Search

Although researchers in special education have made significant advances in defining and identifying evidence-based practices, scholars often constitute an insular group that disseminates research findings primarily through outlets and venues targeting like-minded researchers using traditional approaches. Thus, despite tangible results in determining what works, using dissemination approaches that fail to resonate with or influence practitioners represents an important but often overlooked contributor to the ongoing research-to-practice gap in special education. The authors argue that empirical and theoretical literature outside of special education may offer insight into how ideas take hold, which may be especially relevant to the effective dissemination of evidence-based practices. Drawing on Heath and Heath's (2008) model, the authors describe 6 characteristics of messages that are likely to 'stick'.' (a) simple, (b) unexpected, (c) concrete, (d) credible, (e) emotional, and (f) stories. The authors consider each in terms of implications for dissemination of special education research findings, and urge special education researchers to consider researching, refining, and applying dissemination strategies that can make special education research matter on a broader scale., In his 1993 Academy of Management Presidential address, Hambrick (1994) opined that academics seem to have a minimalist ethos: ... minimal innovation, minimal visibility, minimal impact. Each August, we come [...]

ABSTRACT Whilst scientists are by default motivated by intellectual challenges linked to the area of their interest rather than have an interest in the financial component related to their work, [...]

Using wiki technology in a credit library course, the authors created an online exhibit for students' research entitled the Distal Archive. The purpose of the Digital Archive is to showcase [...]

Academic researchers often approach community mental healthcare agencies, such as Family Services of Western Pennsylvania (FSWP), to request access to the populations we serve for study samples. The usual request [...]

When John West and Cynthia Osborn assumed coeditorship of Counselor Education and Supervision (CES), they articulated their vision for the future of the journal in an editorial in the December [...]

The emergence of an institutional discourse of ethical research is traced and questions are raised about its effects in constituting what ethical research is taken to be and how ethical researchers are configured. It is proposed that conceptualizing such a regulation of research ethics opens up the possibility for asserting counterdiscourses that make relational ethics important for moral decision making in research.

Data envelopment analysis is used to construct and evaluate portfolios for selecting and allocating funds for research and development projects.

Five questions--What should be transferred to decision makers? To whom should it be transferred? By whom? How? With what effect?--provide an organizing framework for a knowledge transfer strategy. Opportunities for improving how research organizations transfer research knowledge can be found in the differences between the answers suggested by our understanding of the research literature and those provided by research-organization directors asked to describe what they do. In Canada, these opportunities include developing actionable messages for decision makers (only 30 percent of research organizations frequently or always do this), developing knowledge-uptake skills in target audiences and knowledge-transfer skills in research organizations (only 20 to 22 percent frequently or always do this), and evaluating the impact of knowledge-transfer activities (only 8 to 12 percent frequently or always conduct an evaluation). Research funders can help research organizations take advantage of these opportunities.

Byline: Jesus P. Bonilla (1) Keywords: economics of science; empirical progress; epistemic utility; research programmes; scientific progress; theoretical progress; verisimilitude methodonomics Abstract: Some peculiarities of the evaluation of theorieswithin scientific research programmes (SRPs) and of theassessing of rival SRPs are described assuming that scientiststry to maximise an `epistemic utility function' under economicand institutional constraints. Special attention is given toLakatos' concepts of `empirical progress' and `theoreticalprogress'. A notion of `empirical verisimilitude' is defendedas an appropriate utility function. The neologism'methodonomics' is applied to this kind of studies. Author Affiliation: (1) Departamento de Logica y Filosofia de la CienciaFacultad de Filosofia, U.N.E.D., 28040, Madrid, Spain Article History: Registration Date: 30/09/2004

There has been in the field of psychology a long and well-documented discontent with an apparent disorganization in its literature, most often interpreted as reflecting the absence of a unifying theory. This article examines some alternative ways in which some of the disorganization is being actively created by forms of argumentation used in reporting and discussing psychological research. One institutionalized form of argumentation used in reporting data actually generates the proliferation of theoretical terms in the literature. A second form of argumentation reifies theories into social groups, incorporating values that discourage theoretical integration. Some of the discontent arises from the incompatibility between the values latent in such social organizations and the values that motivate scientific inquiry at a personal level.

The primary objective of this report is to examine factors associated with recruitment of physicians in community-based primary care research. Reported results are based on an observational study of physician recruitment efforts undertaken in a randomized controlled trial designed to improve primary care physicians' cancer screening and counseling activities. The Partners for Prevention project was a statewide randomized controlled trial of primary care physicians selected from the state of Colorado. Two-hundred and ten eligible internal medicine and family medicine practices in both rural and urban community settings of the state of Colorado were selected into this study and a sentinel physician was chosen to represent each practice. Only 6% (13/210) of recruited practices initially declined to participate in the study, but the total refusal rate had reached 30% (59/210) by the time the intervention was implemented five months later. Study participants (n = 136) were younger (mean age 45.7 vs. 50.0, p = 0.008) and more often located in a rural area (46% vs. 31%, p = 0.04) than decliners (n = 59), but there was no association with gender of the physician (87% for females vs. 95% for males, p = 0.13). Participants were more often family practice physicians by training rather than internists (75% vs. 56%, p = 0.008), whereas there was no difference in participation rates by practice type (solo versus group, 60% vs. 64%, p = 0.52). Differences in demographic, geographic, and training characteristics between trial participants and decliners suggest the potential for better targeting of recruitment efforts. Viable strategies for recruiting community-based primary care practices to research studies are proposed. KEY WORDS: primary care research; physician recruitment; physician retention; study participation commitment.

Abstract Would your department benefit from an organizational change? How would you know? How would you handle the change? What skills would you and your staff need? This paper addresses these and other questions involved in man aging change. It presents a case study of a small academic research department at a state university that suddenly became a large research unit; it reviews the changes made and discusses the lessons learned., Introduction The competition for resources at a state-supported university campus is often severe and the scarcity of extra funds required for the reorganization of a department can prevent meaningful change. [...]

A framework is proposed for determining the influence of managerial strategies on corporate research and development efforts, and twenty hypotheses have been developed regarding managerial practice.

Scientific integrity and progress are enhanced by precise documentation of the conceptual development and information management aspects of research. Careful and complete documentation of the research process supports accurate reporting. The exercise of documenting data management activities provides an opportunity for nurse researchers to reflect on a study to guide current work and inform and enhance future research. The literature includes many references to the need for data management but contains little advice regarding the nuts and bolts of documenting data management activities. This article describes specific steps for documenting data-based research beginning with the study design and ending with data analysis. The documentation framework and examples presented are sufficient to guide the comprehensive record keeping required for complex studies and can be modified to meet the simpler needs of smaller research projects.

This article analyzes competition between two state universities that teach and conduct research in the same area. Four types of equilibria are found: , full-time research, full-time teaching, mass teaching plus research and selective teaching plus research, all of which can be determined through the government's manipulation of the financial scheme of the institutions.

Issues are presented concerning the management of a student-refereed peer-review and discussion assignment. Students from different institutions collaborated on the project through the Internet.

No method of sociological research, by itself, can provide more than a partial insight into whatever area of social life is being investigated. Andy Hobson uses examples from his research […]

Issues surrounding the carrying out of social work research and the beneficiaries of such research were examined during a recent seminar regarding ownership of research.

We are in the midst of a 'research-bourgeois' revolution within higher education in the UK. Part of the global project of neo-liberalism to strengthen the link between money and work, and driven by research assessment, diverse research use-values are being subordinated to homogeneous RAE-value. Academic research workers are becoming alienated from the product of their labour. Once freely available to all academics, 'intellectual commons' - well-stocked library, material security, time and other resources - are being enclosed, access becoming dependent upon production of RAE-value. Two new classes are emerging in academia as some research workers are forced to alienate their own research-labour-power, selling their ability to carry out research work to 'research capitalists', who are able to appropriate a portion of the RAE-value which results.

The article 'The Effect of Medicaid Coverage on Use of Health Services by Low-income Elderly People' (Lum & Chang, March 1998, pp. 31-43) addresses important research questions to call policymakers' [...]

It is important to consider calls for equity and renegotiation of roles in collaborative research. Many educational researchers feel that equity is a vital element of collaborative research, but there is often uncertainty about what is actually meant by equity. It can be argued that notions of equity and renegotiated roles must not be romanticized as positive elements of collaborative research. Issues of power and equity are characterized by uncertainty. They prompt many questions about whether equity is possible or even desirable in collaborative research environments. There is a need for a wider conception of what it means to have equity in research relationships.

A number of initiatives designed to involve students in scientific research have been established. The Kansas Collaborative Research Network, a virtual community linking researchers, teachers and students, has established the Tardigrade Biodiversity Project. This involves students learning about and producing new knowledge about the microscopic, aquatic invertebrates of the phylum Tardigrada. This project encourages students to express their understanding of science by undertaking their own research.

Researchers can reciprocate the cooperation and assistance of their respondents by assuring the latter that the research and its results will be given back. In feminist psychological research, giving back to the community of respondents can solicit further cooperation for future studies. Good research work can also come from the examination of solutions rather than problems. Giving back to research communities can also demystify the perception that psychology is the study of dysfunction when it is, in fact, healthful and proactive.

This study examined using the World Wide Web as a means of collecting questionnaire information for research. The WWW was determined to be a viable method of data collection although the respondents did not represent the same percentage of populations existing in the general population.

Author(s): Branko Milanovic (corresponding author) [1] For the past 30 years or so, income inequality has been on the rise across the globe. It has increased in the United States, [...]

Conventions of scholarly writing, more often than not, serve as obstacles to those who are writing for a learned minority. Academic writers have to comply with stern protocols and principles in scholarly writing that are more concerned with form rather than with substance. These conventions stifle the creative and adventurous mind of the author, such as in the avoidance of the first person singular mode 'I,' the use of terms that serve to confuse rather than clarify and the use of the passive voice. A piece represents good writing as long as it is intelligible, interesting and instructive.

Among the major costs associated with conducting survey research are the time and money spent recruiting a large and racially representative sample. Contrasted here are the costs of different recruitment strategies (agencies, support groups, snowballs, media, mass mailings) in terms of project time, supplies (e.g., postage, support materials), and staff time as they bear on the costs of recruiting 841 older mothers of offspring with lifelong disabilities. Results indicate that the costs of recruitment vary by method and race. Whereas agencies, support groups, and snowball recruitment were low- to moderate-cost strategies, they were less effective for recruiting African Americans than were media and demographic sampling unit strategies. These analyses suggest that with appropriate planning, funding, and implementation, nonprobability sampling methods can be used successfully to recruit a large and diverse sample. Suggestions for improving the implementation of future recruitment campaigns are also offered. Key Words: Recruitment, Caregiving, Field research

Many university faculty members struggle with the challenge of allocating time to both teaching and research. However, several steps can be taken to address the problem which include the revision of research productivity standards by universities, the balancing of teaching and research efforts by professors and the evaluation of professors based on their ability to develop innovative teaching strategies such as new courses and experiments.

There is little dispute about the benefits and importance of scientific research to the prosperity and competitiveness of the United States. It may be less apparent, however, that some of [...]