General Discussion Sample Clauses

General Discussion. Except in rare instances of 100% participation, each peer nomina- tion study will require a decision regarding the treatment of non- participants. Whether to include or exclude nonparticipants as nominees may seem a minor methodological decision but has not been studied before. Historically, inclusion of nonparticipants has been the default decision and a fundamental requirement for valid peer nomination measures (Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, 1943; Xxxxxx, 1934). Unfortunately, inclusion of nonparticipants raises ethical concerns (see Mayeux, Underwood, & Xxxxxx, 2007). We investigated two separate datasets, showing that the choice of including or excluding nonparticipants as nominees can affect psychometric properties of peer nominations. The effects varied between studies; differences between inclusion and exclusion were greater for certain types of missingness in Study 1 and greater in one school versus another in Study 2. Study 1 also indicated that, when the inclusion and exclusion conditions differed noticeably, exclusion consistently yielded lower reliability and different corre- lations than inclusion. From a psychometric perspective, our results indicate that non- participants should be included as potential nominees. Although exclusion of nonparticipants did not always detract from data qual- ity, it was likely to do so under conditions that are most probable in real-world situations; that is, when nonparticipants differ in status and peer preference from participants (Xxxx et al., 1997). Excluding nonparticipants as potential nominees removes the ability to test for systematic differences between participants and nonparticipants. Even if nonparticipants can be excluded as nominees without con- sequence when nonparticipation is completely random, the very exclusion of nonparticipants as nominees makes it impossible to demonstrate that nonparticipation is random. If our findings are representative of the research literature more generally, the fact that excluding low-status peers as nominees resulted in the greatest reduction in reliability and change in inter- correlations is concerning. Many peer relationships studies focus on youths who are rejected or unpopular, and they are least likely to participate in school-based research. Our findings highlight the importance of properly representing low-status or marginalized youths and, more generally, in maximizing participation rates with peer nominations. Our study used two large samples and investi- gated relat...

General Discussion test this hypothesis. Teachers in general scored high on both AfL subscales, and actual practice was not empirically observed. This dissertation does not provide evidence that mismatches have similar effects for teachers who report low levels of AfL practice. Future studies might focus on more direct measures of comparison so that analyses truly compare how teachers perceive their own feedback behaviour towards individual students. To evaluate whether congruency in perceptions is itself positively related to motivation, irrespective whether the congruency is about low or high AfL-practice, it would be important to select teachers a-priori who are more traditional in their teaching style. By selecting low-AfL practising teachers, the full congruency spectrum can be scrutinized. The present study provided support for the hypotheses that perceptual dif- ferences between teachers and students as regards the quality of teacher sup- port and feedback are associated to student motivation. However, the cross- sectional nature of the analysis and data-gathering preclude the possibility of causal attributions. To further test the hypotheses formulated and tested in this dissertation, (quasi-) experiments are needed. As stated earlier, designing experiments to test the hypotheses of this dissertation is daunting. However, they are a necessity for justifying attempts to translate the finding of the role of perceptual differences in student motivation into classroom interventions, or teacher education. The importance of congruent AfL perceptions on intrinsic motivation‌ The studies reported in this thesis yielded four important outcomes. First, students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the level to which AfL is practised in classrooms are largely incongruent. Teachers perceive more practice of AfL than students. Second, these incongruencies are strongly associated with in- trinsic motivation, explained by students’ lower feelings of personal competence and autonomy to learn in their own way, and less interpersonal feelings of relat- edness towards their teacher. Third, teachers’ positive impact on motivational interpersonal factors is partly offset by their own possible over-efficaciousness, which might limit the degree to which they reflect on their own teaching. This relationship seems to hold for students regardless of their ethnic back- ground. Moreover, variation in intrinsic motivation between Dutch, Moroccan and Turkish students seem to be explained by their differ...

General Discussion. Our results for British and American collective agreement suggest that lexically controlled features are responsible for the differences in plural agreement between the varieties. In spontaneous speaking, specifications of plurality for particular collectives and not dynamic variations in underlying conceptualization create the differences. This is consistent with the third of the three hypotheses we tested, the one that attributes the differences between the dialects to differences in lexically specified number among collective nouns. The lexicons of individual speakers of a dialect may differ as to which collectives are specified as plural, for reasons that may be tracedto differences in linguistic experience but in any case are typical of most types of lexical variation. Across speakers, there will be variability in which collectives are treated as plurals, but lexical rather than notional variability drives the patterns of usage that we found in both experimental elicitation and corpus distribution.

General Discussion. Colorectal cancer is the cancer with the second highest cancer incidence in Europe.1 Roughly, one out of three patients with a colorectal malignancy has a rectal carcinoma. Surgery is the cornerstone in the curative treatment of rectal cancer. In the 1980s with conventional surgery, the 5-year local recurrence rate was over 20% and the 5-year over- all survival rate around 50%.2,3 In the Swedish Rectal Cancer trial in which 1168 patients were included, preoperative radiotherapy in addition to conventional surgery resulted in a reduction of more than 50% in the 5-year local recurrence rate in comparison to conventional surgery alone (11% versus 27%; P < 0.001).2 Besides, the 5-year overall survival rate improved from 48% to 58% if patients were treated with preoperative radiotherapy in addition to conventional surgery (P = 0.004).2 With the total mesorectal excision (TME), by which the rectum with its mesorectum and visceral fascia are dissect- ed sharply and under direct vision,4 local recurrence rates dropped and overall survival improved.5,6 In the Dutch TME trial, 5 x 5 Gy preoperative radiotherapy in combination with TME surgery was compared to TME surgery alone (1861 patients). In this trial, the 5-year local recurrence rate for patients treated with TME surgery alone was similar to patients treated in the Swedish Rectal Cancer trial with blunt dissection in combination with preoperative 5 x 5 Gy radiotherapy (11%)2,7 If preoperative radiotherapy was added to TME surgery, 5-year local recurrence rate was reduced to 5.6%7 The overall survival rate at 5 year was 64% for both patients treated with TME surgery alone and patients treated with preoperative radiotherapy followed by TME surgery,7 compared to 48% for patients treated with blunt dissection alone in the previously mentioned Swedish trial.2 TME surgery is now considered the standard surgical procedure for rectal cancer.4 However, even if TME surgery is performed, surgical quality varies.8,9 First, these results indicate that improvements in the surgical procedure itself can result in major progress regarding long-term oncological outcome such as decreased local recurrence rates and improved overall survival. Second, it illustrates that variation in surgical quality could lead to large differences in outcome. Recently, it was shown that surgical variation is not only important for patients with rectal cancer, but also plays an important role for the outcome of patients with colon cancer.10,11

General Discussion. A Local Agency Agreement is an agreement between a local agency and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). An agreement is prepared for each federal aid project, and it covers all phases of work involved in the project (preliminary engineering, right of way acquisition, construction). Its purpose is to ensure that the federal funds in the agreed-upon amount are spent in accordance with all applicable state and federal laws and regulations. The agreement also specifies the procedure for payment and reimbursement on the project. If the federal aid participation ratio entered in the agreement is not the maximum rate allowed by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), then the participation ratio entered becomes the maximum rate allowed. No costs are eligible for federal aid reimbursement until authorized in writing by WSDOT. This authorization is separate from the agreement. The total cost of a project (including federal, state, agency, and private funds) must be shown on the Local Agency Agreement for each phase of work that includes federal or state funds. At the time of each phase authorization, all funds necessary to complete the scope of work for that phase must be secured.

General Discussion. The results of the second study were in accordance with our predictions, and consistent with the results of our first study. Participants who had received high or average respect for their behavioral descriptions, perceived themselves as respected and showed higher feelings of affective commitment in comparison with participants who perceived themselves as disrespected (see also Branscombe et al., 2002; Xx Xxxxxx, 2002, 2003; Xx Xxxxxx & Xxxxx, 2003; Ellemers et al., 2004; Xxxx & Xxxxx, 1988; Xxxxx and Xxxxxxx, 2003; Xxxxx & Xxxx, 1992; Xxxxx & Xxxxxx, 2000, 2003). Additionally, in contrast with the respected participants, those who were disrespected showed higher levels of situational group attachment an>iety and indicated more psychological disengagement as e>pressed in intentions to leave the group. When focusing on the motivational basis of the engagement participants displayed on the discretionary group efforts measure, we found that the e>tra behavioral efforts that contribute to the group are indeed activated by two different motives. This confirms the validity of our argument that different underlying motives can evoke outwardly similar behavioral displays: Whereas respected participants were stimulated to e>ert more discretionary group efforts to the e>tent that they e>perienced more feelings of affective commitment with the task-group (the carrot), disrespected people showed enhanced behavioral engagement in discretionary group efforts when they felt more situational group attachment an>iety (the stick; see also Xxxxxxx & Xxxxxxxx, 2000). Thus, in E>periment 4, we successfully replicated the effect on actual discretionary group efforts. As predicted, and similar to E>periment 3, compared to average respected group members both high and low respected participants showed enhanced effort e>ertion on discretionary group efforts, but only when they perceived the respect received as diagnostic and related to their position within the group (cf. De Cremer, 2002; Xxxxxx et al., 2002, 2003; Xxxx et al., 1995). In the non-diagnostic condition, where it was made clear to participants that the respect received was not predictive of their ingroup position and could be regarded as occasional feedback, the effect on e>tra effort did not appear as predicted. The results of the present contribution uncover new directions in research on intra-group dynamics. Specifically, by e>amining the operation of a collective motive, enhanced by higher levels of affective com...

General Discussion. ‌ The pattern of results of Experiment 1 and 2 combined provides support for the hypothesis that mood has an effect on pitch shift judgement and that this effect is not due to response selection bias. We found a main effect of mood on pitch shift judgment, which did not depend on whether response bias was a possible positive or a negative confounding variable. The main effect reflects that sad listeners judge tone pairs with ambiguous pitch shifts more often as downwards than happy listeners. This effect cannot be attributed to response selection bias because participants indicated pitch shift direction in two different ways. For some participants response bias was a possible positive confounding variable and for others it was a possible negative confounding variable. Therefore, across participants, positive and negative confounding effects of response bias, if present, canceled each other out. The current findings of the effect of mood on pitch shift judgment fit with the affect-as-information account of mood congruent judgments. According to this theory, one’s current affective state serves as information for judging objects or events. Because of the ambiguous nature of the pitch shifts in the current task, participants may have used additional affective information in their judgment of the pitch shift. As 7When participants who had a pleasure score during the task deviating less than one point in the desired direction from neutral mood were included in the analyses the effects of mood were the following: The ANCOVA showed no significant main effect of mood, F (1, 100) = 1.62, p = .206, η2 = 0.05, MSE = 0.03, 95% CI[−0.024, 0.111], although numerically the happy group had a slightly stronger tendency than the sad group to judge the pitch shift of the tone pairs as ascending. There was no significant effect of question phrasing and no significant interaction effect between mood and question phrasing, F s(1, 100) < 1. Conclusions regarding covariate and the assumptions of the ANCOVA were the same as when the participants were excluded. Confounded Not Confounded Happy Sad Pitch shift judgment bias 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 -0.05 -0.10 -0.15 -0.20 Figure 2.1: Means and 95% confidence intervals of the adjusted pitch shift bias per mood group and type of question phrasing of Experiment 1 and 2 combined. Notes: 1. The question the participants answered to indicate pitch shift judgment was phrased in such a way that the response selection bias could be either a positi...

General Discussion. The overall aim of this thesis was to identify cues that may contribute to optimizing the current attendance rates of the cancer screening programmes (CSPs) in the Netherlands, with a focus on the potential role of primary care. We hypothesised that the CSPs that currently handle a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, with a limited role for primary care and general practitioners (GPs), should shift to a more targeted approach for subpopulations at relatively higher risk, with sophisticated involvement of primary healthcare providers and healthcare centres to support such a new approach. In this final chapter, the study findings are outlined and discussed in relation to each other. First the key findings of the studies in this thesis will be presented. Then, we will look back at the case of the Xxxxxxx family and discuss the methodological considerations of this thesis. Thereafter, the implications of our findings and recommendations for future research will be discussed. Finally, the overall conclusion based on this thesis will be presented as a reflection on our hypothesis.

General Discussion. 54 B. RESALE CONSIDERATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 C.

General Discussion. The XXXXxX study has provided an invaluable amount of obstetric epidemiologic data. The headlines are described in this thesis, and there are still many more publications to follow within the next years. Until now, data on the incidence of severe acute maternal morbidity (SAMM) in the Netherlands were scarcely available. Although the Netherlands has an excellent reputation regarding assessment of maternal mortality, the small numbers involved will not likely change clinical practice much on the short term. In order to improve care and make pregnancy even safer, there is a clear need in the Netherlands and other high income countries to extend routine data collection to also include the severest forms of SAMM. Data on SAMM in high income countries are increasingly published in the literature.1-10 We recently published an overview of the various aspects of it.11 Population-based studies till date are summarised in table 1. Table 1. Severe acute maternal morbidity (SAMM) in high income countries, population-based studies* * nationwide unless otherwise stated Temporal trends in SAMM Table 2. Temporal trends in severe acute maternal morbidity (SAMM) in high income countries*