Many students persistently misinterpret histograms. This calls for closer inspection of students’ strategies when interpreting histograms and case-value plots (which look similar but are diferent). Using students’ gaze data, we ask: How and how well do upper secondary pre-university school students estimate and compare arithmetic means of histograms and case-value plots? We designed four item types: two requiring mean estimation and two requiring means comparison. Analysis of gaze data of 50 students (15–19 years old) solving these items was triangulated with data from cued recall. We found five strategies. Two hypothesized most common strategies for estimating means were confirmed: a strategy associated with horizontal gazes and a strategy associated with vertical gazes. A third, new, count-and-compute strategy was found. Two more strategies emerged for comparing means that take specific features of the distribution into account. In about half of the histogram tasks, students used correct strategies. Surprisingly, when comparing two case-value plots, some students used distribution features that are only relevant for histograms, such as symmetry. As several incorrect strategies related to how and where the data and the distribution of these data are depicted in histograms, future interventions should aim at supporting students in understanding these concepts in histograms. A methodological advantage of eye-tracking data collection is that it reveals more details about students’ problem-solving processes than thinking-aloud protocols. We speculate that spatial gaze data can be re-used to substantiate ideas about the sensorimotor origin of learning mathematics.
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Consumer concern for animal welfare is currently not fully reflected in the market share of welfare-enhanced meat. A possible solution is developing marketing strategies that emphasize personally relevant benefits such as taste and curiosity, instead of having a sole focus on sustainability-related benefits, since existing research indicates that the former are more appealing to most consumers. This study tests strategies positioning welfare-enhanced meat as personally relevant in a real-life experiment and how consumer attitudes towards eating meat influence reactions to the positioning strategies. The study conducts experimental auctions with 101 Dutch university students, manipulating the positioning strategy and a certified animal welfare label and measuring participants’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a lunch meal with chicken meat. Results indicate that all manipulations significantly increase consumer WTP, with higher WTP for certified labels than for the positioning strategy, and the highest WTP for the combination of both elements (without providing evidence for an interaction effect). This implies that companies should combine positioning strategies that emphasize personally relevant benefits with certified labels. Since the effectiveness of such strategies may be limited for consumers with conflicting feelings towards meat, some care should be taken when designing awareness campaigns about the effects of meat consumption
Background: A quality improvement collaborative is an intensive project involving a combination of implementation strategies applied in a limited “breakthrough” time window. After an implementation project, it is generally difficult to sustain its success. In the current study, sustainability was described as maintaining an implemented innovation and its benefits over a longer period of time after the implementation project has ended. The aim of the study was to explore potentially promising strategies for sustaining the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) programme in colonic surgery as perceived by professionals, three to six years after the hospital had successfully finished a quality improvement collaborative. Methods: A qualitative case study was performed to identify promising strategies to sustain key outcome variables related to the ERAS programme in terms of adherence, time needed for functional recovery and hospital length of stay (LOS), as achieved immediately after implementation. Ten hospitals were selected which had successfully implemented the ERAS programme in colonic surgery (2006–2009), with success defined as a median LOS of 6 days or less and protocol adherence rates above 70%. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were held with eighteen key participants of the care process three to six years after implementation, starting with the project leader in every hospital. The interviews started by confronting them with the level of sustained implementation results. A direct content analysis with an inductive coding approach was used to identify promising strategies. The mean duration of the interviews was 37 minutes (min 26 minutes – max 51 minutes). Results: The current study revealed strategies targeting professionals and the organisation. They comprised internal audit and feedback on outcomes, small-scale educational booster meetings, reminders, changing the physical structure of the organisation, changing the care process, making work agreements and delegating responsibility, and involving a coordinator. A multifaceted self-driven promising strategy was applied in most hospitals, and in most hospitals promising strategies were suggested to sustain the ERAS programme. Conclusions: Joining a quality improvement collaborative may not be enough to achieve long-term normalisation of transformed care, and additional investments may be needed. The findings suggest that certain post-implementation strategies are valuable in sustaining implementation successes achieved after joining a quality improvement collaborative.
In 2017, renowned Prof Kate Raworth from Oxford University and Amsterdam University introduced Doughnut Economics, an economic model to enable humans to thrive within the planetary boundaries and resources. Several private and public actors, including the city of Amsterdam, adopted the model in their circular economy development's strategies. Doughnut-Architecture aims to develop further the AREA (Atelier for Resilient Environmental Architecture) Framework, a tool designed by graduating students Charlotte Uiterwaal, Isabella van der Griend, Ryan McGaffney, Karolina Bäckman, at the faculty of Architecture, Delft University of Technology (TU-Delft), under the supervision of Henri van Bennekom. AREA-Framework support architects to intervene in the built environment taking as a reference the Doughnut Economics model. The AREA-Framework is at an initial stage, and its categories and subcategories are only qualitative. TU-Delft, the architectural practices Space&Matter and SuperuseStudios, in collaboration with the interdepartmental research group Circular Built Environment Hub (CBEH) and architectural practices from the network of 400 construction companies belonging to the Ex'tax project, the advice from Kate Raworth and the Amsterdam-Donut-Coalitie will further develop the AREA-Framework primarily quantitatively and also qualitatively. TU-Delft, Space&Matter, SuperuseStudios, other architectural practices from the Ex'tax-network will test the framework on different phases of real projects, interdepartmental research and education. The ultimate goal is to develop the framework further, to increase the number of architectural practices successfully implementing the Doughnut Economics in the built environment at a national level. The framework will contribute to positioning the architectural practices concerning Doughnut Economics and the Circular Economy. The project results are firstly an online open-access publication about the further developed Framework to be applied by architects; secondly, the preparation and submission of a follow-up research proposal about the extended development and implementation of the Framework applicable to the built environment by all the Ex'tax construction sector companies.
