Worker aging, control, and well-being: A specification curve analysis.

Among the many work (and life) characteristics of relevance to adult development and aging, various forms of control are some of the most extensively and diversely studied. Indeed, "control," whether objectively held (i.e., "actual" control), perceived, or enacted through self-regulation, is a concept central to our understanding of person-environment interactions, development, and well-being within and across life domains. However, variability in conceptualization and analysis in the literature on control presents challenges to integration. To partially address these gaps, the present study sought to explore the effects of conceptual and analytical specification decisions (e.g., construct types, time, covariates) on observed control-well-being relationships in a large, age-diverse, longitudinal sample (Midlife in the United States I, II, and III datasets), providing a specification curve analysis (SCA) tutorial and guidance in the process. Results suggest that construct types and operationalizations, particularly predictor variables, have bearing on observed results, with certain types of control serving as better predictors of various forms of well-being than others. These findings and identified gaps are summarized to provide direction for theoretical clarification and reconciliation in the control and lifespan development literatures, construct selection and operationalization in future aging and work research, and inclusive, well-specified interventions to improve employee well-being.

Short-Term Effects of Short-Term Work: Dynamics in Fatigue Across Two National Lockdowns.

OBJECTIVE: Anecdotal evidence suggests work fatigue has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and work interventions to offset stresses have been effective. Our study sought to test these propositions, documenting and describing the complexity of worker well-being around two lockdown periods. METHODS: Using 17 waves of data from a longitudinal study in Germany (December 2019 to June 2021, n = 1053 employees), we model discontinuous changes in work fatigue and how participation in a government-sponsored short-term work program (Kurzarbeit) affected change trajectories. RESULTS: The COVID-19 pandemic has not invariably resulted in work fatigue, and individuals with Kurzarbeit at the first lockdown (but not the second) showed significantly larger decreases in each form of fatigue at this transition. CONCLUSIONS: Future policy interventions will require more contextual nuance and to effectively support worker well-being during public health crises.

Generations and Generational Differences: Debunking Myths in Organizational Science and Practice and Paving New Paths Forward.

Talk about generations is everywhere and particularly so in organizational science and practice. Recognizing and exploring the ubiquity of generations is important, especially because evidence for their existence is, at best, scant. In this article, we aim to achieve two goals that are targeted at answering the broad question: "What accounts for the ubiquity of generations despite a lack of evidence for their existence and impact?" First, we explore and "bust" ten common myths about the science and practice of generations and generational differences. Second, with these debunked myths as a backdrop, we focus on two alternative and complementary frameworks-the social constructionist perspective and the lifespan development perspective-with promise for changing the way we think about age, aging, and generations at work. We argue that the social constructionist perspective offers important opportunities for understanding the persistence and pervasiveness of generations and that, as an alternative to studying generations, the lifespan perspective represents a better model for understanding how age operates and development unfolds at work. Overall, we urge stakeholders in organizational science and practice (e.g., students, researchers, consultants, managers) to adopt more nuanced perspectives grounded in these models, rather than a generational perspective, to understand the influence of age and aging at work.

Dissemination and implementation research in sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy: translating evidence to practice and policy.

Knowledge from research evidence is wasted unless it is applied. While the scientific evidence base for many sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy interventions is robust, real-world implementation and evolution to scale remains an ongoing challenge. Dissemination and implementation research is important to generate evidence-informed, cost-effective and context-specific strategies for implementation partners and stakeholders to effectively apply and sustain the best research evidence in public health and clinical practice. However, this field of inquiry remains underexplored in sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy. Most intervention studies in sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy are terminated at the efficacy trial stage without considerations for best practices for translation to community and clinical settings. Lack of context-specific dissemination and implementation strategies to drive the translation of evidence-based interventions results in poor execution of, and attrition from, interventions, and this is associated with suboptimal outcomes and increased healthcare costs. Theory-driven quality research informing the successful dissemination and implementation of evidence-based interventions is needed to address lingering evidence-to-practice gaps. Dissemination and implementation research completes the final stage in the research-to-practice pipeline. It seeks to close evidence-to-practice gaps, thereby ensuring speedy application of research evidence to achieve desired public health outcomes while making more efficient use of limited resources. This review introduces sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy researchers and stakeholders to key concepts and principles in dissemination and implementation research.

Longitudinal Assessment of Students' Perceived Collaboration Skills at an Institution with a Structured Interprofessional Education Curriculum.

Interprofessional education (IPE) has grown in popularity in recent years, but much work remains to be done regarding its evaluation and longitudinal impact, as well as in codifying the attributes of IPE that prepare learners for "collaboration-ready" practice. The present study sought to assess collaboration skill retention or change among graduating seniors who completed an introductory IPE course in 2017, comparing present collaboration skill levels to past levels before and directly after the introductory IPE course using the Self-Assessed Collaboration Skills (SACS) instrument. Additionally, further validation of a collaboration skills instrument was conducted, and qualitative data were gathered to identify collaboration-relevant curricular design elements and generate feedback for continuous program improvement. A final sample of 106 respondents from a variety of professions provided quantitative data, while 91 provided qualitative data. Results suggested that participants retained collaboration skills over the course of their undergraduate education (i.e., 2020 levels as compared to pre-IPE levels in 2017), that IPE evaluation instrumentation requires more cross-contextual and cross-institutional validation, and that students recognize the value in intentional IPE course sequencing for clinical practice. The findings from this study contribute to the further enhancement of IPE outcomes assessment and the design of IPE experiences for fostering collaboration skills among health professional students.

Nomology, validity, and interprofessional research: The missing link(s).

There are many calls for increased rigor in interprofessional research, and scale validation improvements are particularly needed. Specifically, current validation efforts are limited, as few interprofessional scale development studies report evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. These are core aspects of establishing nomological networks and construct validity, and thus form the foundation of interprofessional theory, research, and practice. This paper focuses on the importance of construct validation for interprofessional measurement tools, reviewing key concepts, extant scales and their validation efforts, and providing recommendations for future interprofessional scale validation. We also provide a step-by-step guide for scale development and validation that we hope will be valuable for future researchers and scale developers in the interprofessional literature.

Forgetting no-longer-relevant prospective memory intentions is (sometimes) harder with age but easier with forgetting practice.

In young adults, it has been shown that prospective memory (PM) commission errors, the erroneous performance of a previously relevant intention, are less likely for repeatedly performed intentions (than never performed intentions). We examined whether this pattern holds for older adults, for whom impaired response inhibition processes might heighten risk of commission errors for repeatedly performed PM intentions. Older adults encoded a PM intention to press a key when a target word appeared during an ongoing lexical decision task. Target words were presented 4 (repeatedly) or 0 times before participants were instructed the PM task was finished and should not be performed again. Target words were then (re)presented and commission errors were recorded. Experiment 1 demonstrated it was easier for older adults to forget (deactivate) a PM intention that was performed repeatedly (4-target condition) than one that was never performed (0-target condition). However, older adults were more likely to make commission errors than young adults in the 4- but not the 0-target condition. Experiments 2 and 3 examined whether distinct strategies reduce commission errors. Whereas a preparatory instructional strategy produced inconsistent effects, forgetting practice was highly effective in producing floor levels of commission errors for older and young adults in the 4-target condition. Findings are interpreted within the dual-mechanisms account of PM commission errors, which highlights the interplay of spontaneous retrieval and cognitive control in the forgetting of previously relevant intentions. Practically, the findings provide first evidence of a translational strategy that older adults may use to minimize commission errors. (PsycINFO Database Record