The Costs and Benefits to Participants in Community Partnerships: A Paradox?

Abstract

This article examines the degree of stakeholder participation in health and social partnership schemes in relation to their perceptions of benefits, costs, satisfaction, commitment, and ownership. The findings suggest that (a) involvement, commitment, and sense of ownership were invariably associated with high benefits and mostly with low costs; (b) benefits, commitment, and ownership might be more sensitive monitors of involvement than costs and satisfaction; (c) an increase in involvement was initially associated with decreased costs and increased satisfaction up to a point beyond which costs increased and satisfaction decreased despite increasing benefits; and (d) favorable cost-benefit ratios were perceived when the benefits were at least 1.6 times the costs. Partnership initiatives need to explore the involvement "cut-off" point at which the costs (and satisfaction) might change direction. For favorable cost-benefit ratios, benefits need to be at least 60% more than costs (Ansari's paradox).

A preliminary examination of the cost savings and learning impacts of using open textbooks in middle and high school science classes

“…Curriculum materials are an important part of student learning and represent a significant, recurring cost to public schools (Ansari, 2004). In the United States, core high-school science textbooks (without supplemental materials) from commercial publishers available on Amazon.com cost $80-$120 per copy, and teacher editions typically cost over $100 per copy.…”

Evaluating good practice in coaching delivery between governing bodies of sport and county sports partnerships in the United Kingdom

“…As such, partnerships reflect formal institutional-level working arrangements (Whittington, 2003) involving the mobilisation of common interests drawn from a number of areas with which to devise shared strategies for specific concerns (Butterfoss, 2007;Sullivan & Skelcher, 2002). Participation involves the sharing of goals (Butterfoss, Goodman, & Wandersman, 1993;Francisco et al, 1993) the exchange of information and resources (El Ansari & Phillips, 2004;Huxham & Vangen, 2005) and the building of organisational capacity (Butterfoss, 2006;Roussos & Fawcett, 2000). Partnership literature has highlighted multiple perspectives of partnership.…”

IRRODL Volume 13, Number 3

“…For example, OER allow teachers and students to remix content in locally meaningful ways (D'Antoni, 2009), to share a variety of types of learning resources (Downes, 2007), and to enable the best resources for teaching a specific topic to be more easily found (Gurrell & Wiley, 2008). OER have received considerable attention in higher education (Baker, 2005;Koch, 2006), and researchers are examining the question of how students are receiving open textbooks and how these textbooks affect student learning (Frith, 2009) Curriculum materials are an important part of student learning and represent a significant, recurring cost to public schools (Ansari, 2004). In the United States, core high-school science textbooks (without supplemental materials) from commercial publishers available on Amazon.com cost $80-$120 per copy, and teacher editions typically cost over $100 per copy.…”