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The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of a year-long writing intervention located in an urban high school in partnership with a university teacher education professor and the students. The goals were as follows: to increase student self-efficacy about writing overall; to increase the number of students who successfully improve scores on writing assessments; and to increase ACT exam scores, making students more qualified candidates for college admission.

The main method used for the research is a quantitative longitudinal study method, which involves collecting from each student, at pre-intervention and post-intervention, a writing sample. There are 54 students in the study.

Findings showed an increase in student proficiency overall, with an increase of 0.53 holistically. Effective writing instruction asks students to write often to develop their writing will and skill. There are many more factors beyond the teaching of “ACT prep” writing skills that must be considered, particularly when teaching marginalized groups. This study found that the following are important: building and sustaining positive rapport; using their language as part of the learning process; creating space for students to write regularly; writing on a variety of topics; reflecting on and monitoring their writing; and receiving timely and targeted feedback.

This paper discusses the impact of the writing intervention and describes the practices that were a part of the intervention for marginalized students in an urban school to increase their writing scores.

In collaboration with their home cities, universities increasingly develop courses in which students investigate urban sustainability challenges. This paper aims to understand how far-reaching the collaboration with urban stakeholders in these courses is and what students are meant to learn from the transdisciplinary pedagogies.

This research is designed as a qualitative multiple-case study into the intentions of transdisciplinary courses in which universities collaborate with their home cities: Delft University of Technology in Delft and Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions in Amsterdam. The study compares the written intentions of eight courses in course descriptions with the ideal intentions that teachers describe in interviews.

First, seven of the eight investigated courses were designed for urban stakeholders to participate at a distance or as a client but rarely was a course intended to lead to a collaborative partnership between the city and students. Second, the metacognitive learning objectives, such as learning to deal with biases and values of others or getting to know one’s strengths and weaknesses in collaboration, were often absent in the course descriptions. Learning objectives relating to metacognition are at the heart of transdisciplinary work, yet when they remain implicit in the learning objectives, they are difficult to teach.

This paper presents insight into the levels of participation intended in transdisciplinary courses. Furthermore, it shows the (mis)alignment between intended learning objectives in course descriptions and teachers’ ideals. Understanding both the current state of transdisciplinarity in sustainability courses and what teachers envision is vital for the next steps in the development of transdisciplinary education.

Village health volunteers are community health volunteers in Thailand that have helped the government deliver public health services for many years, particularly during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Though labeled as “volunteers,” the village health volunteers are recruited, trained and supervised in a manner similar to how a government agency recruits, trains and supervises its street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). This study examines the two factors that affect how these street-level quasi-bureaucrats use their professional discretion: transformational leadership and public service motivation (PSM). Transformational leadership means a leadership style that develops, shares and sustains a vision to elevate SLBs to higher levels of performance, while PSM is defined as an SLB’s predisposition to make a difference by working in the public sector with a sense of calling. This study attempts to analyze the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between transformational leadership, PSM and professional discretion.

The paper uses a three-wave survey-based quantitative method to avoid common method biases. This method provides evidence gathered from 105 subdistrict health promotion hospitals and 798 village health volunteers (VHVs) in five provinces in Thailand.

PSM and transformational leadership influence the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion indirectly through the psychological empowerment mechanisms that make them feel positive toward their village health volunteer role and responsibility. The authors' findings suggest that the hospital directors' transformational leadership induces the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion by making them feel competent to do their work and feel fulfilled and valuable about their work. Similarly, the village health volunteers' PSM leads them to use professional discretion by making them feel fulfilled and valuable and by convincing them of the social and community impact of their work.

While existing research focuses on VHVs' role in alleviating capacity constraints on the health care system, this study revealed an equally important role played by hospital directors. These directors' transformational leadership was instrumental in enhancing VHVs' psychological empowerment – particularly their perceptions of the meaning of their work and their competence – that ultimately enabled them to use professional discretion in their work. This study also highlighted the importance of VHVs' PSM, which leads to their use of professional discretion via the meaning and impact dimensions of psychological empowerment. Based on this study, PSM should also be incorporated into the community health volunteers' recruitment criteria. Also, public health agencies should consider including transformational leadership in the hospital directors' training programs and their promotion criteria.

As VHVs' high-PSM level was found to enhance their professional discretion, the process of recruiting ordinary citizens to serve as community health volunteers should incorporate assessment of the candidates' PSM. Also, the Ministry of Public Health should design and assign tasks that citizen volunteers, particularly VHVs, consider meaningful and at which they feel competent.

Aside from technical training, directors of the subdistrict health promotion hospitals should regularly receive soft skill training (i.e. leadership training) and transformational leadership characteristics should be included in the government criteria for promotion.

While past research has examined the impact of other leadership styles on psychological empowerment, this study took a further step by examining the mediating effects of psychological empowerment on the relationship between transformational leadership and professional discretion among VHVs. The authors analyzed the mechanism linking PSM to the VHVs' professional discretion. In addition, by examining the relative importance of different dimensions of psychological empowerment, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the psychological processes by which transformational leadership and PSM shape the SLBs' use of professional discretion in their work.

The purpose of this study is to assess factors related to sorority women connecting with people who exacerbate feelings of exercise guilt and body dissatisfaction (BD), both of which preclude compulsive exercise.

In all, 207 sorority women (egos) completed online surveys measuring physical activity, BD, compulsive exercise and egocentric networks (n = 1,105 social ties/alters). Two random coefficient multilevel models assessed factors related to an ego connecting to someone who makes her feel: guilty about her exercise habits and good about her looks.

Exercise patterns within networks related to how often an alter made ego feel guilty about her exercise habits; alter gender and communication frequency related to how often an alter made ego feel good about her looks; and ego’s BD score was related to both feelings of guilt and body satisfaction.

The findings of this study support and extend literature highlighting the importance of someone’s immediate social network on their body image and related behaviors.

This chapter aims to verify predictors of marital quality in Croatia. As a theoretical starting point, the Huston Socio-ecological model was used. Huston’s so-called “wide-angle and close range” variables were included in to study as predictors of marital quality. A two-level hypothetical model was created consisting of Six groups of predictor variables: Level 1 predictors included Partners’ demographic variables, Partners’ personality, Partners’ value system, Marital processes or dynamics, and Partners’ wellbeing. Level 2 predictors included four Marriage characteristics. Altogether at both levels, 42 variables represented predictors. Marital quality in the marriage was a dependent variable. Eight hundred and eighty-four marital couples from 14 counties in various parts of Croatia and from Zagreb, the country’s capital, were included in the study. Factor analysis, Maximum likelihood with Promax rotation was used to extract factors. Eight factors were extracted: Marital harmony, Distress, Partners’ personality, Negative spillover from work, Traditionalism, Engagement in child care, Participation in decision-making, and Economic hardship. Multilevel analysis using the Mix model in Statistical Package for Social scientist, version 20 was used in data analysis. Predictive on Marital quality in a marriage turned out variables: Marital harmony, Distress, Partners’ personality, Traditionalism, Engagement in child care, and Participation in decision-making as level 1 and Marriage duration (Marriage stages) as a level 2 variable. Huston’s Ecological model proved to be adequate and useful in explaining marital quality.

The purpose of this study is to implement lean six sigma (LSS) methodology to improve the admission process in a higher education institute (HEI).

In this study, case study research methodology is adopted and implemented through an LSS define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) framework.

The preliminary investigation showed that the completion of the whole admission process of a new student takes an average of 88 min, which is equivalent to a sigma level of about 0.71 based on the targeted admission cycle time of 60 min. The implementation of the proposed LSS approach increased the sigma level from 0.71 to 2.57, which indicates a reduction in the mean admission cycle time by around 55%. This substantial improvement is expected not only to provide an efficient admission process but also to enhance the satisfaction of students and employees and increase the reputation of the HEI to a significant level.

In this study, the sample size used in the analysis is considered small. In addition, the effectiveness of the proposed approach is investigated using a discrete event simulation with a single-case study, which may limit generalization of the results. However, this study can provide useful guidance for further research for the generalization of the results to wider scopes in terms of different sectors of HEIs and geographical locations.

This study uses several statistical process control tools and techniques through a LSS DMAIC framework to identify and element the root causes of the long admission cycle time at a HEI. The approach followed, and the lessons learned, as documented in the study, can be of a great benefit in improving different sectors of HEIs.

This study is one of the few attempts to implement LSS in HEIs to improve the administrative process so that better-quality services can be provided to customers, such as students and guardians. The project is implemented by a group of undergraduate students as a part of their senior design project, which paves the way for involving students in future LSS projects in HEIs. This study is expected to help to improve understanding of how LSS methodology can be implemented in solving quality-related problems in HEIs and to offer valuable insights for both academics and practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the response of the relevant authorities to evidence that female primary schoolteachers have an elevated suicide risk in the UK. The paper situates the recent tragic death of a primary school head teacher, following an Ofsted inspection at her school, within the wider context of teacher suicide deaths and asks what, if any, action the authorities have taken to prevent avoidable suicide deaths from occurring.

The paper examines a recent case of suicide by a primary head teacher within the wider context of statistical data on suicides by primary schoolteachers and in relation to previous cases of suicide linked to a school inspection.

The paper suggests that the relevant authorities have failed to act in relation to evidence of high suicide risk amongst female primary schoolteachers and to previous suicide deaths linked to the impact of a school inspection. Without learning from suicide deaths and acting on available evidence, there is a risk that preventable suicide deaths will continue to occur.

The paper draws together case study evidence and statistical data to make the case for regulatory reform to ensure that work-related suicides are investigated, monitored and prevented.

This study aims to, firstly, develop a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes and, secondly, to test this red flag checklist against publicly available marketing material for Mirror Trading International (MTI). The red flag checklist test seeks to establish if MTI’s marketing material posted on YouTube^® (in the form of a live video presentation) exhibits any of the red flags from the checklist.

The study uses a structured literature review and qualitative analysis of red flags for Ponzi and cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.

A research lacuna was discovered with regard to cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme red flags. By means of a structured literature review, journal papers were identified that listed and discussed Ponzi scheme red flags. The red flags from the identified journal papers were subsequently used in a qualitative analysis. The analyses and syntheses resulted in the development of a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes, with five red flag categories, containing 18 associated red flags. The red flag checklist was then tested against MTI’s marketing material (a transcription of a live YouTube presentation). The test resulted in MTI’s marketing material exhibiting 88% of the red flags contained within the checklist.

The inherent limitations in the design of using a structured literature review and the lack of research regarding the cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme red flags.

The study provides a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes. The red flag checklist can be applied to a cryptocurrency investment scheme’s marketing material to establish if it exhibits any of these red flags.

The red flag checklist can be applied to a cryptocurrency investment scheme’s marketing material to establish if it exhibits any of these red flags.

The study provides a red flag checklist for cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.

Work-life flexibility policies (e.g., flextime, telework, part-time, right-to-disconnect, and leaves) are increasingly important to employers as productivity and well-being strategies. However, policies have not lived up to their potential. In this chapter, the authors argue for increased research attention to implementation and work-life intersectionality considerations influencing effectiveness. Drawing on a typology that conceptualizes flexibility policies as offering employees control across five dimensions of the work role boundary (temporal, spatial, size, permeability, and continuity), the authors develop a model identifying the multilevel moderators and mechanisms of boundary control shaping relationships between using flexibility and work and home performance. Next, the authors review this model with an intersectional lens. The authors direct scholars’ attention to growing workforce diversity and increased variation in flexibility policy experiences, particularly for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality, which is defined as having multiple intersecting identities (e.g., gender, caregiving, and race), that are stigmatized, and link to having less access to and/or benefits from societal resources to support managing the work-life interface in a social context. Such an intersectional focus would address the important need to shift work-life and flexibility research from variable to person-centered approaches. The authors identify six research considerations on work-life intersectionality in order to illuminate how traditionally assumed work-life relationships need to be revisited to address growing variation in: access, needs, and preferences for work-life flexibility; work and nonwork experiences; and benefits from using flexibility policies. The authors hope that this chapter will spur a conversation on how the work-life interface and flexibility policy processes and outcomes may increasingly differ for individuals with higher work-life intersectionality compared to those with lower work-life intersectionality in the context of organizational and social systems that may perpetuate growing work-life and job inequality.

Supporting students transitioning from high school into college continues to be a challenge for academics and policy-makers. Composition assignments that include Kuh’s (2008) High Impact Practices (HIP) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) rubric and HIP tenets of Civic Learning and Community Engagement (Fig. 1), help foster opportunities for empathy, which develops students’ abilities to think critically, write well, and succeed in college and beyond. While effective college teaching and instruction are necessary, increasing enrollments, and increasing percentages of First-Year Composition (FYC) students requiring supportive composition courses compound the difficulties of the effort. According to AAC&U, “a global community requires a more informed, engaged, and socially responsible citizenry” (2009, p. 1; Finley & McNair, 2013). In other words, educators and employers believe that “personal and social responsibility should be core elements of a 21^st-century education” (AAC&U, 2009, p. 1). This conceptual content analysis study framed by HIP analyzed 10 FYC syllabi from different composition faculty at one urban Hispanic public four-year university (SMU) in Southern California during the 2015–2016 academic year in the context of the university’s mission statement embracing Civic Learning and Community Engagement for FYC students.