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Blogs
Zagreb Working Group Meeting (14-15 September 2017)
Two Working Group Meetings of the COST Action members were held on 14th and 15th September in Zagreb, Croatia. There were participants from Austria (AT), Bulgaria (BG), Croatia (HR), Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Hungary (HU), Iceland (IS), Ireland (IE), Israel (IL), Italy (IT), Netherlands (NL), Norway (NO), Spain (ES) and the United Kingdom (UK). Despite the moody and rainy late-summer weather, the meetings were a great success!
The Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Science at the University of Zagreb was the host institution of two separate working group meetings (Systematic Review group administered by David Saldana and Dialogic Book Reading Project administered by Elin Thordardottir). After the warm welcome from the local organiser Jelena Kuvac Kraljevic and dean Prof Antonija Zizak on early Thursday morning, the two groups began with their hard work.
Systematic Review Group
In total 9 people participated in the discussions within the Systematic review group. Some of the key topics of the Systematic review group were as follows:
Status of screening on full text; Discussion of screening codes; Hand-searching; Discussion of study data extraction codes; Coding of additional papers and piloting of outcome codes; Organization of work for thematic groups and implication of WG1 members; Utrecht meeting;
Every member of the group worked really hard and the meeting resulted in many issues being resolved, but also some new questions yet to be answered during the Utrecht meeting.
Dialogic Book Reading Project
During the Training School in Seville last March (Evidence-Based Practice: Research Methods to Measure Intervention Efficacy) mo
st of the participants agreed on planning and carrying out single-case experimental design studies, but also planning some large scale research, i.e. joint research across countries involved in this COST Action. It was decided that the next meeting should address some precise methodological aspects of the project.
In total, 11 people participated in the discussions within the Dialogic Book Reading project. The exact design of the intervention project has been agreed upon and some key issues have been addressed. Each participant had useful ideas and got direct assignments that are further to be evaluated during the Utrecht meeting in November.
Some of the key topics of the Dialogic Book Reading projectwere as follows: Age range to be covered, diagnostic status, linguistic status (bilingual, monolingual); Linguistic elements to be targeted; Baseline and outcome measures; Overview of Dialogical book reading procedure; Development of specific materials; Translation/adaptation of books; Development of specific prompts to be used with each book;
Visit to the Centre for Rehabilitation
The Centre for Rehabilitation is a teaching base and clinical unit of the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences, which celebrated 20 years of existence in 2017. During a between-session break, participants visited the Centre. The Head of the Centre, Assistant Professor Sanja Simlesa, introduced the facilities, the organisation of clinical work (both diagnostic and intervention procedures), and also some ongoing projects to the COST members.
Social Event – City Tour and Dinner
After the hardworking day, participants went to a City tour organised by the local organisers. They were taken to some of the most beautiful parts of the Old Town and were told nice stories about its rich past including the histories of famous people from Croatia who produced and developed things we cannot imagine life without these days (Nikola Tesla, the man who invented electricity or Eduard Slavoljub Penkala who invented pencil, etc).
After a long walk, each participant was given a small gift, a personalised gingerbread heart, which is a typical Croatian product and something to remember this meeting by. Dear James, Cristina and Tomke, don’t worry – your gingerbread hearts will be flying off to Utrecht with us!
As previously mentioned Nikola Tesla also has a street in Zagreb named after him, but the most important thing around 8pm was the fact that the street is full of extremely nice restaurants and bars known for lovely Croatian food. But that is just something people say. We as researchers and practitioners all know about a crucial thing called evidence based practice :)
Local Organisers are grateful for your participation and for making this meeting possible and we are looking forward to seeing you all in lovely Utrecht!
City Tour - Participants hearing stories about Zagreb and its past from a certified Tour Guide
Written by Ana Matic & Jelena Kuvac Kraljevic
Last modified: Mon, 16 Oct 2017 12:38:05 BST