Principals’ Technology Leadership, How a Conceptual Framework Shaped a Mixed Methods Study is a piece written by Barbara Brown and Michele Jacobsen. Their study was conducted over a one year span in three different school jurisdictions in a Canadian province. Through the research they discovered that instructors needed more insight into three topics, learning sciences, pedagogies based on knowledge building, and growth oriented leadership. Their topic is that the industrialized models of schooling from the past are not designed to meet the needs of the learners today in the technological age. The research question is, of the three different ways that are being taught across the three schools jurisdictions, is one more beneficial in educating the children from the digital era? The type of data they will need to collect would be quantitative and in-depth interviews as well as expert opinions. The authors used online surveys to get masses of information and they went in and interviewed the principals of the schools for expert opinions. Personally I think this research is credible and well executed. They seem to have gone through all of the obstacles and conducted very through research. I think the online surveys would be a good way to get mass information and might interest classmates who need that type of surveys conducted.

Brown, Barbara, and Michele Jacopbsen. “Principals’ of Technology Leadership, How a Conceptual Framework Shaped a Mixed Methods Study.” Improving School Leadership, 2009.

“The Link Between Parents’ Perceptions of the School and their Responses to School Bullying: Variation by Child Characteristics and the Forms of Victimization” by Tracy Evian Waasdorp, Catherine P. Bradshaw, and Jeffrey Duong.

Bullying and its effects on children’s behavior, mental health, academic performance, and the climate of school need to be prevented and intervened on time. It is important that families work with schools to better support the bullied students. In this study, the authors researched the relationship between parents’ perception of the school climate and their response to their child’s victimization. The authors’ research question tested the accuracy of the hypothesis, “The more positively parents perceived the school’s climate, the more likely a parent would be to contact the school when their child is victimized.” The authors also examined other demographic factors that might affect both their perception of the school and their response, such as gender, race, grade level. The results of their research stated that the hypothesis was incorrect and the reality was the inverse.

To answer their research question, the authors needed to gather data about how parents responded to their child’s victimization as well as their perception of the school. These are reports of behavior and shallow opinions, therefore the authors utilized surveys. They asked a sample of 773 parents questions about their demographic information, their responses to bullying, how they view the schools, and the form of their child’s victimization. This sample had the odds ratio of 1.12 and 95% confidence level. After the parents reported their demographic info, the first question was, “What did you do when your child told you about being bullied?” There were six possible answers of the different methods the parents chose to deal with their child’s victimization. The next question asked the parents to assess the school, giving them 9 options to check. Each option gave either a 0 or 1 rating, in which 9 options added up together to give the school a score–the higher the score represented a more positive view of the school’s climate. The last question gave parents options to check all the forms of bullying their child had experienced. The authors then analyzed these data with the Mplus 6.1 statistical software.

The result showed that their hypothesis was wrong. The more favorable parents viewed the school’s climate, the less likely they were to respond to their children’s victimization. However, there was a negative correlation between the level of victimization that child feels with the parental perception. Because of this, the authors extrapolated that the more their children were bullied, the less the parents trusted the school to handle their children’s safety and had to take matters into their own hand; whereas when they view the climate to be good because their children were not bullied as badly, they trust the school to sufficiently help their kids. Even though the result did not turn out as expected, it brought clarity to the question of when parents decide to be involved in their child victimization. It also opened up further questions about this topic. To expand on this research project in the future, one could conduct in-depth interviews with the parents to hear them explain why they have certain views of the school and why they react a certain way to bullying. Though this study was not perfect, the author fully explained all the limitations and why certain data did not work, (not enough data on minorities, the web survey being unable to reach certain demographics, etc.) This article would be a great place to start if one were interested in this topic because the data were well-collected and well-analyzed and the limitations were clearly explained with great tips on how to improve them.

Waasdorp, Tracy Evian, Catherine P. Bradshaw, Jeffrey Duong. 2011 “The Link Between Parents’ Perceptions of the School and their Responses to School Bullying: Variation by Child Characteristics and the Forms of Victimization.” Journal of Educational Psychology 103 (2): 324-335. doi: 10.1037/a0022748.

With my topic being on music i wanted to see what types or genres of music can reduce stress/anxiety/depression. The article “Coping with Stress: The Effectiveness of Different Types of Music” by Elise Labbè, Nicholas Schmidt, Jonathan Babin, and Martha Pharr analyze some types of music such as heavy metal, classical, or self-select music and silence. With there being no research question, seems there was more of a hypothesis going on. They made the assumption that listening to classical or self-selected music  after being introduced to a stressor would reduce the anger, anxiety, and be more relaxed than the participants who listened to heavy metal or sat in silence. In this study there were 56 college students, 15 males, and  41 females. 11% were african american, 82% were caucasian, 2% were asian, and 2% were other ethnicity. For the study they needed to conduct some measurements, they used a demographic questionnaire, relaxation rating scale, music rating scale, state trait anger expression inventory-2, state trait Anxiety inventory form Y, and physiological assessment of heart rate. All these studies helped identify how these 56 college students helped reduce their stress. Students were picked at random to self select, classical, heavy metal, or sit in silence. They completed there demographic data questionnaire  and trait scales of the music, then having physiological sensors attached to them. After being attached with the sensors the students were given a mentally difficult test. Following that they filled out a relaxation rating scale, they were told to sit in silence or listen to music again for 20 mins, then filling out the relaxation rating scale again. Results showed that state anger decreased significantly over time for all participants. They showed that self-selecting music resulted in the lowest rating of state anger compared to the other conditions selected. Overall, people will listen to whatever music they want to hear because each genre of music can give off different feeling and emotions. For example some people listen to rock music to calm down as i like to listen to country to calm down, so i believe it depends on the situation we are placed in.

Labbé, E., Schmidt, N., Babin, J., & Pharr, M. (2007). Coping with stress: The effectiveness of different types of music. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 32(3-4), 163-8. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.redlands.edu/10.1007/s10484-007-9043-9

To my surprise, I found it incredibly hard to find a written journal about organic food, and just food ethics in general in the Armacost Library. But, since I am incredibly interested in eating patterns and the thought process that goes on behind food decisions, I found a scholarly article called, “Body dissatisfaction, excessive exercise, and weight change strategies used by first-year undergraduate students: comparing health and physical education and other education students” that came from the peer-reviewed journal “Journal of Eating Disorders”. The contributing authors are Tonia Gray, Christina Curry, and Sian A. McLean. This journal was published on April 3, 2017.

In this study, university students were surveyed that were studying to become Health and Physical Education teachers, or teachers of other subjects, and compared these two groups in terms of how they think and feel about their body, to what degree do they want to be thinner or more muscular, and what sort of behaviours they are engaging in.
They discovered that male Health and Physical Education students were more likely to want to be muscular and to be engaging in excessive exercise, dieting, and the use of anabolic steroids than other male teacher education students. Female Health and Physical Education students were more likely to engage in excessive exercise over other female education students(Journal of Eating Disorders). These results mean that attitudes and behaviours of teachers who are presenting information about food and exercise in schools should be carefully examined.

The type of data that was used was demographic data, psychological traits, and deep opinions and attitudes. The data collection method that was used was a combination of detached observation, in-depth interviews, and surveys.

Researchers visited the lectures of students in order to provide information about the study, invite survey participation, and conduct hard-copy data collection during class time, supervised by the researchers, for the first cohort at all universities. The second University of Western Sydney cohort was also recruited and conducted in this manner but the questionnaires were completed online. For the second La Trobe University and Victoria University cohorts, researchers visited lectures to introduce and provide information about the study, and then emailed the students the link to the survey. For these cohorts, survey completion was conducted online, was not supervised, and resulted in much lower participant numbers. Exact numbers of students present in class or emailed were not recorded, so response rates are not calculated. All participants provided written informed consent to participate either online through Qualtrics or by signing a consent form(Journal of Eating Disorders). Independent-samples t-tests compared age and BMI for HPE and non-HPE groups. Analysis of covariance controlling for demographic variables that differed between the two participant groups examined differences between HPE and non-HPE participants for body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and drive for muscularity. A series of multiple logistic regression analyses was conducted separately for men and women to examine associations between degree (HPE and non-HPE) and the dichotomous dependent variables for each of the weight change behaviors, controlling for demographic variables that differed between the two participant groups(Journal of Eating Disorders).
I thought this was an incredibly interesting study and although it it slightly different compared to my original research and research question, I am now incredibly interested in this research. I plan on incorporating this into my research and even possibly tweaking my own research question to fit more into this realm. I feel like having a combination of data collection methods in research is a way that leaves very little room for error and broadens the type of data received. They provided, tables, charts, as well as concrete evidence.

Tonia Gray, Christina Curry, and Sian. A McLean. 2017 “Body dissatisfaction, excessive exercise, and weight change strategies used by first-year undergraduate students: comparing health and physical education and other education students.” Journal of Eating Disorders 5:10.

Amanda L. Sullivan’s article, “Disproportionality in Special Education Identification and Placement of English Language Learners” found that English Language Learners are disproportionately represented in special education classrooms compared to White peers. Sullivan’s research presented the need for further research. This study asks four research questions: “To what extent is there a disproportionate representation of students identified as ELLs in special education, focusing on high-incidence categories, at the state level over time? To what extent is disproportionality observed at the district level over time? To what extent are students identified as ELLs placed in the least restrictive environment at the state and district levels over time? To what extent can one predict disproportionate representation of ELLs at the district level, considering certain district characteristics?” Sullivan’s research uses both demographic data and reports of acts, behavior, or events, analyzing existing research. Public and Private Records were used as the data collection method. Some records used include state and district enrollment data for students identified as ELL. ELL students were defined in this context as “a child who does not speak English or whose native language is not English”. The study used the “relative risk ratio (RRR) to determine ELLs’ relative likelihood of identification/placement compared to White students”. Sullivan found that students in classrooms with greater language supports in place were served in general classrooms with higher success compared to students who did not have language supports. The latter population were more likely to be placed in special education classrooms. Sullivan looked at an eight-year span of research, both on disability category and placement.

The research Sullivan presents is thorough, though her findings only seemed to suggest that more research would need to be conducted. Sullivan looked at a southwestern state’s findings which serves as a good indicator as to what patterns exist in the nation. That being said, different states have very different educational policies, so this research may only really reflect the educational policies of this single southwestern state, which isn’t to say that the findings won’t overlap with other states.

Sullivan, Amanda L.. “Disproportionality in Special Education Identification and Placement of English Language Learners.” Exceptional Children  77, no. 3 (2011): 317-334.

My research topic deals with the influence community has on educational outcomes for students. I came across Marshall and Toohey’s article: “Representing Family: Community Funds of Knowledge, Bilingualism and Multimodality” in the Harvard Educational Review, vol. 80, no. 2. Marshall and Toohey’s research topic concerns schools and teachers connecting school learning to children’s out-of-school learning and culture. Their question would be: “What happens when the funds of knowledge that students bring to school contradict normative, Western understandings of what is appropriate for children and how school might appropriately respond to varying community perceptions of good and evil”? The researchers “use critical discourse analysis to examine educators’ efforts to incorporate funds of knowledge from the communities and families of Punjabi Sikh students in a Canadian elementary school” (Marshall & Toohey, 2010). I believe the authors’ types of data are: reports of acts, behaviors, or events and acts, behaviors, or events. The first  data type is reports of acts, behaviors, or events. Marshall and Toohey first researched the community, conducting “community scans.” They used private and public records, looking at the Canadian census to research the community’s housing, language, and availability of services. They also used interviews and field observations . Collecting this data allowed them to obtain cultural knowledge about the Punjabi Sikh community in Canada, such as the importance of grandparents in the lives of many of these families. The researchers next data type used is acts, behaviors, or events. In the next part of the research, teachers implement “funds of knowledge” of the Punjabi Sikh community in the curriculum and observe how this affected their students. Funds of knowledge is defined as:  “essential cultural practices and knowledge and information households use to thrive.” This study was what the authors call a “teacher-researcher collaboration.” The study happened over the course of three years. In these three years, particular classroom activities were planned, observed, evaluated, and revised by the teachers and researchers. It is hard for me to categorize this data collection method as I can see it as an ethnography because the teachers and researchers were involved in implementing curriculum and working with the students to help them execute the curriculum. This could also be detached observation because the teachers and researchers are observing both the students and the students’ work  and how these were both affected by the curriculum the teachers implemented. Yet, it is not detached because the teachers were working directly with the student, however the researcher were not. The researchers found the importance of connecting students’ funds of knowledge to the classroom, as well as implementing experiences of their peer groups and popular cultural into the curriculum. The researchers find ways in which technology can be implemented in the classroom to open up a space for bilingualism, as the curriculum involved Punjabi Sikh students interviewing their grandparents and recording it with and MP3 player. Finally, the researchers conclude there is a lack of engaging materials written in students’ first languages and recognize the need for culturally engaging material.

Marshall, E., & Toohey, K. (2010). Representing family: community funds of knowledge, bilingualism and multimodality. Harvard Educational Review, 80(2), 221-241.

I am very interested in water quality and water pollution because water is essential to every living organism. We have a responsibility to ensure that our drinking water is safe. I found an article in the June 2011, Volume 73, Number 10 issue of the Journal of Environmental Health that speaks to the water quality of bottled natural spring water. Michael J. Sullivan, PhD, CIH, REA and Shannon Leavey write the feature article titled “Heavy Metals in Bottled Natural Spring Water.” This article describes a study conducted using a random sample of six sources of water to test for the presence of seventeen heavy metals. The heavy metals included in the study are silver, arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, lead, antimony, selenium, thallium, vanadium, and zinc. The authors bought six natural spring bottled water brands from a local grocery store. The brands include Ethos, Icelandic Glacial, Fiji, Evian, Arrowhead, and Crystal Geyser. A total of three samples of each of the six brands was given a random number and sent to a lab for testing of the seventeen heavy metals. All of these metals except beryllium, mercury, and thallium were found in at least one of the bottled natural spring water sources. Arsenic was the only metal whose concentration was found to exceed the maximum contaminate levels established by the state of California. Based on the results, the authors recommended that changes be made to the way bottled water is regulated and stated that bottled water should have the same criteria for water quality as tap water. They also recommended that a process be developed to allow consumers access to testing results for bottled water. The authors suggested that the results could be posted on company websites or on water packaging. This will allow people to make an informed decision when choosing which brand to buy. I was surprised by the results of the study and I will be more careful about which brand of bottled water I drink from now on.

Sullivan, Michael J, and Leavey, Shannon. 2011 “Heavy Metals in Bottled Natural Spring Water.” Journal of Environmental Health Volume 73(10): 8-14.

My topic of research focuses on the challenges facing today’s American ranchers. In the June 2008, Volume 73, Number 2 print of Rural Sociology, I found an article addressing one of these challenges. Carla Barbieri, Edward Mahoney and Larry Butler collaborate to write the article, “Understanding the Nature and Extent of Farm and Ranch Diversification in North America.” In this article, the three authors outline the reasons why North American farms and ranches are needing to diversify in the services they provide and ways they use their lands. They write that this need to diversify comes from developments in technology and government policies as well as the changing market, competition, and demands of consumers. To name just a few, these diversifications come in the form of renting out properties for events, repurposing properties as hospitality operations, and producing other merchandise (yarn, wine, gift baskets) not normally associated with their field of production. While a question is never posed in the article, the hypothesis of the study is stated and can lead the reader to understand what question is being answered with the data collected: do different characteristics of the farmer/rancher as well as different characteristics of the farm/ranch make a difference between lightly, moderately, and highly diversified farms/ranches? Using an online survey, Barbieri et al. collected demographic data by looking at public records and obtaining a list of names from the North American Farm Direct Marketing Association (NAFDMA). They emailed the survey to members of the NAFDMA as well as farmers and ranchers not involved with the association and asked recipients to pass on the survey to others who might be able to provide data as well. In the end, they obtained 1,135 usable surveys, 934 of which were obtained through snowball sampling.  The data obtained was analyzed by classifying the diversifications reported in the surveys into the three levels (light, moderate, high) using multiple linear regression and a-posteriori. This article and data collected provide me with some of the most interesting information that I have found on my topic thus far.

Barbieri, Carla, Edward Mahoney, and Larry Butler. 2008. “Understanding the Nature and
Extent of Farm and Ranch Diversification in North America.” Rural Sociology73(2):205–29.

Jamie Nord

Since I am interested in antiquities and repatriation, the Society for American Archaeology scholarly journal in the Current Periodicals section of the library appealed to me.  I discovered a research article titled, “The Inuvialut Living History Project” that related to my research topic.  It appeared in the September 2012, Volume 12, Number 4 issue.  The contributing authors of the research article were Natasha Lyons, Kate Hennessy, Mervin Joe, Charles Arnold, Stephen Long, Albert Elias, and James Pokiak.  The article details the 2009 collaborative project between the Smithsonian Institution’s Artic Studies Center and the Inuvialuit indigenous community in the Canadian Western Arctic.  The team of anthropologists and museum officials sought a way to make the MacFarlane Collection of Inuvialuit ethnographic objects available to the tribe without physically returning them.  The collection was not “eligible for repatriation” under NAGPRA, since the community resides in Canada.  The cultural objects were acquired by Hudson Bay’s trader Roderick MacFarlane while operating a fur trade post in the 1860’s.  The team collected data of cultural knowledge, expert knowledge, and deeply held opinions and attitudes through in-depth interviews with Inuvialuit elders.  As a result of the process of this action research, the team launched a website www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca as a form of “digital repatriation.”  The article concedes that a limitation of this project culmination is that internet access is not universal.  However, the project included a trip for a few Inuvialuit community members to the Arctic Studies Center, so they were able to view and reconnect with their cultural objects.  The team expressed that they believed the outcome to be an overall success but reported another challenge was obtaining meaningful feedback from the Inuvialuit community.  I found the results of this research to be less than inspiring.  In my opinion, a “virtual exhibit” does not offer the same cultural significance or value in a community.  It is difficult to believe a  website could compensate for the lack of repatriation of their cultural objects.

Natasha Lyons, Kate Hennessy, Mervin Joe, Charles Arnold, Stephen Long, Albert Elias, and James Pokiak.  “The Inuvialut Living History Project.”  Society for American Archaeology.   September 2012, Volume 12, Number 4 issue.

The article “Who Gives What to Charity? Characteristics Affecting Donation Behavior” written by  Yu-Kang Lee and Chun-Tuan Chang from the National Sun Yet-sen University in Taiwan, is a very in depth study of exactly what they state in the title who gives what to charity. Their researching topic was streamlined by the concept that giving to charity appears in two forms time and money resulting in the question “can donors and nondonors be distinguished using demographic, socioeconomic, and psycho-graphic variables”. This is one of the easier research studies to determine what kind of data they need to answer their question which is self-identities or demographic data. Even their data gathering method is plainly explained even if you just read the abstract the data gathering method was a large-scale telephone survey done in Taiwan. As for the analysis that was something you had to read past the first two pages to get at but it isn’t really hidden amongst scientific jargon like many other research studies like to do to people trying to figure out how they performed their research. The analysis method was a qualitative one using transcripts from recordings of the telephone surveys. This piece was great when I first found when I was also deciding to shift my research project from a pollution based study to a donation study. However it feel into that category of being of a similar design just on a different topic. Those who are interested in volunteer work would find this very interesting as it is essentially a study that can be used to determine if people you know are more or less willing to donate either their money or time to help a charity or organization you happen to be working with. So I think this a great piece almost simply of the fact that it is still professional but doesn’t add in extensive amounts of scientific language to bog down report seeing as they already had a lot to cover as well as adding a future research section in case you wanted to help expand on it.

Link to article: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Y_K_Lee/publication/233603047_Who_Gives_What_to_Charity_Characteristics_Affecting_Donation_Behaviour/links/543b704d0cf2d6698be2fc9d.pdf