The purpose of this dissertation was to evaluate learning transfer achieved by physician assistant students comparing two instructional methods, human patient simulation and electronic clinical case studies. This prospective, randomized, mixed-methods study utilized first and second-year physician assistant student volunteers taking a pretest and…

While research has been conducted concerning the effects of school-based mentoring on at-risk students, limited work has focused on the volunteer mentors. This study examined the motivations of adult volunteers and the benefits of their participation in a six-month, school-based mentoring program. A total of 31 volunteers completed adapted…

Background: iCCAN (Innovative Communities Connecting and Networking) is a not-for-profit provincial network of videoconferencing sites creating unprecedented learning opportunities and greater access to training and professional development for all Albertans, regardless of where they live. Led by a partnership of Community Learning Network,…

This paper examines a regional 2009 H1N1 rural response model, which utilises community partnerships with local government, county emergency management, public health, private healthcare, Medical Reserve Corps volunteers, and other organisations in rural Southeast Idaho. Unique aspects of the collaborative use of federal, state, county, and…

Health promotion volunteers (HPVs) working to promote community health in Japan feel both satisfaction and burden with their community engagement activities. This study examined the relationship between their satisfaction and burden toward their activities and social support. A mail-in self-check questionnaire survey was distributed to 604 HPVs in…

Saskatchewan, Canada, is a province with strong traditions of volunteerism and innovation. In 2001, 36 per cent of its 1 million population was rural, though this was significantly lower than in 1951 when it was 70 per cent (Statistics Canada 2005). Saskatchewan is experiencing higher population growth in urban than in rural regions. Many rural…

Wikipedia is a reliable encyclopedia with over seven million articles in several languages all contributed and maintained by volunteers. To learn more about what drives people to devote their time and expertise to building and maintaining this remarkable resource, surveys with Likert-scaled items measuring different types of motivations were…

There are hundreds of tutoring programs that utilize community volunteers being implemented across the country; however, there are few rigorous efforts to evaluate their effectiveness. This article presents findings on reading achievement from an evaluation of the New York City Experience Corps[R], a program that uses older volunteers to work with…

Caring and helping are suggested as mechanisms that link empathy to religiosity and spirituality. To test this assertion, 428 adolescents completed self-report measures of religious attendance, importance of spiritual or religious beliefs, care, volunteerism, and affective and cognitive subscales of empathy. Sex differences also were examined.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of background, psychological, and social variables on older adults' well-being, and how this may differ for men and women. Participants included 800 adults from the 2002 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), aged 60 to 101 years old (M = 71.22, SD = 8.46), who completed the optional positive…

Levels of rising political distrust in the USA and parts of Europe attracted political scientists' attention in the 1990s, and urged them to look at possible consequences of this phenomenon for the functioning of democracies and social life. Approximately during the same period, from a sociological viewpoint, social capital theorists started…

Volunteers are essential to a successful library program--and at a time when deep budget cuts are the norm, there are many libraries that depend on the help of dedicated volunteers, who do everything from shelving books to covering the phones. Whether these are friends, trustees, or community members, managing them effectively is the key to…

This is the third paper published by The Centre for Literacy in its Working Papers in Literacy series, which presents fresh perspectives on literacy-related issues. The topics are relevant both to other researchers, to practitioners in the field, and to policy-makers. This paper examines the behaviours and beliefs of a group of volunteer tutors to…

An on-line module on disease prevention was created for 4-H volunteer leaders who work with livestock projects in Washington to better prepare them to teach youth about bio-security and its importance in 4-H livestock projects. Evaluation of the module and usage statistics since the module's debut were collected and evaluated. The module increases…

How does parental divorce influence the sense of control in adult offspring? Numerous studies have examined the implications of parental divorce on adult psychological well-being. However, little attention has been paid to the long-term consequences of parental divorce for adult sense of control. Using data from the Survey of Aging, Status, and…