This volume makes a powerful case for the analysis of the spoken word as a source of data to study writing. The contributors focus on issues involved in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data. Their approaches go beyond simple quantitative/qualitative differences, examining the very underpinnings of the various assumptions of distinct methodologies. Divided into four major areas of inquiry, the book looks at different aspects of conducting think-aloud protocol analysis, retrospective accounts, discourse analysis and interviews in the field.
Content Design and Intrinsic Data Analysis in Behavioral Research
Using detailed examples, the authors introduce readers to the use of facet theory as a method for integrating content design with data analysis. They show how facet theory provides a strategy for conceptualizing a study, for formulating the study's variables in terms of its purposes, for systematic sampling of the variables and for formulating hypotheses. The first part of the book introduces mapping with specific emphasis on mapping sentences. Part Two explores procedures for processing multivariate data. In conclusion there is a discussion of the nature of scientific enquiry and the difference between research questions and observational questions.
This volume provides a clear and concise overview of the mental, emotional, physical and social conditions of children in the United States, and the current social concerns which threaten their well-being. Traditional child welfare topics such as foster care, adoption, abuse and neglect are examined along with newer problems such as HIV and the increasing number of one-parent families living in poverty. The need for additional emphasis on proactive child welfare programmes and primary prevention is stressed throughout.
Providing a clear picture of trends amongst progressive police authorities, researchers from North America and the United Kingdom address the fundamental question - whether community policing is set to fulfil its many promises. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, the authors present a thorough evaluation of the social and organizational processes involved in planning and implementing community policing as well as the effects of such programmes and policies on the police and the community itself.
This book contains 30 hints and reminders to help both trainee and practising counsellors examine and improve key areas of their work. Focussing on areas that may need special attention, this text covers topics such as: the formation of an ethical and productive alliance; working with effective tasks and goals; identifying and addressing clients' obstacles to change; and developing professional knowledge and self-reflection. The text is aimed at readers who are familiar with the fundemantals of counselling and have begun to work with clients.
This book makes clear to researchers what item-bias methods can (and cannot) do, how they work and how they should be interpreted. Advice is provided on the most useful methods for particular test situations. The authors explain the logic of each method - from item-response theory to nonparametric, categorical methods - in terms of how differential item functioning (DIF) is defined by the method and how well the method can be expected to work. A summary of findings on the behaviour of indices in empirical studies is included. The book concludes with a set of principles for deciding when DIF should be interpreted as evidence of bias.
In this exploration of the aesthetics of modernity, Christine Buck-Glucksmann argues that in periods of perceived crisis a new form of rationality emerges to replace reasoned ways of thinking. She examines a number of key themes for modern social theory: the critique of instrumental rationality, the political crisis of loss of community and of innocence with the development of industrialization, as well as the impact of relativism on realist theories of knowledge. After examining the condition of modernity - alienation, melancholy and nostalgia - the author goes on to explore the place of the feminine in discussions of modernity: how woman is used as one of the main sources of allegorical interpretations of modernity; and how the feminine comes to stand for and represent the miraculous, the utopian, the dangerous and the androgynous. In the final part, she identifies Nietzsche, Adorno, Musil, Baudelaire, Barthes and Lacan as constituting a baroque paradigm, and lays the foundation for a baroque reason. In her explanation of themes fundamental to our contemporary condition, she invites the reader beyond post-modernism to a realm of the Other.
During the 1980s, United States cities came of age as forces to be reckoned with in US foreign policy. This scholarly, yet readable, analysis carefully explores the roots and influence of municipal activism, surveying particular organizing issues and developing an `active city' profile by examining particular cases.
