for both researchers and educationists in tourism industry.

This study aims to develop a self-reflection scale useful for teachers to improve their skills and to clarify the Japanese teachers’ characteristics during mathematics lesson observation (MLO). In MLO, it is important to understand the lesson plan in advance to clarify observation points, and we aim to develop a scale including these points.

Based on the pre-questionnaire survey, nine perspectives and two situations for MLO were extracted. From these, a questionnaire for MLO was created. The results obtained from 161 teachers were examined, and exploratory factor analysis was conducted. ANOVA was conducted to analyze the effect of differences across the duration of teaching experience on the identified factors.

We developed a self-reflection scale consisting of 14 items with three factors: [B1] focus on instructional techniques and evaluation, [B2] focus on proactive problem-solving lesson development and [B3] focus on the mathematical background of the learning content. While duration of teaching experience showed no effect, three factors of the self-reflection scale for MLO showed a significant effect. Further multiple comparisons revealed the degree of focus was [B2]>[B1]>[B3].

Teachers who use this developed scale may grasp the strengths and weaknesses of their own MLO, which leads to self-improvement. The perspectives emphasized in lesson observation are the same when creating lesson plans and implementing lessons, leading to lesson improvement. Furthermore, based on the characteristics of teachers revealed, new training programs regarding MLO can lead to higher-quality lesson studies.

This study aims to examine the impact of gamification on the five dimensions of meaningful learning (i.e. cooperative, active, authentic, constructive and intentional learning) and undergraduate student performance taking online lessons.

Therefore, the authors conducted an experiment among undergraduate students taking online classes at the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering School at a public university during the COVID-19 pandemic. The experiment included one control and two observation groups using gamification (Golden Points). Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed.

Results showed that gamification significantly affects meaningful learning and impacts student performance in online courses.

This study was limited to a single topic in a six-month course at a public university. Additional research is required to continue examining the impact of gamification in higher education institutions with different format courses and in other organisational sectors.

The paper aims to identify the effect of ignorance of correlatedness among process observations and to implement new sampling schemes; skip and mixed sampling, in order to reduce the effect of autocorrelation on process capability index (PCI) Cpm.

Autocorrelated observations are generated using autoregressive process of order two (AR (2)) using Monte Carlo simulations. The PCI is computed based on these observations assuming the independence. The skip and mixed sampling schemes are then used to form sub-groups among correlated observations. The PCI obtained using sub-groups from skip and mixed sampling schemes are assessed using sample mean and sample standard deviation.

The paper provides empirical insights into how the effect of autocorrelation decreases in the estimated value of PCI Cpm. The use of new sampling schemes, skip and mixed sampling, reduces the effect of autocorrelation on estimates of PCI Cpm.

This paper fulfills an identified need to study how to reduce the effect of autocorrelation on PCI Cpm.

This paper revolves around the central question: is it possible to do “proper ethnography” without complete participant observation? The authors draw upon a student's experiences of negotiating National Health Service (NHS) ethical approval requirements and access into the student's research field, a British NHS hospital and having to adapt data collection methods for the student's doctoral research. The authors examine some of the positional (insider/outsider, native gone academic), methodological (long-term/interrupted, overt/covert) and contextual challenges that threatened the student's ethnographic study.

The paper draws on reflexive vignettes written during the student's doctorate, capturing significant moments and issues within the student's research.

The authors highlight the temporal, practical, ethical and emotional challenges faced in attempting an ethnography of nursing culture within a highly regulated research environment. Having revealed the student's experience of researching this specific culture and finding ways to overcome these challenges, the authors conclude that the contemporary ethnographer needs to be increasingly flexible, opportunistic and somewhat covert.

The authors argue that it is possible to do “proper” and “good” ethnography without complete participant observation – it is not the method, the observation, that is the essence of ethnography, but whether the researcher achieves real understanding through thick descriptions of the culture that explain “what is really going on here”.

The authors hope to assist doctoral students engage in “good” ethnographic research within (potentially) risk-averse host organisations, such as the NHS, whilst being located in neo-liberal performative academic organisations (Foster, 2017; McCann et al., 2020). The authors wish to contribute to the journal to ensure good ethnography is accessible and achievable to (particularly) doctoral researchers who have to navigate complex challenges exacerbated by pressures in both the host and home cultures. The authors wish to see doctoral researchers survive and thrive in producing good organisational ethnographies to ensure such research is published (Watson 2012), cognisant of the pressures and targets to publish in top-ranked journals (Jones et al. 2020).

Having identified key challenges, the authors demonstrate how these can be addressed to ensure ethnography remains accessible to and achievable for, doctoral researchers, particularly in healthcare organisations. The authors conclude that understanding can be attained in what they propose as a hybrid form of “propportune” ethnography that blends the aim of the essence of “proper” anthropological approaches with the “opportunism” of contemporary data collection solutions.

This paper introduces a novel quality measure, the percent-within-distribution, or PWD, for acceptance and payment in a quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) performance specification (PS).

The new quality measure takes any sample size or distribution and uses a Bayesian updating process to re-estimate parameters of a design distribution as sample observations are fed through the algorithm. This methodology can be employed in a wide range of applications, but the authors demonstrate the use of the measure for a QC/QA PS with upper and lower bounds on 28-day compressive strength of in-place concrete for bridge decks.

The authors demonstrate the use of this new quality measure to illustrate how it addresses the shortcomings of the percent-within-limits (PWL), which is the current industry standard quality measure. The authors then use the PWD to develop initial pay factors through simulation regimes. The PWD is shown to function better than the PWL with realistic sample lots simulated to represent a variety of industry responses to a new QC/QA PS.

The analytical contribution of this work is the introduction of the new quality measure. However, the practical and managerial contributions of this work are of equal significance.