RE - Série 2, n.º 04: (2017)
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- Internal versus external service quality: reflections of employees and customers in the mirrorPublication . Ganic, Emir; Babic-Hodovi, Vesna; Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, MajaIntroduction: The purpose of this study to investigate internal service quality (as perceived by employees) and external (customer) perceptions of quality in the context of service profit chain (SPC). Objective: The objective of the study is to evaluate the impact of internal service quality on students’ perceptions of quality and to test the significance of a direct link between internal and external service quality. Methods: We measured the perceived service quality using a SERVPERF instrument and the multilevel modeling approach with HLM 7.01. Results: The empirical findings support a link between perceptions of internal and external service quality. We show that when employees (faculty) perceive university services as being of high quality, it has a positive spill-over effect on students’ overall perceptions of the quality of university services. Perceptions of internal service quality are also positively related to students’ perceptions of reliability, responsiveness and quality assurance. Conclusions: The perceptions of internal service quality by faculty members are positively related to students’ perceptions of quality. Comparing the levels of internal and external service quality will help managers define priorities for allocating resources to improve quality.
- Student's learning processes for sustainable knowledgePublication . Oxenswärdh, AnetteIntroduction: The concept of sustainability has become one of today's most widely used and controversial concepts. It is therefore important to develop activities within all educational contexts in order to increase understanding of the goals for more sustainable practice. This also means that professors themselves must take more responsibility for their assignments, interpret and understand the content of the concept of sustainability and demands for new courses. They need, doubtlessly and naturally, new methods and tools. Traditionally professors plan their lessons, different tasks and how they are to be assessed, entirely themselves. This is now slowly changing not least due sustainability approaches. Today there is demand for more collective learning practices, not only among students, but also among university professors themselves. Objective: This paper aims to study how some students are using the course design to create knowledge on Sustainable Business Development, within the division of Quality Technology of the Department of Engineering Sciences at Uppsala University. Methods: This paper studies Sustainable Business Development a course at Uppsala University in spring 2017, included both theoretical and practical exercises. In this study it was used qualitative and quantitative approaches, inquires, observations, focus group discussions interviews with students as well as documentation over the course design were used as empirical sources. Results: Students learned through both individual and collective learning processes. Literature studies, scalable learning sequences, organized individually, gave them pre-under- standing and the tools for further knowledge. The discussions in groups clarified and deepened they understanding of sustainability. They experienced that the whole process of learning got easier to manage by collective learning. Research shows that there is a need for balancing these two learning processes to maximize students’ learning. The processes of collective learning seem to even support low performing students. Conclusions: The results show that educational organizations are in great need of creating tools and arrange structures and give space and time for this combined type of learning for all students. This to create understanding for the issues students are learning in general and not at least on issues of sustainability.
- Perception of quality of life of people with drug addictionPublication . Santos, Ana; Pimenta, Graça; Santos, CéliaIntroduction: Drug addiction affects many people’s lives and statistical data demonstrate the extent of the problem, which usually begins at an early age and is maintained throughout life, with implications for health and quality of life (QOL). Objectives: To evaluate the perception of QOL of people with addictive problems; to compare the perception of QOL between the dependents of illicit drugs and alcohol; to evaluate the differences between the perception of QOL in terms of sociodemographic, health and treatment variables. Methods: A quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample of 108 people, mostly males, with a mean age of 45 years and low schooling, with a long history of substance use, especially in poly-consumption, beginning on early ages and undergoing treatment in the District of Porto. To evaluate the perception of QOL, the Quality of Life Index (QLI), Portuguese version, by Ferrans & Powers was used. Results: Participants perceived their QOL as positive, with no differences according the type of chemical dependence (illicit drugs/alcohol); Female participants (p=0.01), non-active (p=0.006), who lived alone (p=0.002), had previous treatments (p=0.01), and who continued to consume (p=0.001) presented lower values in the global QLI scores. Conclusions: The aim of this study was to evaluate the perception of QOL of people with drug dependence, and to identify groups with greater vulnerability, in order to plan more effective intervention programmes.
- Shopping intention prediction using decision treesPublication . Šebalj, Dario; Franjković, Jelena; Hodak, KristinaIntroduction: The price is considered to be neglected marketing mix element due to the complexity of price management and sensitivity of customers on price changes. It pulls the fastest customer reactions to that change. Accordingly, the process of making shopping decisions can be very challenging for customer. Objective: The aim of this paper is to create a model that is able to predict shopping intention and classify respondents into one of the two categories, depending on whether they intend to shop or not. Methods: Data sample consists of 305 respondents, who are persons older than 18 years involved in buying groceries for their household. The research was conducted in February 2017. In order to create a model, the decision trees method was used with its several classification algorithms. Results: All models, except the one that used RandomTree algorithm, achieved relatively high classification rate (over the 80%). The highest classification accuracy of 84.75% gave J48 and RandomForest algorithms. Since there is no statistically significant difference between those two algorithms, authors decided to choose J48 algorithm and build a decision tree. Conclusions: The value for money and price level in the store were the most significant variables for classification of shopping intention. Future study plans to compare this model with some other data mining techniques, such as neural networks or support vector machines since these techniques achieved very good accuracy in some previous research in this field.
- Satisfaction of deaf people with the health care system qualityPublication . Farias, Betânia; Cunha, MadalenaIntroduction: The communication barrier between deaf and hearing people harms the active participation of the deaf person in society. Objective: To evaluate the satisfaction of the deaf person with the quality of the actions and services offered in public health units. Methods: An exploratory, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out on a sample of 15 deaf people with severe or profound hearing loss, of both genders (10 men and 5 women), who communicate through Sign Language (Libras), aged between 20 and 38 years, who use public health services. A Satisfaction Questionnaire was used. Results: Most participants (86.7%) were very dissatisfied with the level of communication of the employees, 80% reported lack of informative and educational materials and 53.3% showed a negative level of satisfaction regarding the timeliness of scheduling appointments and delivery of test results.
- Ontology elements identified in different nursing classification systemsPublication . Carvalho, Carina; Biancato, Cláudia; Carvalho, Deborah; Malucelli, Andreia; Cubas, Marcia; Nóbrega, MariaIntroduction: The International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP®) includes an ontology to represent the terms contained within it. In Brazil, in order to contribute to the development of this classification, an ontology was elaborated, comprising the representation of concepts and terms from the International Classification of Public Health Nursing Practice (Classificação Internacional para as Práticas de Enfermagem em Saúde Coletiva – CIPESC®). The identification of ontology elements in the aforementioned classification systems helps to understand how they might be used to represent the elements of nursing practice in an automated manner. Objectives: To identify ontology elements in the ICNP® and CIPESC®. Methods: Documentary, exploratory, and descriptive study. Data collection was based on the capture of structural characteristics of the various versions of the ICNP® and of the CIPESC®, including axis structure and term hierarchy structure. Data analysis was performed by comparing the elements of the captured characteristics with the following ontology elements: concepts, instances, properties, relationships, constrains and axioms. Results: The structural characteristics of ICNP® and CIPESC® are presented. Concepts, properties, relationships, constrains, and axioms were identified in both classifications. Conclusions: An ontology ensures consistency to nursing terminologies, providing evidence for practice and contributing to the unification of the nursing language. This research facilitates the development of ontologies for nursing practice based on nursing terminologies, contributing to the development of health policies by using ontologies in information systems.
- Music therapy as an autonomous intervention of nurses for pain control in icu: integrative reviewPublication . Cardoso, Lara; Salgueiro, Dian; Mota, Liliana; Príncipe, FernandaIntroduction: In an environment as complex as an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), it is important to understand how nursing interventions, such as music therapy, can contribute to pain control. Objective: To understand the relevance of music therapy, as an autonomous nursing intervention, in controlling the pain of patients hospitalized in ICU’s. Methods: Integrative review of the literature, through the electronic research on the B-ON platform and the PubMed electronic database, conducted in January 2016, using the descriptors "nursing", "music", "pain" and "intensive care". Inclusion criteria were articles published between 2011 and 2015, with a qualitative or quantitative approach, in full text, Portuguese, Spanish or English, referring to adult patients and in intensive care unit, obtaining a total of 818 articles of which seven were included in the study. Results: Obtained studies are representative of a total of 1818 participants, mostly patients, from three continents. The articles showed that music therapy is effective in controlling pain, through musical preferences, the type of music and the volume of the music. Conclusions: Music therapy is an autonomous nursing intervention that can be used as a non-pharmacological intervention in pain control in patients with specific needs inherent to an ICU.
- Almadrava: Men and sea. Social relationship in a short-term communityPublication . Batista, Nuno; Gonçalves, MartaIntroduction: Description of the relationship men/sea, on a specific social and life context, in a fishing community temporarily settled in Faro beach, during the tuna fishing period. It was discovered that such a fishing community existed for long decades in this place, where almost 200 families lived only during tuna’s fishing season. This community only had limited and rudimentary resources, based exclusively on human strength. Nevertheless, they developed their own rituals, beliefs and way of living. Now everything is almost extinct. Objective: Report the specificities of the spatial organization and socio-economic relations of this Armação, encouraging the generational continuity, the awareness of this disappeared heritage, its valorization and the awakening of collective memory. Methods: The participatory action and the qualitative methods were used, elaborating unstructured interviews, privileging the direct contact with those who lived in the Armação. The criteria used to select the interviewees consisted of lucidity, gender, social hierarchy and geographical origin. Results: Show the existence of a socioeconomic hierarchy that translated into a physical hierarchy; the registration and dissemination of the theme facilitates access to information. Conclusions: This paper is a remark to the authorities and stakeholders to preserve the collective memory and, an awakening of minds and consciences, influencing general society in the sense that it will be an alert to a value that, in general, has been lost and forgotten.
- Education as a tool to reduce the water footprint of young peoplePublication . Venckute, Milda; Silva, Manuela; Figueiredo, MauroIntroduction: Due to the global changes, fresh water became scarce in many geographical realities. In this domain, education can play a significant role, contributing to the sustainable water management. Objectives: Estimate the Water Footprint (WF) of young people, including their direct and indirect water uses. Develop an educational application that aims to exemplify measures which lead to water conservation in their daily activities. Methods: Two questionnaires. The first one was formulated in order to estimate the average WF of a young person, and the second one to establish the basis of the educational application. Samples included 82 students in the 12 – 15 age range. Results: The average WF of a student is 3223±830 L/day. The total indirect water use is over 10 times higher than direct use. Food accounts for the major part (84.4 %) of young person’s WF, and in the second place of indirect uses is clothing-related WF (6.4 %). Among analysed food groups, meat has the largest contribution (39.6 %) to the total personal WF. For both genders, high direct water use (264 L/day) is due in large part to long showers. Conclusions: Young people consume too much fresh water, what suggests the need to improve their behaviour in terms of eating habits, clothing and shower duration.