After a long search through the printed journals at Armacost Library, I was unfortunately unable to find anything that directly focused on my topic (natural childbirth). However, I was able to find an article in the Journal of Applied Psychology, a peer-reviewed journal that the library has a small stack of, that had a study about the correlation between motherhood and employment. The article is titled “Motherhood: A Potential Source of Bias in Employment Decisions” by Madeline E. Heilman and Tyler G. Okimoto. The topic of the study was mothers in the workforce, and the research question was asking whether or not the gender stereotypes about mothers interfere with their potential promotion in the workforce. The type of data that was needed for the study was shallow opinions and attitudes. The way that this data was collected was through questionnaires, and the data was analyzed by comparing the results from them.

The first experiment was done with a group of undergraduate students from an introductory psychology course, and the second was done with MBA students who were also full-time employees of businesses. These students were given limited information about four people who were supposedly applying for promotions: one mother, one father, one male (with no children), and one female (with no children). Based on the information given about each candidate, these students had to decide who would be the best fit for the job. The study concluded that the bias due to stereotypes toward motherhood does inhibit the advancement of women in the workforce.

The topic and question are interesting, but I think that the study could have been done in a better way. It would have been fascinating to interview some of the participants of the study to see why they felt the way that they did, and what lead them to make their hiring decision, rather than just getting the numbers.

The article:

Heilman, Madeline E. and Tyler G. Okimoto. 2008. “Motherhood: A Potential Source of Bias in Employment Decisions.” The Journal of Applied Psychology volume 93(1). 189-198.

Warren, Rachel Meltzer. “The New Super Bowls.” Consumer Reports, October 2017, 42-47.

My topic for our research project is about the relationship between socio-economic status and conspicuous consumption in the U.S. I could not find many periodicals about my topic, so I used the October edition of Consumer Reports to find my article. The article I chose discusses the trendiness of “super bowls,” which is a new food craze consisting of whole grains, vegetables, and protein all packed into one dish. There’s a lot of publicity and hype surrounding this new food trend, and a lot of misconceptions have formed due to misleading advertising. Many restaurants and companies that sell frozen meals are capitalizing on this trend, but misleading the consumer with advertising and a high price tag that leads them to believe it is a healthier option than it is. This article takes 26 popular power bowls and researches their nutrition facts to determine whether or not they are as healthy as advertised, or if the business is just trying to capitalize off the consumer. Overall, the research showed that many bowls were not as healthy as advertised, and appeared to be a marketing ploy to attract wealthier consumers with the promise of a trendy and healthy meal.

This article’s research topic is about the healthiness of “super bowls.” The Research question is “How do the 26 most popular power bowls compare to each other based on the nutrition facts?” This article wanted to compare the nutrition facts to see if companies are really providing high quality meals for a justified price, or if they are targeting a specific segment of consumers who are interested in conspicuously consuming trendy foods that are marketed to be “healthy.” To answer this research question, the author of the article needed expert knowledge from nutritionists. They needed to ask nutritional experts about the standards for what each person should be consuming each day, in order to determine if each meal was actually healthy or not. The author also needed personal opinions on the taste of each bowl, as that is another category she wanted to research.

In order to collect the data on each super bowl, the author used shallow interviews with nutritional experts to gain a better understanding of the healthy portions of vegetables, grains, and proteins that each person needs on a daily basis. By gaining this knowledge, the author was able to determine from the nutrition facts of each power bowl if they were actually healthy or just a marketing ploy used to attract conspicuous consumers. The author also tested each bowl herself, so she used her own personal opinion and experience to report on the bowls. The data found is both quantitative and quantitative, because there is numeric data and nonnumeric data (like descriptions of taste) to formulate a conclusion. The article lists every power bowl tested, and lists its nutritional information, price, and description of taste.

Overall, I think this research is somewhat valid, but could have tested more power bowls across the market in order to get more accurate results. I think the method of analyzing the nutrition facts and cross-referencing that with an expert’s opinion as well as a personal opinion allowed for semi-accurate conclusions, but also a biased conclusion because taste was only evaluated by the author, not anyone else.

My research topic examines the social, economical, and medical effects of food deserts in low-income communities across the United States. I found a related article to my research question in the Rural Sociological Society Journal. The article, titled Food Deserts and Overweight Schoolchildren: Evidence from Pennsylvania by Kai A. Kraft, Eric B. Jensen, and C. Clare Hinrichs, utilizes Geographic Information System (GIS) in order to identify food desert areas in Pennsylvania. Additionally, it analyzes student body index (BMI) data with census and school-district data to determine the extent to which the percentage of a school district’s population resides within a food desert is positively associated with increased incidence of obesity among students within the district. The type of data the researchers used was demographical and organizational. The data gathering methods they used included gathering information from census bureaus such as the Missouri Census Data Center, National Center for Education Statistics, the BMI data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and from the U.S. Census Bureau. In the first stage, they compared demographic, household, and community characteristics across all rural school districts in Pennsylvania based on food-desert status. The next analysis compared school-district characteristics — including weight status of students — by whether or not the school is located near a food desert. The third stage of the analysis used a multivariate approach to model the relationship between the rates of children overweight and the percentage of a school’s district’s population residing within a food-desert area. By utilizing GIS mapping methods, the researchers were clearly able to see on a map the school districts in comparison with food deserts. By using the demographic census data they were able to see the economic status of people who lived in close range to the food districts. Lastly by using BMI information, they were able to find a correlation between obesity in children, low-income status, and food deserts.

Schafft, Kai A., Eric B. Jensen, and C. Clare Hinrichs. Food Deserts and Overweight Schoolchildren: Evidence from Pennsylvania. Rural Sociology 74, no. 2 (2009): 153-77. doi:10.1111/j.1549-0831.2009.tb00387.x. 

I could not find a written journal that related directly to the causes of homelessness, but I did find an article about housing discrimination amongst woman. The article is titled, “ Searching for Housing as a Battered Woman: Does Discrimination Affect Reported Availability of a Rental Unit?” that came from the journal source “Psychology of Women Quarterly.” The contributing authors are Paula Barata and Donna Stewart.

In this study, they are studying to see if the reports battered women have made about being discriminated from housing is true. It is an issue that has been reported dozens of times, but something that has not been examined or studied fully to determine the causes. Battered women have reported that landlords have denied them housing or wrongfully evicted them for a variety of reasons we assume. It is said that landlords turn them down more so because it is a liability. Having someone who is more likely to have a criminal record, a poor income, children, or an abusive spouse who could show up on the premises is a liability. However, due to the denial this is causing woman (and perhaps their children) to not have affordable, safe, and long-term housing, which eventually leads them to end up homeless. Throughout this study the researchers conducted 2 experiments and 1 survey. This study eventually shows that women who are battered are likely to be discriminated against for housing and that it is a real problem.

The researchers topic is focusing on battered women who have come from a variety of different types of abuse, but all who are trying to find a common goal of safe, affordable housing. They are trying to start a new life, but are having a difficult time since landlords are turning them away. The research question I believe that the researchers are asking is, “Does discrimination affect reported availability of a rental unit?” They are trying to prove whether or not it is a real problem to draw more light on this issue.

The type of data needed to answer this question is to look at the demographic data. The demographic data could help us recognize where most battered women go to find new housing. If they are in a low income area then the landlord probably would not want to have more liability for his residents then he already does. One of the data gathering methods that the researchers used was surveying. They surveyed 31 landlords to determine whether or not they would rent to battered women. They also did a controlled experiment where they had a confederate try to rent from 181 landlords, but had no job and the second experiment the confederate was employed and left a message for 92 landlords. To analyze the data the researchers qualitative analysis to look at the surveys, but also to look at the reports that were filed. They are able to compare the numbers between those landlords who were likely to rent to battered women and those who were not.

The research was researched professionally and ethically. They took a topic that has not been heavily researched before and were able to come to a conclusion about how big of a problem discriminating against battered women is. They used proper methods towards their topic, especially by surveying landlords to gain their opinions. Also by doing the 2 experiments we were able to learn how landlords would act in the situation to gain a true answer. Something that I believe my classmates would find incredibly interesting from this article is some of the responses that landlords gave for saying “no” to renting to battered women. Although a good majority said they would rent to battered women as long as they can pay there were still some who said they would not. Quite a few of the ones who said no, said no because they blamed the battered women for their own situation and that she did something wrong.

Barata, Paula C., and Donna E. Stewart. “Searching for Housing as a Battered Woman: DoesDiscrimination Affect Reported Availability of a Rental Unit?”.” Psychology of Women Quarterly34, no. 1 (March 2010): 43-55.

My research topic is about coral reef survival and the different methods used to by scientists to help the coral survive. It was difficult trying to find a journal article in print about coral reefs. Luckily, in March 2017, Volume 543 of Nature I found an article about coral bleaching and the effects 20 years of it has had on the Great Barrier Reef. Terry P. Hughes and 45 other scientists and professors wrote, “Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals.” This article uses expert knowledge from 46 scientists, while using statistics, aerial and underwater photos and surveys, and heat maps to figure out if their hypothesis that good water quality have a relationship to coral being resistance to bleaching. Unfortunately, the hypothesis had no statistical support. The data on degree heating weeks (DHW) agrees with the statistics. Degree heating weeks are the hottest weeks of the year where in certain locations the heat stress is too much of coral and it starts to bleach. This article focuses on three years; 1998, 2002, and 2016 to show the readers that coral bleaching does not affect individual coral and the bleaching is not a single event. Also, no matter if a community bans fishing, boating, or underwater activities, bleaching will still happen due to increasing temperatures. Bleaching can happen to coral twice in decade and it a world wide catastrophe. The Great Barrier Reef was the location these scientists focused on. Interesting part of this article is section on certain species of coral are better at surviving and recovering from bleaching than other species. The coral species that are able to bounce back quicker are ones that colonize quickly and grow within 10-15 years. This article did a good job at showing its readers how much climate change is affecting coral reefs and the urgency of helping recovering coral through marine parks and better water quality. However, this study was limited to one location, The Great Barrier Reef, and this specific location has been hit hard by climate change. Also, only tells the readers that coral bleaching is caused by climate change, and not solutions on how to slow bleaching down. All the hypothesized solutions that were written about in the article were denounced. Overall, this article was interesting because I couldn’t wrap my head around how to use statistics when discussing coral bleaching. When finding the relationship between degree heating weeks and the percent of coral bleached, a fitted line was found, y=48.6ln(x)-21.6. This article used the data type, reports of acts, behavior and events. The was found via aerial and underwater photos and surveys, and heat maps provided by Geoscience Australia.  

Terry P. Hughes, James T. Kerry, Mariana Alvarez-Noriega, Jorge G. Alvarez-Romero, Kristen D. Anderson, Andrew H. Baird, Russell C. Babcock, Maria Beger, David R. Bellwood, Ray Berkelmans, Tom C. Bridge, Ian R. Butler, Maria Byrne, Neal E. Cantin, Steeve Comeau, Sean R. Connolly, Greame S. Cumming, Steven J. Dalton, Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, C. Mark Eakin, Will F. Figueira, James P. Gilmour, Hugo B. Harrison, Scott F. Heron, Andrew S. Hoey, Jean-Paul A. Hobbs, Mia O. Hoogenboom, Emma V. Kennedy, Chao-yang Kuo, Janice M. Lough, Ryan J. Lowe, Gang Liu, Malcolm T. McCulloch, Hamish A. Malcolm, Michael J. McWilliam, John M. Pandolfi, Rachel J. Pears, Morgan S. Pratchett, Verena Schoepf, Tristan Simpson, William J. Skirving, Brigitte Sommer, Gergely Torda, David R. Wachenfeld, Bette L. Willis & Shaun K. Wilson. 2017. “Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of coral.” Nature 543(7645): 373-377. 

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.