patient health care professional communication

patient health care professional communication Discuss any three factors which must be considered by a HCP to improve health well being of individual support individuals in keeping healthy. This assignment will discuss how health care professionals can help progress patient care improving service user interaction by working effectively within interprofessional teams; demonstrating an understanding in patient behaviour and patient health care professional communication, values that can support patients health and well being. In improving service user interaction particular attention is advised to be paid to body language, the nonverbal communication between patient and health care professional (Martin Friedman 2005; MacDonald, 2004; Dillon, 2007). Dickson et al (1989) concurs that health care professionals would benefit from the use of effective communication in the context of interviewing patients. Sometimes body language portrayed by a patient may conflict with verbal messages; this would indicate they may be trying to facade something (Martin Friedman, 2005). The health care professional should make regular but not intrusive eye contact to show interest, a lack of eye contact can signal a lack of concern, embarrassment or submissiveness which could dissuade the patient from confiding (Myerscough Ford, 1996; MacDonald, 2004). Understanding can be conveyed with a relaxed body posture and appropriate facial expressions (Dickson et al, 1989). Sitting a suitable distance from the patient to allow touch to the patient if this is supportive, may encourage the patient to be more relaxed and open (Myerscough Ford, 1996). A simple gesture such as a handshake at the beginning of a meeting can reassure the patient and have a positive effect on the relationship (Myerscough Ford, 1996; Dickson et al, 1989). The health care professional should maintain enough distance to the patient to avoid interference into each others personal space whilst at the same time acquiring enough space to allow confidentiality (Workman Bennett, 2003; Dillon, 2007). There may be times when it is necessary to move closer to the patient, if a patient is hard of hearing, unable to move or for treatment (Myerscough Ford, 1996; Williams, 1997). To efficiently increase learning skills and improve communication health care professionals could receive and interpret information from patients (Dickson et al, 1989). Patients should be encouraged to have independence by making decisions about their treatment with guidance (Public Guardian, 2009). Clarifying questions can help to receive direct answers, asking too many questions at once may confuse the patient and they tend to only answer the last question asked (Minardi Riley, 1997). Paraphrasing and summarising is an effective way to make clear what is being discussed (Minardi Riley, 1997). Throughout any discussion with the patient the health care professional should respect their confidentiality (Servellen, 2008). Social background should make no difference as to how a patient is dealt with, each person deserves the time, commitment and treatment needed (Townsend et al, 1992). We live in a society with different cultures, genders and class; judgments can hinder relations between patient and health care professionals (Thompson, 2002; Dickson et al, 1989). Patients can often feel they lose individuality and feel their condition is treated and not them as a human being (Taylor, 1997). People with disabilities often feel isolated and frustrated, fear rejection and feel self conscious. Some people are either born with disabilities or have developed them through disease or accident. If a patient has an issue with a problem they have it is important to evade alienating them by ignoring their feelings (Myerscough Ford, 1996). Patients should feel they have enough time to describe any issues they have without feeling uncomfortable, analysed or criticised by the health care worker, who should remain impartial (Myerscough Ford, 1996). Health care professionals should not make assumptions about patients who may have some form of mental disability as this can reflect in the patients on self-esteem (Practice Nurse, 2003b). Showing empathy, not sympathy towards patients is important (Minardi Riley, 1997). Burnard (1992) advises it is wrong to make assumptions about someone just because of the way they dress, their lifestyle or attitude, as these can sometimes be interpreted poorly, health care professionals should reflect about how they came to those ideas and question what that says about them. All health care professionals would benefit from working as a team of interprofessionals to improve patients health care (Burnard, 1992). With numerous occupations in the health care profession it is remarkable how each individual has their own observation and diagnosis of the patient (Soothill et al, 1995). It is important to understand the roles of other health care professions and the responsibilities they face in order to work as a successful team (Thompson, 2002). Servellen (2008) explains coordination and quality of care are paramount and failure in provision can have an unconstructive effect on patients contentment, leading to lack of trust and reluctance to be treated. The use of written correspondence to avoid confusing messages can help improve overall care of patients (Mackay, 1993). Mistakes, such as wrong medication, treatment or food can have unnecessary effects on the patient (Mackay, 1993). Portraying self-awareness increases confidence in the patient and their family, combined with regularity in communication this provides increased trust from the patient (Servellen, 2008). There should be a balance of gentleness and assertiveness (Thompson, 2002). Continuous professional development adds new challenges, it shows the willingness to learn and expand knowledge that keeps motivation within the health care professionals job (Thompson, 2002). Evaluating involvement within the health care profession allows lessons to be learned from a professional and personal level, whilst evaluating practice enables assessment; this is good practice that identifies strengths and possible weaknesses that can be addressed to improve service user interaction, inter-professional working and health behaviour (Thompson, 2002). Reflective practice is a way of making sense of doubt. Learning to deal with situations, sometimes stressful, can be a constructive experience for the health care professional. Situations sometimes need to be hectic in order to learn under pressure. Without learning there is little improvement in the skills of the health care professional. Choices are made by health care professionals every minute of their working day (Ghaye Lillyman, 2000). To deal with health behaviour a health care professional can be the voice of the patient enabling them to express their beliefs, emotions, hopes and worries to find a way of dealing with their feelings, everyone has a voice and they may express their voice in different ways (Ghaye Lillyman, 2000). Values make a person who they are, why they do what they do and why (Ghaye Lillyman, 2000). It is not always an easy task to encourage a patient to change their views. A person may smoke because they believe it relieves stress regardless of the effect on their health (Townsend et al, 1992). All smoking accomplishes is to help a person forget about the stress they have for a short period of time, it then becomes a cycle that is tough to break (Townsend et al, 1992). Finding out why a person smokes and why they enjoy smoking can be of help in understanding any underlying problems the patient may have (Practice Nurse, 2003a). A situation where a person is strong willed in the wrong manner can make the health care professionals responsibility difficult (Lewis et al, 1993). It is important to keep to realistic goals for patients to aid with their motivation and confidence, in comparison, a patients improvement can be deterred by unrealistic goals being set (Thompson, 2002). Significance should be placed to avoid speaking in medical terms to a patient; this could confuse them unnecessarily and cause difficulty in communication (Thompson, 2002; MacDonald, 2004). A full explanation is needed to reassure the patient and clarify information to avoid anguish (Dickson et al, 1989). People in general have different ideas on improving their health. A health care professional can help to encourage a healthier lifestyle and reduce sickness by offering advice and assessing action taken by the patient (Lewis et al, 1993). Helping patients to refrain from suppressing their feelings can avert physiological difficulties; as when someone is tense, they can develop postural problems (Burnard, 1992). Physical stress symptoms may lead to a lack of rest, tiredness, little or no appetite and digestion disturbance, psychological stress affects the mind of patients and can lead to apprehension enthusiasm (Dillon, 2007; Practice Nurse, 2003a). Increased levels of stress in a patient of Ill health can reduce their ability to cope with everyday life lacking in enthusiasm (Dillon, 2007; Practice Nurse, 2003a). Burnard (1992) confers how it is important as health care professionals to recognise this, although this is not always easy to spot. As we gain knowledge we better understand there is a connection linking body posture, the muscles, joints and the mind, a relaxed mind would encourage a relaxed body. This essay has argued that patient care and well being can be improved through the implementation of good all round verbal and nonverbal communication without prejudice or discrimination (MacDonald, 1997; Dillon, 2007). Sometimes patients just need to be asked how their poor health affects them and the quality of their life (Baker, 2000). Engaging with other people enables interaction and understanding in communicating with people. Excellent communication and information given to patients is essential to patient care, organisation, well being and recovery (Taylor, 1997; Dickson et al, 1989; Martin Friedman, 2005). Health professionals play a significant part to ensuring good working practice and job satisfaction (Thompson, 2002). References (2003a) Smoking cessation. Practice Nurse, 26: 7, 52-56. (2003b) What is Stigma, Practice Nurse, 26: 10, 18-19. Baker, M. (2000) Modernising NHS, patient care (empowerment): the view from a national society, accessed 10th November 2009, 6.10pm, http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/320/7250/1660. Burnard, P. (1992) Effective communication skills for health professionals, Chapman Hall, London. Dickson, D.A., Hargie, O., Morrow, N.C. (1989) Communication skills training for health professionals, Chapman Hall, London. Dillon, P.M. (2007) Nursing health assessment; A critical thinking, case studies approach. 2nd Ed. F.A. Davies Company, Philadelphia. Ghaye, T., Lillyman, S. (2000) Reflection: Principles and practise for health care professionals, Quay Books, Wiltshire. Lewis, L.V.W., Timby, B. K., Frawley, B. (1993) Fundamental skills and concepts in patient care, 5th Ed, Chapman Hall, London. MacDonald, E. (Ed.) (2004) Difficult conversations in medicine, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Mackay, L. (1993) Conflicts in care: medicine and nursing, Chapman Hall, London. Martin, L.R., Friedman, H.S. (2005) ‘Nonverbal Communications and Health Care, In: Riggio, R.E., Feldman, R.S. (Eds.) Applications of nonverbal communication, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., London. pp.3-16. Minardi, H.A., Riley, M.J. (1997) Communication in health care: a skills based approach, Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston. Myerscough, P., Ford, M. (1996) Talking with patients, keys to good communication, 3rd Ed, Oxford University Press Inc, Oxford. Office of the Public Guardian (2009) The code of Practice, accessed 7th November 2009, 5.18pm http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/docs/mca-code-parctice-0509.pdf Servellen, G.M.V. (2008) Communication skills for the health care professional; concept, practice and evidence, 2nd Ed, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, London. Soothill, K., Mackay, L., Webb, C. (Eds.) (1995) Interprofessional relations in health care, Edward Arnold, London. Taylor, S., Field, D. (Eds.) (1997) Sociology of health and health care, 2nd Ed, Blackwell Science Ltd, Oxford. Thompson, N. (2002) People skills, 2nd Ed. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Townsend, P., Whitehead, M., Davidson, N. (Eds.) (1992) Inequalities in health: the black report the health divide, 2nd Ed. Penguin Books Ltd, London. Williams, D. (1997) Communication skills in practice: A practical guide for health professionals, Jessica Kingsley, London. Workman, B.A., Bennett, C.L. (2003) Key Nursing Skills, Whurr Publishers Ltd, London.

Gender Roles in the Work of John Ford

Jonathan Moeller Final Paper, Theory and History of Cinema 5- ­? 4- ­? 12 1 Gender Roles in the Work of John Ford: How The Director of Westerns Used Women To Drive a Male Dominated Genre The Western genre has always been a representation of American identity, in that its films reflect societal moods, pop culture, politics, etc. The prototypical Western portrays beautiful open landscapes and heroic, rugged heroes who are set on either conquering or defending them. These iconic actors such as John Wayne, Roy Stewart, Alan Ladd, and Gary Cooper were made famous through being the centerpiece of Western films and series. These heroes and mages of the ‘great American frontier’ stand as metaphor for America itself. Yet, as we closely examine this exciting and adventurous genre of film we see that the hero’s female counterparts are usually underdeveloped and ignored. Western films, especially in the early years of the genre, featured women characters who held little i mportance to the plot and served as comedic or sexual support to the hero. In this essay I will examine how John Ford, as a Western filmmaker, did not follow the formula of the genre. He played with male characters that were not heroic, but were selfish and cold, and even more interestingly, readjusted he gender roles in his western films so that women were no longer simple characters, but in fact drove the story along and made significant plot- ­? related decisions. Often women and men were equals in Ford’s work. I will examine how Ford did this, and contemplate why, as well, in three of his western classics. The films we will be taking a close look at are Fort Apache (1948), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), all of which feature significant female character contributions. Before diving into the work of Ford and how he gave significance to women in the West, it is important to discuss further he attitudes that Western film, and all of Holly wood in the early 2 years, had towards female characters. According to Laura Mulvey, a feminist and film theorist who wrote extensively on the subject, Hollywood uses women in only two ways: â€Å"as erotic objects for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium†¦ She also connotes something the look continually circles around but disavows: her lack of penis, implying a threat of castration and hence unpleasure. † (Mulvey, p. 716- ­? 718) Therefore, women are either sex objects or characters to be feared. According to Mulvey,Hollywood feels female characters shouldn’t be complex, shouldn’t grow and change, and certainly aren’t able to make decisions that change the outcome of the story. All of that should be left to the male heroes. Early Western films followed a strict formula. They featured rugged yet like able heroes from the frontier, and pitted against them was almost always a foreign ad versary. He was either a Native American, or more typically a well- ­? dressed man from the East coast. (Garfield) Women in these early films played very small roles, most fitting into Mulvey’s definition of sex object. They also acted as a power symbol, and the an who possessed the leading woman had all the power, something we will examine in more depth later in this essay. In 1948, John Ford began to change the dynamics between these dominant male characters and their passive, sexual counterparts when he made Fort Apache. The film starred John Wayne playing captain Kirby York, a prototypical Western hero, who is as rugged as they come as well as a well- ­? knowledged man of the West stationed at the frontier’s Fort Apache. Henry Fonda played opposite of him as Lt Col. Owen Thursday, a prototypical Western villain, because he came from a foreign land with the intent of instilling change.Thirdly, the film starred Shirley Temple as Owen's cute, innocent daughter, Ph iladelphia Thursday. The story revolves around Owen 3 Thursday’s attempts to control the â€Å"wild† Apache tribes of the area and send them back to their reservation, usually against the advice of York. All of these story and character dynamics are to be expected when examining a Western film, but it is Ford’s portrayal of women, and in fact the number of contributing female characters, that make this classic of the genre stand out. According to film critic Howard Movshovitz, John Ford used a subtle semiotic technique to imply his heroes’ opinions of women n his films. â€Å"Good women are still; only questionable women travel under their own power,† he says. (Movshovitz, p. 71) By this he means that good- ­? intending women in Ford’s films are always immobile, and the women whom we are to distrust are those that move around freely. As we begin to examine Fort Apache and its female characters, we must keep this in mind. The first female c haracter we meet is Philadelphia Thursday, and we are introduced to her as she is riding inside of a wagon. According to Movshovitz’s theory, this means she is good. I would take it a step further and say that we are being presented an innocent character ere, who I think falls in line with Mulvey’s theory. Shirley Temple was a sex symbol, and that’s also how Philadelphia Thursday looks to us when we meet her. Immediately, she is fawned at by a group of soldiers and flirts with the young Michael O’Rourke. We get a very iconic and telling shot from Ford in the introductory tavern scene, in which Miss Thursday and O’Rourke sit down next to each other and smile, while not looking or speaking to one another. Ford is symbolizing a lot for us here. Obviously he is setting up their future romantic relationship, but he is also foreshadowing for us gender roles of Fort Apache, where both of hese characters are headed. As we are to find out, the women in the fort run the show. They are the ones who take care of the everyday business within the fort, while the men train and go off to battle the surrounding Indian tribes, and as I will explain later, the men actually need their women in order to survive. By not allowing 4 O’Rourke to speak in the aforementioned shot, Ford is suggesting that he needs Miss Thursday to initiate the conversation for him. He is already dependent on women, and therefore will quickly fit in once he arrives at the fort. Ford is also presenting to us something about Miss Thursday with this shot, owever it is contrast to the character that she eventually becomes. Here, by being quiet, Miss Thursday is conforming to Eastern societal standards and waiting to be courted. Ford is showing us that she is a foreigner and that she is dependent on men, but as soon as she steps foot within the confines of Fort Apache all of this changes. Upon arrival to the fort, O’Rourke pays a visit to the Thursday residence to drop off his card, and only Miss Thursday is there to receive him. She immediately goes on the offensive and tries to persuade him to admit his romantic intentions towards her. O’Rourke is confused by her forwardness, and eeds her to spell it out for him, a job which actually gets turned over to Kirby York who enters the scene about halfway through. Over the course of one night in the fort, Miss Thursday has been transformed into a woman who takes matters into her own hands. Later that day, Miss Thursday decides to fix up her and her father’s house, which proves to be our more solid introduction of another important female character in this film, Mrs. Collingwood. It is Mrs. Collingwood, in fact, who makes all of the arrangements for the Thursdays to have furniture and food and even a servant. That night, when Owen Thursday comes home from work and inds his house fixed up he is very surprised, and slightly confused at how it happened. He is openly admitting here tha t Philadelphia is more capable than he, at least in the matters of the home, because of the fact that she was able to take care of a matter he was not. Male characters do not do this in Western films. The entire genre is built around a macho mindset in which the male hero or villain is the all- ­? mighty, yet here Ford has decided to give power to Miss Thursday and by association Mrs. Collingwood. It is one of the first instances that Ford shows us 5 how important his female characters are. Without them, we are to ssume that the entire fort would have nothing and would therefore collapse. This scene is also significant to note because of what it foreshadows for later in the film. Owen Thursday and Mrs. Collingwood end up being our too most powerful characters, which I will explain, and through this scene Ford is showing us who deserves this power. This scene allows us the room to be skeptical of Owen Thursday, and believe his poor decision making at the end of the film, because we are led to ask how he is capable of running a fort when he can’t even run a house hold. This idea of giving Miss Thursday and Mrs. Collingwood power over men is n contrast to both Mulvey and Movshovitz. These women are in motion, they move about on their own two feet freely and therefore, according to Movshovitz, are questionable. Yet, how can we question them when they are giving such positive contributions to our male heroes? These women are making it possible for the men of the fort to live and defend it. I believe Movshovitz would make the argument that Ford is foreshadowing here, and that the reasons that these women are not to be trusted arrives later in the film. In saying so, he wouldn’t be entirely wrong, however, I believe the actions these characters have that can be viewed as

The Basic Facts of Samples of Classification Essay

The Basic Facts of Samples of Classification Essay There are a large selection of books which add to the making of a fantastic library. Different types of musicWriting a paper on music genres isn't really likely to do much with regard to offering new insight. It's crucial to define the order you're going to place the categories in your paper when describing them. Just about everything can be split into categories, but not everything can offer the material for an intriguing essay. There are a lot of less orthodox connections, but they're less well-formed. Start looking for examples which provide a regular representation of the class. You should also provide relevant examples. You should offer several illustrative examples. Choosing Samples of Classification Essay Is Simple You must structure your classification essay around the categories you will utilize in your classification. It's important to not forget that every category needs to have a single base for classification . Choosing Your Categories when you have your topic chosen, you will want to think of what categories they'll be split into. To aid you with your choice what things to write, classification essay topics in a variety of categories are provided below. Just consider it how many terrific things you might do instead of boring writing. With our essay help you may be certain nobody shall get a better mark for the work than you. Your assigned writer is going to do a careful and total job. If you include as much detail as possible, it raises the odds your writer will put together something which fulfills your expectations. Mind that each of the names should be of the exact kind of the word, for instance, all adjectives or nouns. Concrete details supply a superior presentation where we can observe various classifications. An extensive understanding of the item you wish to create a reference list about is needed. After you think of a list of subjects you enjoy, take into considerati on ways to approach it from an intriguing angle. There are obvious differences in the forms of vacation destinations people chooseand in how folks view vacation generally. Clingy dates wind up with one of the parties practically begging for information concerning the other. An individual should not dismiss the degree of threat contagious sites bear. Based on the topic matter, you could also make a decision to recommend the particular one over the others, but should you do so ensure you emphasize why you have arrived at that conclusion. Samples of Classification Essay: No Longer a Mystery Make certain that you understand how to reveal the heart of your topic and write a strong paper. It's also wise to read up on the topic so that it is possible to express your thoughts more naturally. Some topics may have several alternatives, and so you will need to choose which angle you're approaching it from. The unifying essay topic could be an activity, a sort of person, place or thing . Or you might want to find some recommendations on the best way to compose your essay. After you have decided on the topic for a classification essay and have studied it with distinctive strategies of writing, you ought to be ready to compose the very first draft. Begin with a fundamental thesis statement to guide you, but you should be mindful that you might have to refine it as your essay starts to take shape. Starting with a simple thesis at the start of your work, don't hesitate to polish it later on, once your essay starts to take some shape. Possessing good essay examples provides the reader an in-depth and on-the-court idea about what a well structured and coherent essay appears like. There's no particular template for penning the ideal essay. If you get essays online, it's really important to understand whether the work is still in process or has been finished. You may observe it to have the ability to compose informative classification essays, you have to know the greatest and the worst in addition to the unknown but important representatives of your root idea. The Advantages of Samples of Classification Essay You may decide on any sample you like to view how a well-structured paper ought to be written. When you choose a topic, don't forget about the duration of your paper. Regardless, you always start your paper with an introduction. Before getting down to writing your classification paper, it's better should you create a thorough step-by-step outline. Whenever you make the choice to obtain classification essays from our services, you can be sure that we'll locate an expert ghostwriter who's up to the job. Besides the mentioned above classification essay topics, there are lots of others which we may supply you with. There's some initial planning that must be carried out in order to generate a coherent classification essay.

Mauritius Is Efficient Or Inefficient Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 10 Words: 2855 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Argumentative essay Did you like this example? This chapter provides a review of existing literature which is relevant to the study of testing whether the Stock Exchange of Mauritius is efficient or inefficient. Section 2.2 examines the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) that underpins this study. Section 2.3 continues to look at previous research on EMH and section 2.4 provides an overview of factors leading to improved market efficiency. 2.2 Theoretical Evidence The issue of stock market efficiency is one of the most longstanding and contentious issues in the financial economics literature. In fact, there is much emphasis on this issue because of the importance of market efficiency and the difficulties in measuring it. It has been originated by a French mathematician Louis Bachelier who published his PhD thesis The Theory of Speculation in 1900. However, Bacheliers work was not taken into consideration since it was way ahead of his time but it was rediscovered by Savage in 1955. His observations led to further development of the Random Walk Theory. According to Fama (1970), an efficient market is one where prices fully reflect available information. He further stated that this efficiency could be measured by how much the market price differs from its intrinsic value, that is, the value justified by the facts. Therefore, EMH implies that prices reflect all available information and can adjust rapidly to new information  [1]  . As a c onsequence, prices are always at levels consistent with fundamentals. It is impossible for investors to purchase undervalued stocks or sell stocks for inflated prices. Consequently, it is not worthwhile to have recourse to expert stock selection or market timing since it is not possible to outperform the market. Dimson and Mussavain (1998) identified an efficient market as a market where all relevant information is reflected in the price of a security or stock. Hamid et.al (2010) highlighted that stock prices in an efficient market follow the Random Walk Hypothesis whereby prices cannot be predicted because when new information is released, the degree to which prices will change in response to this cannot be anticipated. In a perfectly efficient market it is impossible to beat the market and earn an abnormal profit, that is, investors are constantly paying a fair price (intrinsic value). Efficiency is important because of the crucial role that stock markets play in the pricing and allocation of capital and the pricing of risk. Since the 1960s, there have been numerous studies questioning the degree of market efficiency and the static assumptions behind for example EMT CAPM  [2]  . In fact, Market efficiency involves three related concepts which are allocative efficiency, optional efficiency and informational efficiency. Allocation efficiency Does capital flow to the projects with the highest risk-adjusted returns? Operational efficiency Are transactions completed on a timely basis, accurately and at low cost? Informational efficiency Does the observed market price of a security reflect all information relevant to pricing the security? However, financial economics tends to focus on informational efficiency when discussing market efficiency. Generally, the efficient market hypothesis states that markets are efficient if the prices of securities fully reflect all available information. That is, the prices of securities observed at any point in time are based on a correct evaluation of all information available in that given time period. Blake (2000) highlighted the three forms of EMH and separates them according to their information sets: Weak form efficiency states that prices will immediately and fully reflect all past information, therefore investors cannot use information on past prices to predict future prices to earn excess returns. That is, one cannot beat the market by using historical information on prices and volumes. 2) Semi-strong efficiency is when prices instantaneously and completely reflect all publically available information. Under this tenet any relevant news will be quickly incorporated into market prices and will cause the prices to rise or fall accordingly. 3) Strong form efficiency states that market prices immediately and completely reflect all known information that is both public and private (insider) information into asset prices. With strong form efficiency, prices change so quickly in response to new information that even those with privileged information cannot profit from trading with that information. Based on these definitions, Malkiel (1999) described the weak-form efficiency as a situation where the stock price changes were independent, the semi-strong form efficiency as a market where prices quickly reflected new value changing information and the strong form efficiency as a market where professional managers were unable to accurately forecast future prices of individual stocks. For the purposes of this paper, we will focus only on the weak-form efficiency and semi-strong form efficiency in the Mauritian Stock Market as for the case of strong form efficiency; it is too extreme and complex. Under the weak form efficiency, the expected excess return conditional on past historical data should be zero. This implies that one should not be able to predict future excess returns on the basis of historical excess returns. The weakly efficient market is basically a refutation of technical analysis. The technical analyst asserts that market prices are not a random process, that is, expected price changes are not independent of past price changes nor are distributions of rates of return independent from past distributions. Market prices exhibit identifiable patterns that are bound to be repeated. The art lies in devising the proper technique to identify trends, interpret them, and interpret any deviation from them (Khoury, 1983: 68). The Random Walk Hypothesis  [3]  of stock market prices is concerned with the question of whether one can predict future prices from past prices. In its simple form, it states that price changes cannot be predicted from earlier changes in any meaningful manner. Successive price changes in individual securities are independent over time and price changes occur without any significant trends or patterns. Thus, past prices contain no useful information as to their future price behaviour. T he more efficient a market is, the more random will be the sequence of price changes. However, it should be noted that the EMH and the random walks are not synonymous, that is, do not amount to the same thing. A random walk of stock prices does not mean that the stock market is efficient with rational investors. Shleifer (2000) identified three main arguments for EMH: 1. Investors are rational and hence value securities rationally. 2. Some investors are irrational but their trades are random and cancel each other out. 3. Some investors are irrational but rational arbitrageurs eliminate their influence on prices. If all these exist, then both efficient markets and stock prices would be very unpredictable and thus would follow a random walk. Samuelson (1965) mentioned that asset prices in an efficient market should fluctuate randomly through time in response to the unanticipated component of news. Prices may exhibit trends over time, in order that the total return on a financial asset exceeds the return on a risk-free asset by an amount commensurate with the level of risk undertaken in holding it. However, even in this case, fluctuations in the asset price away from trend should be unpredictable. Active fund managers such as fundamental analysts clearly believe that the semi-strong form EMH is not true, otherwise there would be no reason for their existence. On the other hand, many academics  [4]  do believe that the semi-strong form EMH is true. For small investors who believe in the semi-strong form EMH, the only course of action is to achieve a diversified portfolio by investing in passively managed funds (for example, tracker funds). In order to test for semi-strong efficiency, we need to employ a test which is named event study or event analysis. These tests often study an event window around news announcements regarding certain stocks. If news announcements convey new information to the market or if they remove uncertainty regar ding rumours in circulation prior to the announcement, shares of the company which are affected by the news will obtain abnormal returns. It was found that event studies provide the strongest possible evidence in favour of the EMH. Countless studies have shown that the stock market reacts rather quickly to new information, whether we measure returns on a monthly, weekly or daily basis. Some would argue that the evidence suggests that information is incorporated in prices within a few minutes.  [5] Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Mauritius Is Efficient Or Inefficient Finance Essay" essay for you Create order 2.3 Empirical Evidences Researchers have examined comprehensively the extent to which markets are efficient. There are various studies on the Efficient Market Hypothesis. However, some researchers focused on the assumptions of EMH while others identified a series of anomalies in the market. In support for the EMH, Mauboussin (2005) highlighted that rationality and the utility theory leads to efficient markets as investors always want to profit and will follow those who do in modern markets. Also, Malkiel (2005) critically analysed the EMH and looked at whether it was the reason why managers of investment funds could not beat the market in terms of predicting prices to earn excess returns. Malkiels (2005) study supports the notion that market prices will reflect all available information, and therefore there is no significant gain to be had from holding a managed fund versus an indexed fund. Moreover, Russel (2003) assumed that very few active managers make money on stock exchange. On the other hand, Wilks (2003) added that active managers only beat the market because they take excessive risks. Fama (1998) refused to abandon the EMH theory by arguing that anomalies found in the market are just an illusion and are economically or statistically insignificant. He qualified the market imperfections found as the result of the changes made in the method of estimating abnormal returns. Grossman and Stiglitz (1980) found that if information was costly, there must have been a financial incentive to obtain it. But if the information was already fully reflected in asset prices, then there would not be any financial incentive. This is a strong version of the hypothesis that could be literally true if all available information was costless to obtain. Alternatively, Jensen (1978) added a weaker but economically a more realistic version of the hypothesis. It is when prices reflect information up to the point where marginal benefits of acting on the information do not exceed the marginal co sts of collecting it. Campbell, Lo and MacKinlay (1997) analysed the US sharemarket and it showed that above-average stock returns over a daily, weekly or monthly interval increase the likelihood of further above-average returns in the subsequent period. However, for instance, only about 12 per cent of the variance in the daily stock price index can be predicted using the previous days return. Portfolios of small stocks display a greater degree of predictability than portfolios of large stocks. There is also some weak evidence that the degree of predictability has diminished over time. Much of the EMH literature before LeRoy (1973) and Lucas (1978) revolved around the random walk hypothesis and the martingale model, two statistical descriptions of unforecastable price changes that were initially taken to be implications of the EMH. One of the first tests of the RWH was developed by Cowles and Jones (1937), who compared the frequency of sequences and reversals in historical sto ck returns, where the former are pairs of consecutive returns with the same sign, and the latter are pairs of consecutive returns with opposite signs. Cootner (1962; 1964), Fama (1963; 1965a), Fama and Blume (1966), and Osborne (1959) perform related tests of the RWH and, with the exception of Cowles and Jones (who subsequently acknowledged an error in their analysis Cowles, 1960). All of these articles indicate support for the RWH using historical stock price data. Furthermore, Lo and MacKinlay (1988) examined the weekly US stock returns indexes from 1962 to 1985 by constructing a variance ratio test. They exploited the fact that return variances scale linearly under the RWH and if the random walk hypothesis holds, the variance of a two-week return is twice the variance of a one week. Particularly, they found that variances grow faster than linearly as the holding period increase which implies positive serial correlation in weekly returns. Oddly enough, Lo and MacKinlay also sh ow that individual stocks in general do satisfy the RWH. Liu and He (1991) tested five weekly exchange rates and they rejected the random walk hypothesis. On the other hand, Ayadi and Pyun (1994) applied the same test to stocks in the Korean Stock Exchange and showed that after adjusting for serial correlation and heteroscedasticity, the random walk hypothesis cannot be rejected. Fama (1965) found evidence that there was no long-term profitability to be found in technical trading strategies. Malkiel (2003) also supported this view and provided us with evidence that more often than not traders find it difficult to perform better than the benchmark indices and when they do, their success is often not reported in the long run. In a study, Scholes (1972) observed how prices reacted to non information by seeing how share prices reacted to large share sales by large investors. This study was important as it directly dealt with the issue of the availability of close substitutes fo r individual securities  [6]  . Scholes found that they led to small price changes and that this could be due to negative news regarding the share sale. Thus, the results support the random walk theory. In contrast, various studies have criticised the assumptions of EMH, that is, there are several arguments that reject the EMH. For instance, Bogle (2003) argued that the EMH does not account for transaction costs and as such, market efficiency did not matter since investors, as a group, would fall short of the market return by the amount of costs they incurred. Hence, there is no doubt that transactions costs play an important role in investment strategies. Furthermore, Ball (1994) postulated that cost for information is not zero but positive, opposing the assumption of EMH. Besides, Shleifer and Summers (1990) questioned the assumption that investors are rational where there are noise traders that act on imperfect information causing the prices to deviate from their intrin sic values. In additional, Russel and Torbey (2002) argued that individuals are often prone to make mistakes and tend to rely on the opinion of others. In fact, human beings do not process information with machine-like speed, efficiency or rationality where as EMH assumes that information is processed correctly and immediately. While conducting a critical review of the literature on EMH, Akintoye (2008) highlighted the support for weak and semi strong efficiency but also highlighted the lack of evidence for strong form efficiency. Akintoye explored market anomalies which caused the market to depart from efficiency and attributing those departures to a notion of behavioural finance finding that where emotions and cognitive biases were present and these factors can cause anomalies in market price movements. Brealey et al (2008) defined behavioural finance to be the use of human psychological evidence to interpret investor reactions. Behavioural finance assumes that investors are adverse to small losses especially when stock performance has been poor recently. Investors can also be slow to react to new information and over confident with their stock price predictions. The argument for behavioural finance in rejection of the EMH is also highlighted by Daniel et al (1998), where under or over reaction to market reaction to news is present due to psychological biases such as investor over confidence. This study concluded that price movements in the market are distorted as investor biases are reflected in price as opposed to reflecting only the information available. Kulkarni (1978) investigated the weekly RBI stock price indices for Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Madras and Ahmedabad stock exchanges and monthly indices of six different industries by using spectral method. He concluded that there is a repeated cycle of four weeks for weekly prices and seasonality in monthly prices. This study has thus rejected the hypothesis that stock price changes were random . In addition, some studies have produced evidence against the random walk hypothesis, showing that stock returns do contain predictable elements. Much of this work has centered on the worlds largest stock markets, including the United States, developed economies in Europe, and Japan and were studied by Poterba Summers (1988) and Lo and MacKinlay (1988). More recently, mixed evidence on the random-walk hypothesis has been found for emerging markets in Latin America (Urrutia, 1995); (Grieb Reyes, 1999) and in Asia (Ayadi Pyun, 1994); (Huang, 1995); (Chang Ting, 2000). Apart from these arguments, some studies are based on anomalies present in the stock market. For instance, Rozeff and Kinney (1976) suggested that the month of January experiences higher returns than other months on the New York Stock Exchange. This stock market anomaly was dubbed henceforth as the January Effects  [7]  . Another anomaly related to stock returns on a given day of the week is known as the d ay of the week effect. French (1980) claimed that there was a tendency for returns to be negative on Mondays whereas they are positive on the other days of the week similar to the findings of Tandon (1994). There also exists a size effect on the stock markets. For instance, Banz (1981) stipulated that holding stocks of low capitalization firms yielded excess returns, though it is argued that these excess returns may be only a compensation for exposure to the risks associated with small firms. Similarly, some authors argued for the presence of the price earnings ratio effect on some stock markets. For example, in contradiction of the EMH theory, Basu (1977) has demonstrated that investors holding low price earnings ratio portfolio earned higher returns than an investor holding an entire sample of stocks.