A Discourse Study on Handover Communication Among Care Providers in a Residential Care Home for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

Abundant research has focused on handovers among nurses and/or doctors in hospitals; far less is known about handovers among care providers in non-clinical contexts, such as care homes for the elderly or the disabled. Focusing on handovers in a residential care home for persons with intellectual disabilities (RCHID), this study argues that handover communication in non-clinical settings is equally important. Ineffective handovers can lead to the deterioration of the residents' health conditions, chaotic situations and even injuries to both care providers and care recipients. Staff in RCHIDs rely heavily on handover communication to obtain information about the residents' needs and to offer appropriate care services. Combining discourse analysis with interactional sociolinguistics, this study analyzes written and spoken discourses involved in handover communication among care providers in a typical RCHID in Hong Kong to investigate what and how communicative functions were achieved through the participants' language use. The data were collected by convenience sampling, including handwritten notes and handover recordings of twelve sessions. Then a group interview of seven care providers was conducted to obtain supplementary data. Findings suggest that handover communication includes informational and interpersonal functions. While information delivery is the main purpose, care providers also establish relationships with one another through small talk about care home residents. The results suggest potential drawbacks of the handovers, including illegible notes, inconsistent information collection, and low interactivity. This study proposes a model that elucidates the correlation between discourse, handover communication and healthcare services, and suggests strategies to enhance such communication.

Understanding ESL Teachers' Agency in Their Early Years of Professional Development: A Three-Layered Triadic Reciprocity Framework

Drawing upon the Triadic Reciprocity Framework, this longitudinal qualitative multiple-case study examined how three Hong Kong secondary English as a second language (ESL) teachers exercised their teacher agency to take control of their teaching and professional development. More specifically, the study aimed at exploring how teachers’ intentions and actions for the establishment of their professional identity were afforded and constrained by their workplaces. Findings reveal that these ESL teachers exercised different degrees of proactive, reactive, and passive agency. The four properties of human agency, i.e., intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, and self-reflectiveness, influenced the teachers’ proactive, reactive, and passive agency when they responded to personal, behavioral, and environmental determinants. The findings shed light on a three-layered Triadic Reciprocity framework on teacher agency and contributes to a systematic and comprehensive discussion about the various internal and external factors that might exert influences on agency of early career teachers. This study offers pedagogical implications for school teachers, school leaders, and policy makers in Hong Kong and beyond.

Evaluating the Communication of Online Social Support: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Structure and Content

Social support in online self-help groups has been found to benefit participants with emotional instability or mental illness. Many studies have employed content analysis to reveal categories of social support, claiming the prevalence of emotional and informational support can aid support seekers. In the studies, optimal matching theory is used to explain the helpfulness of these types of support. This article argues that content analysis is unpersuasive in its claim that support seekers benefit from social support; participants' communicative behaviors should also be considered to evaluate the potential advantages and drawbacks of such groups. Drawing on a mixed-method approach of conversation analysis and content analysis, this study investigates the sequential structure and content of social support in communication in six online self-help groups for anxiety and depression (OSGADs). The main findings show that optimal matching theory may not be suitable for elucidating how support seekers receive help due to the immediate provision of social support and little interaction otherwise. In addition, results identify expressed understanding/empathy and advice as prominent support categories in OSGADs, with most thread openers requesting support indirectly.