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Constraints, Compromises And Choice: Comparing Three Qualitative Research Studies, Julia Connell, Colin Lynch, Peter Waring

The Qualitative Report

Although a number of texts explore social research strategies and methods, most are limited to a basic discussion of such methods and their associated advantages and disadvantages. Few if any, evaluate and compare methods in the context of actual research experiences. This paper endeavours to bridge that gap by reporting the experiences of three researchers working on three separate qualitative studies. All three studies were concerned with investigating the social milieu within organizations. While the research questions were different in each case, all the researchers shared a common goal - to develop explanations for complex social phenomena manifest both internally …

Toward An Understanding Of Acquired Hearing Loss In A Family: Narrative Play Format As A New Voice In Qualitative Methodology, Bruce A. Kent, Brett E. Furlonger, Delwyn A. Goodrick

The Qualitative Report

This study examines how the reality of acquired hearing loss effects one family. Some consideration is given to the medical elements of the condition but the primary concern is with the psychological and social affects of hearing loss. The affects of the loss are revealed, by using systematic introspection in a narrative play format. This writing format is evaluated as the chronology of events, emotions, turning points and coping strategies are revealed.

Social Learning Theory And The Influence Of Male Role Models On African American Children In Project 2000, Rhonda Wells-Wilbon, Spencer Holland

The Qualitative Report

This study is an assessment of observational learning commonly known as social learning theory of a group of 55 African American students who are participants in a mentoring program known as PROJECT 2000. From first through sixth grades male role models, who were largely African American, were in the classroom as teacher assistants. At the time of the study all student participants were in fifth grade. An interview was conducted featuring a short open-ended questionnaire. Students in PROJECT 2000 had an opportunity to express their feelings about the male role models that worked with them in their classroom. These interviews …

Los Emigrantes Nuevomexicanos: The 1849 Repatriation To Guadalupe And San Ignacio, Chihuahua, Mexico, Samuel E. Sisneros

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

MA Thesis: As a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the United States’ war with Mexico (1846-48), the inhabitants living in the territory occupied by the United States (northern half of the Mexican Republic) were left to make hard decisions as to their national identity and loyalties. Those citizens residing in the territory known today as the Southwestern United States were provided by the Republic of Mexico the opportunity to emigrate to Mexican soil in order to retain their Mexican citizenship. Beginning in 1849, more than 150 families from central and southern Texas, a small group from …

Language, Vagueness, And Social Communication, Colin B. Grant

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Language, Vagueness, and Social Communication," Colin B. Grant adopts an interdisciplinary approach to an interrelated complex of language, communication, and society. Grant operates with a modified concept of vagueness as a pragmatic property and attempts to establish a link between pragmatic vagueness and contingency in communication. This communicative contingency takes the form of improbabilities (entropy). Grant observes that the challenge lies in modelling communication as porous networks which nonetheless enable society to function. In this sense, contingency in communication must not be confused with arbitrariness just as cognitive closure cannot be confused with solipsism. This line of …

Value For Diversity: An Investigation Of Diversity Climate, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, And Intent To Leave, Quionna Caldwell

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This research examined the relationships of diversity climate via organizational fairness and organizational inclusion (Mor Barak et al., 1998) and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intent to leave. Further, personal value for diversity was investigated as a moderator of those relationships. The participants included 202 African American women affiliated with a national sorority. The mean age and years of experience was 29.62 and 4.33, respectively. Data were collected electronically using an Internet site hosting the survey questions. The present study provides evidence that diversity climate positively affects job satisfaction and affective commitment, and negatively affects intent to leave. In addition, …

Using Performance Analysis To Increase Staff Compliance With Acquisition Programs For Children With Autism, Scott Traynor

Masters Theses

Improvement in the rate of learning on acquisition programs for individuals diagnosed with autism often depends on the quality of instruction delivered by direct-care staff The present study evaluated the effectiveness of a performance analysis on targeting environmental variables that were maintaining less than optimal staff performance for a least-to-most prompting procedure used to teach a hand-washing task to preschool children diagnosed with autism. Direct observations of technician/child dyads were followed by informant interviews with technicians, supervisors, and other key staff members that pinpointed variables that were maintaining/hindering staff compliance with a prompting procedure designed to promote child acquisition of …

The Potentials For Cross-Gender Mentoring, J. Douglas Penn

Masters Theses

The youth of today are being confronted with more diverse choices than ever. With trends like close to 70% of African-American youth (in 1994) growing up in single-parented homes, many youth are left to make these critical choices without access to sufficient numbers of trusted adults. As the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development Concluded: "Many young people feel a desperate sense of isolation. Surrounded only by their equally confused peers, too many make poor decisions with harmful or lethal consequences" (1989). The job of social policy now must be to match these diverse choices with an equally diverse supply of …

The Effect Of Cultural Affiliations On Attitudes, Beliefs, And Reactions To The Fighting Sioux Nickname Issue Between Northern Plains American Indian And Majority Culture College Students, Angela Larocque

Theses and Dissertations

The main puqjo.sc of this study was to compare the effect of cultural affiliation on altitudes, beliefs, and reactions to the Fighting Sioux Nickname and logo issue for 60 Nonhem Plains American Indian college students and 61 non-Indian college students at the University of North Dakota. Subjects completed a demographic questionnaire and the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux Nickname Attitudes, Beliefs, and Reactions (UNDFSNABR) survey. In addition, American Indian subjects completed the Nonhem Plains Bicuhuralism Inventory (NPBI), Using the Northern Plains Biculluralisin Inventory (NPBI) to identify cultural identification among American Indian participants, the hypotheses of the current study were;: …

The Analysis Of Selective Information Processing And Neuropsychological Functioning In Individuals At-Risk For Eating Disorders: The Use Of A Pictorial Adaptation To The Stroop Paradigm, Using Print Media Advertisements, Kristine L. Lokken

Theses and Dissertations

There is evidence that women with bulimic symptoms are characteristically impulsive and have difficulty inhibiting various behaviors. Neuropsychological profiles of women with bulimic symptoms show patterns of impulsivity, inefficient problem solving ability, and an inability to inhibit irrelevant information. Women with bulimic symptoms also express substantially greater acceptance and internalization of sociocultural mores of thinness, and are more vulnerable to negative influence from laboratory exposure to stimuli representing “thin ideal” stereotypes. The present study examined a possible common link between the characterological and neuropsychological features of women with bulimic symptoms and their susceptibility to negative influence from mass media representations …

I Know What You Know: Assumptions About Others' Knowledge And Their Effects On Message Construction, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Chi-Yue Chiu, Ying-Yi Hong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Current models of interpersonal communication assume that estimation of listener's knowledge is a basis for message formulation. By introducing methodological modifications to the Fussell and Krauss paradigm, the present study provides more definitive evidence for the use of knowledge estimation in message productions.

Introduction To "Books", Margaret A. Leary

Articles

It's well known that graduate William B. Cook's generosity provided the Law School with its trademark Gothic Law Quadrangle. It is less universally known that Cook endowed the Law School with a trust to support faculty research, and had a strong interest in the nature of that research. He chose to call the library building "Legal Research" and to inscribe above the main entrance "Learned and cultured lawyers are safeguards of the republic." Cook often said that the lack of "intellectual leadership 1s the greatest problem which faces America," and he wanted this Law School to provide that missing leadership. …

The Attitudes And Behaviors Of Native American Patients With Diabetes And Their Relationship To Seeking Health Care, Madonna Azure

Theses and Dissertations

Diabetes Mellitus is a major health problem for Native Americans. There has been an increase in the prevalence rate of Type 2 diabetes among this population. The increase in Type 2 diabetes has been attributed to major lifestyle changes such as decreased physical activity and a diet high in fats. The number of diagnosed patients with diabetes has almost doubled over a ten-year period on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

The purpose of this study was to assess the attitudes and behaviors of Native American patients with diabetes and their relationship to patients' seeking health care services. The variables studied …

The Efficacy Of Residential Care In The Management Of Serious Mental Illness, Lori A. Shaleen

Theses and Dissertations

The present study contributes to a growing database demonstrating the efficacy of residential treatment care for individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness. This study is distinguished by its longitudinal collection of data at two-month intervals over an eight-month study duration. Nine individuals residing at a supportive residential care facility (Harvest Homes) were compared with 18 others receiving team-based outpatient case management mental health services (Prairie Harvest Foundation) over an eight- month period. Eighty-nine percent Prairie Harvest Foundation group and seventy-eight percent of the Harvest Home group were diagnosed with psychotic conditions. Six major dependent measure outcomes including level of symptomatology, …

Neuropsychological Functioning And Family Environment Of Children With Attention-Defecit/Hyperactivity Disorder And Comorbid Oppositional Defiant Disorder/Conduct Disorder, M. Catherine Yeager

Theses and Dissertations

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is hypothesized to be a disorder of executive functioning; however, results of studies comparing ADHD with control children using executive functioning measures are inconsistent, with some studies showing group differences while others do not. One limitation of these studies has been the failure to control for frequently occurring comorbid psychiatric conditions, such as Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder (CD), in the ADHD groups. Previous studies have demonstrated that children with ADHD and comorbid CD or severe ODD perform significantly better on tests of cognitive/executive functioning when compared to children with ADHD only. Based on these …

A Comparison Of Intellectual Test Performance Across Native American And European American Children, Austin P. Keith

Theses and Dissertations

Differential scoring across Native American and European .American groups on the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children - Third Edition (WISC-IIi) was examined while controlling for Full Scale IQ and age. Comparisons were made across the groups on Verbal IQ and Performance IQ, individual subtests, individual subtest items and two composite index scores. Results indicated no significant scorino differences between the two groups on Performance IQ or, on the Perceptual Organization Index, Significant scoring differences were also not evident on the Coding, Picture Arrangement, Arithmetic, Block Design, Vocabulary-, Object Assembly and Comprehension subtests. Significant scoring differences were found across the groups …

A Study Of Native American Ged Graduates At Four Tribal Community Colleges In North Dakota, Karen Starr Gillis

Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on the General Educational Development (GED) graduates of four tribal colleges in North Dakota. The purpose was to provide answers to five research questions and to determine baseline data on Indian education in an area not fully studied. The study will assist in closing the gap between research already conducted with Hispanics and African American populations.

The study accumulated data on participants in GED programs at the four adult education and/or testing centers at the tribal colleges in North Dakota for the years 1990–1999. The participants were analyzed using a set of variables that was specific to …

Internalization Of Character Traits By Those Who Teach Character Counts!, Kristyn Harms, Susan Fritz

Journal of Extension

The purpose of the study reported here was to determine if the act of teaching character education programs such as Character Counts! affected the internalization of taught ethical values. Fifty-three Cooperative Extension personnel completed a Web-based survey analyzing Character Counts! impact on Cooperative Extension, the personal life of Extension educators and assistants, and society. Results demonstrated that Extension educators and assistants were more likely to make ethical decisions in the areas of Cooperative Extension, personal life, and society as a result of teaching Character Counts!. Collected data also suggested the need for increased implementation of Character Counts! principles in Extension …

What Farm Families Tell Us That Can Be Useful In Educating For Health And Safety, Robert C. Seiz, Eleanor Pepi Downey

Journal of Extension

A pilot qualitative research study in Weld County, Colorado, was designed to obtain the perspectives of farmers and their families on the occupational health and safety risks they face and to gain their insights into extant and potential preventative measures. A structured interview schedule and an iterative process of qualitative data analysis identified four themes: 1) risks, 2) obstacles, 3) motivators, and 4) supports. Considerations relevant to Extension educators for the development of prevention programs were extracted from the data and presented according to what should be emphasized, what should be included, what should be avoided, and what should be …

Differences Between Parent And School Personnel Observations Of Extension Service Literacy Program's Impact With Children, Margaret W. Miltenberger

Journal of Extension

The purpose of the qualitative research study reported here was to learn if parents and school personnel observed changes in children's reading as a result of participation in the Energy Express summer reading program. Results of interviews revealed that both parents and teachers observed a positive program impact. Parents noticed improvements in their children's reading, where as teachers emphasized socialization gains. There were significant differences between school personnel's connections with children in larger schools as compared to smaller school communities. The qualitative research is consistent with the quantitative data; both demonstrate the Energy Express program's positive impact on children's reading.