In a foreword to Shaping the Future of Care Together, Prime Minister Gordon Brown says that a care and support system reflecting the needs of our times and meeting our rising aspirations is achievable, but 'only if we are prepared to rise to the challenge of radical reform'. A number of initiatives will be needed to meet the challenge of improving social care for the growing older population. B...

Mixed methods research is the use of quantitative and qualitative methods in a single study or series of studies. It is an emergent methodology which is increasingly used by health researchers, especially within health services research. There is a growing literature on the theory, design and critical appraisal of mixed methods research. However, there are few papers that summarize this methodo...

In this article, the authors propose a new framework for understanding and studying heuristics. The authors posit that heuristics primarily serve the purpose of reducing the effort associated with a task. As such, the authors propose that heuristics can be classified according to a small set of effort-reduction principles. The authors use this framework to build upon current models of heuristic...

From the pespective of relationship orientation, this paper focuses in studying how communication inluences business cooperation. Firstly, this paper has a review of relevant theories of communication, trust and value co-creation, and proposes model assumes. Next, this paper descripts the relevant research methods, including the background, data collection, quantitative research methods. Finall...

Making the decision to pass or to fail a nursing student is difficult for nurse educators, yet one that all educators face at some point in time. To make this decision, nurse educators draw from their past experiences and personal reflections on the situation. Using the qualitative method of critical incident technique, the authors asked educators to describe a time when they had to make a deci...

This paper contributes to knowledge on workshops as a research methodology, and specifically on how such workshops pertain to e-learning. A literature review illustrated that workshops are discussed according to three different perspectives: workshops as a means, workshops as practice, and workshops as a research methodology. Focusing primarily on the latter, this paper presents five studies on...

Cohort, cross sectional, and case-control studies are collectively referred to as observational studies. Often these studies are the only practicable method of studying various problems, for example, studies of aetiology, instances where a randomised controlled trial might be unethical, or if the condition to be studied is rare. Cohort studies are used to study incidence, causes, and prognosis....

I t has been almost 6 years since an ad hoc committee completed a charge from the Representative Assembly to identify the research competencies required by the profession of occupational therapv These research competencies were reported in the American/ol/rnal ofOccupational Therapy in 1983 ("The Foundation") ancl have since proVided the f't-amework for a teaching gUide intended for academic an...

All course outlines in the MComp degree at UNITEC state that students will learn how to critique issues relating to the topic being studied. The assumption is that critical reflection is a skill that is acquired automatically during the degree. Postgraduate students at UNITEC are required to complete the Research Methods (RM) paper before enrolling in a thesis or dissertation. RM students are e...

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) provides a set of principles and practices intended to foster coproduction of knowledge. However, CBPR often has shortcomings when applied to population-level policy and practice interventions, including a focus on single communities and a lack of focus on policy change. At the same time, community trials focused on policy have shortcomings, includi...