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The purpose of this paper is to review and generate themes evident in research on primary and post-primary (secondary) school leadership in the Republic of Ireland (Ireland) from 2008 to 2018.

This paper follows the steps of a systematic review and thematic synthesis.

Following the review, six themes are identified and described, summarising the most current school leadership research in Ireland.

Potential future directions of research are identified.

No review of research on school leadership in Ireland is currently available and this is timely given the policy context’s recent focus on school leadership. The steps taken to conduct the review are clearly outlined.

Evidence-informed practice (EIP), broadly conceived as a data and research-based approach to enhance practice, has recently come to the fore of the Irish education system. With changes to the structure and duration of professional education over the last decade, most notably Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs, coupled with the implementation of a school leadership framework upon which a mandatory data-informed school improvement process of school self-evaluation (SSE) is based, multiple reforms connected to EIP have been introduced. Furthermore, in terms of compulsory education, assessment practices at the lower secondary level have also been significantly reformed. EIP has now become a core element of almost all educational reform initiatives in Ireland. This is a remarkable achievement given that prior to the Education Act (Government of Ireland, 1998) the conception that data and research-informed decision-making should form a core component part of school life was rarely conceived if at all in the policy discourse of educational reform. We draw on the Malin et al. (2020) interpretation of Hoods (1998) social cohesion/regulation matrix to describe and classify the Irish system. The chapter concludes with a discussion of key lessons for policy and practice based on Ireland's experience over the course of the last decade.

The purpose of this research is to design a robust high-performance nonlinear multi-input multi-output heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system controller for temperature and relative humidity regulation. Buildings are complex systems which are subjected to many unknown disturbances. Further complicating the control problem is the fact that, in practice, buildings and their systems have static nonlinearities such as power saturation that make stability difficult to guarantee. Therefore, in order to overcome these issues, a control system must be designed to be robust (performance insensitive) against uncertainties, static nonlinearities and effectively respond to unknown heat load and moisture disturbances.

A state of the art nonlinear inverse dynamics (NID) technique is combined with a genetic algorithm (GA) optimisation scheme in order to improve robustness against uncertainty in the system's modelling assumptions. The parameter uncertainty problem is addressed by optimising the control system parameters over a specified range of uncertainty. The NID control structure provides further robustness with effective disturbance handling and a stability criteria that holds in the presence of actuator saturation.

The proposed method delivers significantly more energy efficient performance whilst achieving improved thermal comfort when compared with a current industry standard HVAC controller design such as proportional-integral-derivative. The expected excellent response to disturbances is also demonstrated.

This method can easily be extended to account for other parameters with a specified uncertainty range.

This research presents a method of optimised NID controller design which can be easily implemented in real HVAC controllers of building energy management systems with a high degree of confidence to provide high levels of thermal comfort whilst significantly reducing energy usage.

A novel HVAC optimised NID control strategy using the robust inverse dynamics estimation feedback control topology with GA optimisation for improved robustness and tuning over a range of parameter uncertainty is described, designed and its performance benefits shown through simulation studies.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of augmenting an evidence-based physical activity intervention within an existing commercial weight loss program to assess effects on increasing physical activity and reducing psychological distress.

The CONSORT guidelines were adopted for the study. In total, 49 women with overweight or obesity (M age=39.5, SD:12.4; M Body Mass Index=31.02, SD: 2.10) enrolled in a six week commercial weight loss program were randomized to an intervention or a control group. Participants in the control group received care as usual; participants in the intervention group additionally received an evidence-based intervention to increase physical activity that included behavior change techniques including implementation intentions, goal-setting and self-monitoring.

Weekly steps increased in the intervention group (M=31,516.25; SD=9,310.17 to M=62,851.36; SD=13,840.4) significantly more (p<0.001, η p 2 =0.32) than in the control group (M=30,207.67; SD=7,833.29) to M=46,969.33 (SD=9,470.96), along with experiencing significantly lower anxiety (p<0.001, η p 2 =0.15), social dysfunction (p<0.001, η p 2 =0.16) and depression symptoms (p<0.05, η p 2 =0.08) at follow-up.

This intervention warrants extension to those seeking to improve mental health through physical activity.

This study took a novel approach of augmenting a commercial weight loss program with a theory-based physical activity module, showing positive effects for physical activity behavior and psychological health.

In recent years, practitioners have identified a number of problems with traditional performance management (PM) systems, arguing that PM is broken and needs to be fixed. In this chapter, we review criticisms of traditional PM practices that have been mentioned by journalists and practitioners and we consider the solutions that they have presented for addressing these concerns. We then consider these problems and solutions within the context of extant scholarly research and identify (a) what organizations should do going forward to improve PM practices (i.e., focus on feedback processes, ensure accountability throughout the PM system, and align the PM system with organizational strategy) and (b) what scholars should focus research attention on (i.e., technology, strategic alignment, and peer-to-peer accountability) in order to reduce the science-practice gap in this domain.

The purpose of this paper is to establish and evaluate a psychotropic medication education group for men with intellectual disability on a secure psychiatric ward.

A multi-disciplinary team was convened to oversee the project. A curriculum was developed that covered major classes of psychotropic drugs as well as broader themes related to taking medication and general wellbeing. Each group session incorporated a range of teaching methods supported by accessible materials. Evaluation was by qualitative and quantitative methods.

There was interest and enthusiasm for the group. Participant feedback was generally positive and most of those who completed the group reported achieving their personal learning goals. There was no significant difference in results of a medication knowledge test at baseline and at the end of the course. Feedback from group members and reflections of the course facilitators are discussed.

The results of this small-scale study may not be applicable to other groups or settings. Evaluation measures seemed unable to capture some elements of the group processes and outcomes.

Establishing and running a psychoeducational group on a low-secure ward for men with intellectual disabilities is possible and potentially valuable. Learning from this project will be useful for others considering group-based interventions for people with intellectual disability.

This paper adds to the limited literature describing interventions to improve medication knowledge in people with intellectual disability.

This article reviews the extensive history of dynamic performance research, with the goal of providing a clear picture of where the field has been, where it is now, and where it needs to go. Past research has established that job performance does indeed change, but the implications of this dynamism and the predictability of performance trends remain unresolved. Theories are available to help explain dynamic performance, and although far from providing an unambiguous understanding of the phenomenon, they offer direction for future theoretical development. Dynamic performance research does suffer from a number of methodological difficulties, but new techniques have emerged that present even more opportunities to advance knowledge in this area. From this review, I propose research questions to bridge the theoretical and methodological gaps of this area. Answering these questions can advance both research involving job performance prediction and our understanding of the effects of human resource interventions.