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Looks at drug use (and testing for it) in the workplace, and how it affects businesses. States, although drug users affect fellow workers through accidents at work, the non‐users may also experience lowered morale. Directs employers how to introduce and operate drug testing programmes, listing six considerations. Concludes that once employers are aware of the legality of their actions they can perform drug testing programmes and provide both a drug‐free workplace and a safe working environment.

Presents a longitudinal field study which compares changes in perceptions of productivity and attendance behaviours for participants in a drug‐testing programme in a manufacturing firm in the mid‐western USA. Employee efficiency, productivity and absenteeism changes related to the implementation of the drug‐testing programme were measured by collecting and analysing actual organizational data. Data for each of the measures were collected for a 42‐month period, ranging from 18 months prior to the implementation of the programme to 24 months after the programme began. The attitudinal results provide, at best, circumspect support for the claims of drug‐testing proponents that the programme reduces drug abuse in the workplace and improves overall productivity. The performance results, however, document a positive and substantial impact of drug‐testing initiative on employee productivity and absenteeism rates.

Suggests that, in order to detect and correct software defects as early as possible, identifying and generating more defect‐sensitive test cases for software unit and subsystem testing is one solution. Proposes an orthogonal software testing approach based on the quality optimization techniques, Taguchi methods. This orthogonal approach treats the input parameters of a software unit or subsystem as design factors in an orthogonal arrays, and stratifies input parameter domains into equivalent classes to form levels of factors. Describes how test cases are generated statistically for each trial of factorial orthogonal experiments. The adequacy of the generated test cases can be validated by examining testing coverage metrics. The results of test case executions can be analysed in order to find the sensibility of test cases for detecting defects, to generate more effective test cases in further testing, and to help locate and correct defects in the early stage of testing.

The build-up of large-scale COVID-19 testing required an unprecedented effort of coordination within decentralized healthcare systems around the world. The aim of the study was to elucidate the challenges of vertical policy coordination between non-political actors at the national and regional levels regarding this policy issue, using Sweden as our case.

Interviews with key actors at the national and regional levels were analyzed using an adapted version of a conceptualization by Adam et al. (2019), depicting barriers to vertical policy coordination.

Our results show that the main issues in the Swedish context were related to parallel sovereignty and a vagueness regarding responsibilities and mandates as well as complex governmental structures and that this was exacerbated by the unfamiliarity and uncertainty of the policy issue. We conclude that understanding the interaction between the comprehensiveness and complexity of the policy issue and the institutional context is crucial to achieving effective vertical policy coordination.

Many studies have focused on countries’ overall pandemic responses, but in order to improve the outcome of future pandemics, it is also important to learn from more specific response measures.

This study aims to dissect the multifaceted impact of ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation, specifically within civil engineering testing and calibration laboratories. To achieve this, it intends to explore several key objectives: identifying the prominent benefits of accreditation to laboratory performance, understanding the advantages conferred through participation in proficiency testing schemes, assessing the role of accreditation in enhancing laboratory competitiveness, examining the primary challenges encountered during the accreditation process, investigating any discernible adverse effects of accreditation on laboratory performance and evaluating whether the financial cost of accreditation justifies the resultant profitability.

This study employs a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews with 23 industry professionals—including technical managers, quality managers, external auditors and clients. Thematic analysis, guided by Braun and Clarke’s six-stage paradigm, was utilized to interpret the data, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the accreditation’s impact.

Findings reveal that accreditation significantly enhances operational processes, fosters quality awareness and facilitates continuous improvement, contributing to greater client satisfaction. In addition, standardized operations and rigorous quality controls further result in enhanced performance metrics, such as staff capability and measurement accuracy. However, the study also uncovers the challenges of accreditation, including high resource costs and bureaucratic hurdles that can inhibit innovation and slow routine operations. Importantly, the research underscores that the impact of accreditation on profitability is not universal, but contingent upon various factors like sector-specific regulations and market demand. The study also highlights sector-specific variations in the role of accreditation as a marketing tool and differing perceptions of its value among clients. It further emphasizes the psychological stress of high-stakes evaluations during audits.

This study represents the first in-depth investigation into the impact of ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation on civil engineering testing and calibration laboratories, directly contributing to the enhancement of their quality and operational standards. Providing actionable insights for laboratories, it underscores the importance of weighing accreditation costs and benefits and the necessity for a tailored approach to the unique market and regulatory landscapes they operate in.

Mobile learning has seen tremendous growth over the years. Like any other software application, usability is one of the key concerns in its successful implementation. There is a lack of study that provides a comprehensive overview of usability testing of mobile learning applications. Motivated by this a mapping study is conducted.

A systematic mapping study was conducted using 51 papers retrieved from the Scopus database published between 2005 and 2022 that reported on usability testing of mobile learning applications.

The key findings suggest that research is expected to expand in the near future. User-based testing is the commonly used method, while data are collected mainly through questionnaires, observation and interviews. Testing is mainly conducted in a controlled environment.

The study provides (1) an evidence-based discussion on usability testing of mobile learning applications, (2) an up-to-date map on state of the art on usability testing of mobile learning applications and (3) providing direction for further research to scientifically strengthen the field.

The purpose of this chapter is to review our findings related to the question “Do outcomes related to dynamic assessment on a cognitive measure predict reading growth?” Our discussion related to the predictive validity of such procedures focused on outcomes related to a battery of memory and reading measures administered over a three-year period to 78 children (11.6 years) with and without reading disabilities (RD). Working memory (WM) tasks were presented under initial, gain, and maintenance testing conditions. The preliminary results suggested that maintenance testing conditions were significant moderators of comprehension and vocabulary growth, whereas probe scores and gain testing conditions were significant moderators of nonword fluency growth. Overall, the results suggested that the dynamic assessment of WM added significant variance in predicting later reading performance.

The No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and Race to the Top (2009) led to the highest rate of standardized-state testing in the history of the United States of America. As a result, the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) aims to reevaluate standardized-state testing. Previous research has assessed its impact on schools, educators, and students; yet, youth’s voices are almost absent. Therefore, this qualitative analysis examines how youth of color perceive and experience standardized-state testing.

Seventy-three youth participated in a semistructured interview during the summer of 2015. The sample consists of 34 girls and 39 boys, 13–18 years of age, of African American, Latino/a, Jamaican American, multiracial/ethnic, and other descent. It includes 6–12th graders who attended 61 inter-district and intra-district schools during the 2014–2015 academic year in a Northeastern metropolitan area in the United States that is undergoing a racial/ethnic integration reform.

Youth experienced testing overload under conflicting adult authorities and within an academically stratified peer culture on an ever-shifting policy terrain. While the parent-adult authority remained in the periphery, the state-adult authority intrusively interrupted the teacher-student power dynamics and the disempowered teacher-adult authority held youth accountable through the “attentiveness” rhetoric. However, youth’s perspectives and lived experiences varied across grade levels, school modalities, and school-geographical locations.

In this adult-dominated society, the market approach to education reform ultimately placed the burden of teacher and school evaluation on youth. Most importantly, youth received variegated messages from their conflicting adult authorities that threatened their academic journeys.

Health care institutions in many Western countries have developed preoperative testing and assessment guidelines to improve surgical outcomes and reduce cost of surgical care. The aims of this chapter are to (1) summarize the literature on the effect of preoperative testing on clinical outcomes, efficiency, and cost; and (2) to compare preoperative testing guidelines developed in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

We reviewed the literature from 1975 to 2014 for studies and preoperative testing guidelines.

We identified 29 empirical studies and 8 country-specific guidelines for review. Most studies indicate that preoperative testing is overused and comes at a high cost. Guidelines are tied to payment only in one country studied. This is the most recent review of the literature on preoperative testing and assessment with a focus on quality of care, efficiency, and cost outcomes. In addition, this chapter provides an international comparison of preoperative guidelines.