I was hoping to find something extremely connected to my research proposal for the last research example. I have found it really helpful to see how other studies similar to mine had conducted research so I can get ideas. I ended up finding an article in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth called “Why do some women choose to freebirth in the UK? An interpretative phenomenological study” by Claire Feeley and Gill Thomson. The topic of the article was freebirth and the question asked why women in the United Kingdom choose to have a freebirth. Freebirth is when a woman gives birth to her baby with no professionals present. I honestly had no idea that this was something that women in developed countries did by choice, and it was pretty shocking to learn that it is preferred by some women. The type of data needed for the study was deep opinions and attitudes, and the data was gathered with a survey and then in-depth interviews. In the end, the data was analyzed with  phenomenological data analysis and coding of interviews. This article is a primary literature source.

The researchers posted advertisements for the study at freebirth education centers to recruit subjects. They gave the members of the study an initial questionnaire and then they had in-depth interviews to get more information. The study was successful in discovering some reasons why women in the United Kingdom choose to have a freebirth. Most of the women from the study made the decision based on their personal situation and previous experiences with childbirth. The study concluded that these women did not trust the childbirth system in the United Kingdom and wanted to take care of it themselves.

Since I had never heard of freebirth before, I thought it was an extremely fascinating study that could also be helpful with my research project. I wish they interviewed some women who had not given birth before and had other reasons for choosing a freebirth.

Citation:

The topic of my research is environmental justice and pesticide health effects, furthermore my research will explain the correlation between areas with high pesticide use and schools with a high percentage of Hispanic enrollment. To elaborate on the importance of the research, the research proposal must also explain why discovering a positive correlation can help expose environmental justice where a minority group is subjected to environmental hazards, for example Hispanics and pesticides in Ventura County.

The article used is titled “Identifying and managing adverse environmental health effects: ₄. Pesticides”, the article was written by Margaret D. Sanborn, Donald Cole, Alan Abelsohn and Erica Weir. The article can be found on CMAJ Open, an online open-access journal.

First, pesticides are used to “kill animal, insect, plant and fungal pests in agricultural, domestic and institutional settings.” There are three major ways humans absorb toxic pesticides, they are ingestion, inhalation, and dermal absorption. The people most vulnerable to dermal absorption are children, this is because of “behavioral factors such as hand-mouth behavior and play patterns…”. Schools closest to agricultural pesticide exposure will have a higher toxicity and health effects like non-Hodgkins lymphoma will be more prominent. “Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (also known as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, NHL, or sometimes just lymphoma) is a cancer that starts in white blood cells called lymphocytes, which are part of the body’s immune system (American Cancer Society).”

This research example was used to find reasons why the correlation between pesticides and environmental justice is important. Discovering reasons why a correlation is important will help the subjected change their circumstances.

Sanborn, Margaret D., et al. “Identifying and managing adverse environmental health effects: 4. Pesticides.” Canadian Medical Association Journal 166.11 (2002): 1431-1436.

“What Is Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma?” , www.cancer.org/cancer/non-hodgkin-lymphoma/about/what-is-non-hodgkin-lymphoma.html.

The article I focused on this week was related to both mental illness and homelessness, but with an emphasis on law enforcement. The article was titled, “Police and Homeless Outreach Worker Partnerships: Policing of Homeless Individuals with Mental Illness in Washington D.C.” The article is located in the scholarly journal called ‘Human Organization’ and was written by Jennie Simpson.

Simpson, Jennie. 2015. “Police and Homeless Outreach Worker Partnerships: Policing of Homeless Individuals with Mental Illness in Washington, D.C.” Human Organization 74 (2): 125-134. http://ezproxy.redlands.edu/docview/1688054975?accountid=14729.

The article decided to put an emphasis on law enforcement in relation to the homeless population and mental illness because of the attention of it in the media. In recent years there were police shootings that unfortunately killed several mentally ill homeless in several different states. The police in Washington D.C. recognized this tragedy and decided it would be best to put their efforts into a worthy cause and partner with the Homeless Outreach Programs that are available in D.C. Unfortunately, due to our economy services that could help the mentally ill have shit down leaving them homeless. The research question being asked is, “Is law enforcement partnering with homeless outreach programs a possible solution?” To answer this question the author uses ethnographic data to watch interactions between the police and the homeless before and after they informally partnered with the homeless outreach programs. To analyze this type of data, would be qualitative data. It is qualitative data because you have to turn your observations into categories they can analyze. Something I found interesting in this is that the article made it a point to stress that this was a difficult task for the police officers. It was difficult because they wanted to reduce crime through law enforcement, but were also trying to provide services to the less fortunate.

Hill, Jennifer Ann. 2011. “Endangered Childhoods: How Consumerism is Impacting Child and Youth Identity.” Media, Culture & Society 33 (3): 347-362. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.redlands.edu/10.1177/0163443710393387. http://ezproxy.redlands.edu/docview/1928299552?accountid=14729.

For the last research exercise, I wanted to find research that more closely relates to the final reseach question that I have been tweaking for the last few weeks. My article for this assignment is called Endangered Childhoods: How Consumerism is Impacting Child and Youth Identity and it was found through ProQuest.

This article discusses the extensive presence of consumerism in children’s lives, using information and data from a plethora of previous research conducted From a very young age, children are bombarded with advertisements and images displaying consumer products, encouraging them to buy them or beg their parents to. Due to this, children’s identities are created and affected by the ways in which they consume. The author’s purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of consumerism, in order to assess identity formation and development in youth. This articles topic is about the lasting effects that consumerism has on children’s identities, and the research question is “In what ways does consumerism affect youth identity in the United States?” The type of data needed to answer this question would be acts of behavior and events. However, this author did not conduct her own research and instead used existing research from other authors. The author use meta-analyis to collect information from various studies to create a more compelling argument. The method of data analysis is both qualitative and quantitative, because there was numerical and non-numerical data assessed in the report.

I think this author used compelling evidence from a multitude of studies, and the article itself is published in a legitimate journal. The author cited about 51 sources, which indicates to me that she thoroughly inspected existing research and is very educated on this topic. I think if the author conducted her own research, perhaps her evidence would be a little more updated and accurate, as some of the research cited is slightly dated. The most interesting part of this article for me was learning how much time and resources companies spend on advertisements geared towards children. Companies are focused on “cradle-to-grave” marketing which means they begin gearing advertisements towards children early on, in order to create and ensure brand loyalty in the future.

Although this study was rather complicated and had a lot of elements that were hard to follow, the researchers set out to observe the relationships between compulsive exercise, psychological distress and the motivation to change in patients with anorexia nervosa. (Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder that causes people to obsess about their weight and what they eat).  

What I really took away from this research was the background information and conclusions and how it could be beneficial to my own research project.  The results showed that greater compulsive exercise is moderately associated with people who have poorer eating disorder habits, and higher levels of eating disorder psychopathology.  Greater compulsive exercise is also weakly associated with higher levels of psychological distress. The type of data collected were surveys and questionnaires, cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions, sessions of LEAP treatment, and interviews.  

The researchers mostly used the questionnaires as a main source of data.  From this, they were able to asses eating disorder psychopathology, compulsive exercise, psychological distress, motivation to change and quality of life.  After compiling the different factors and their data, they were able to determine if there were strong, weak, or positive correlations between their findings.    

Researchers found that there was a weak positive associations between compulsive exercise and psychological distress.  There was also a weak positive relationship between exercise and obsessive-compulsive traits. They found excessive exercise to be negatively associated with obsessive-compulsive symptomatology. ‘This study utilized a quantitative definition of compulsive exercise and categorized patients as excessive exercisers if they endorsed obligatory exercise for at least 1 h per day, on at least 6 days per week for 1 month.’

For this research example, I found an article that explored a research question similar to my own. In “Factors in organic farmers’ decision making: Diversity, challenge, and obstacles,” from volume 14 of American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, Leslie A. Duram poses the question: “Who are the farmers who specifically decide to adopt organic methods, which are outside the practices used by most of the agricultural community?” (Duram, 2). Duram conducts a multiple-layered study in which she strives to understand the characteristics of organic farmers as well as the ways their decisions are made and influenced.

After giving a brief description of what sets organic farming apart from other forms of agriculture, Duram describes her methods of data collection. Duram sent a mail survey to 49 organic farmers, receiving 26 responses. In addition to the surveys, she conducted in-depth interviews with five farmers. She utilized qualitative analysis and qualitative data techniques to analyze the responses she received from her sample. Duram found that the reason many farmers decided to become organic was because they were excited about taking on a new challenge as organic farming requires many modifications and changes to their land, lifestyle, and knowledge.

This study was similar to my own proposal because Duram crated a list of eight factors in decision making. These included “diversity, challenge, change, businesslike approach, no formal agricultural education, love of the land, anti-‘radical environmentalist,’ and obstacles” (Duram, 2). She uses these eight factors in her survey just as I would use my seven categories of challenges in a survey for my own research project. I felt that there was a lot going on in this article and that it would have been more beneficial to focus on only one aspect of organic farming.

Duram, Leslie. 1999. “Factors in organic farmers’ decision making: Diversity, challenge, and obstacles.” American Journal of Alternative Agriculture14(1). Retrieved March 29, 2018. http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&amp=&context=gers_pubs&amp=&sei-redir=1&referer=https%253A%252F%252Fscholar.google.com%252Fscholar%253Fhl%253Den%2526as_sdt%253D0%25252C5%2526q%253Dchallenges%252Bfarmers%252Band%252Branchers%252Bface%2526btnG%253D%2526oq%253Dcha#search=%22challenges%20farmers%20ranchers%20face%22

In this research journal, the researcher compared two famous cases of repatriation of indigenous human remains.  She compared the Kennewick Man and the La Jolla Skeletons, because the two cases involve “ancient human remains and contemporary injustice.”  Both sets of skeletons are radio carbon dated at around 9,000-10,000 years old, which has made them of great scientific interest for researchers.  Tsosie compared how in both cases researchers argued that the human remains are Paleo-Indian and cannot be linked to a modern tribe.  They argued that since cultural affiliation is impossible, the remains could not be repatriated to any tribe under NAGPRA.  However, after both sets did eventually end up being repatriated, groups of scientists attempted to repeal the decisions and were unsuccessful in this.  She outlined the lengthy legal processes and battles that the Native Americans had to endure for the remains to be repatriated.  In the case of the Kennewick Man, the significant amount of time caused by the appeals court allowed scientists to perform extensive research on the skeleton.

The researcher, Tsosie, used a comparative case study research logic, which was helpful for me to examine, since I am utilizing a similar method for my own research.  She utilized reports of acts, behaviors, and events and collected them through public and private records.  She analyzed the data of the La Jolla skeletons and the Kennewick Man cases in a qualitative analysis.  This was an interesting case study since the two cases are extremely famous in the archaeology world, and I think the researcher provided thorough analyses of the data.

Tsosie, Rebecca. “Indigenous Peoples and Epistemic Injustice: Science, Ethics, and Human Rights.” Washington Law Review 87, no. 4 (December 2012): 1184-190.

I found this source using the libraries online database. The journal illustrates the beliefs that teachers have towards technology use in the classroom and the resources needed to utilize those tools such as computers, phones, and smart boards. Research shows that school use of technology is limited to learning games, drill and practice, and word processing without the real importance of using that technology to progress student learning outcomes. This study looked to interview twelve teachers from the state of Mississippi and get their opinions and beliefs about technology in the classroom and how it should be used. The study was significant because some of the teachers have been long time educators and their views are important to see if they are willing to change their teaching habits to incorporate technology into the academic setting. The new teachers also have an impact on the students and their beliefs will shape the way students learn and retain information. Most of the teachers interviewed enjoyed the idea of integrating technology in the classroom as long as it was user friendly or they felt comfortable applying it to their teaching methods. Teachers also collectively interpreted computers as tools and should be used as such. The computers should help the students learn information more quickly but should not be the main priority in the class.  Problems that teachers ran into was lack of funding and insufficient amount of resources. The other problems that result from more technology is the training needed to adapt to different programs. Teachers needed to feel that they were skilled enough to smoothly utilize computers and various programs in  the classroom to give the students the best chance of learning.

Chien, Y. (2013). The Integration of Technology in the 21st Century Classroom: Teachers’ Attitudes and Pedagogical Beliefs Toward Emerging Technologies. Journal Of Technology Integration In The Classroom, 5(1), 5-11.

For this post I decided to use the Armacost library online database. I used the search bar for journals then I scrolled through pages of results. The journal I found was by Nian-Shing Chen and Gwo-Jen Hwang. The topic their topic was educational technology in the classroom. Their research question was educational based gaming was an effective learning style in the classroom. The conducted studies where they used control groups to see how effective the learning style was. Once they conducted their experiments they wrote a paper on their findings which were that there was a significant increase in learning when it came to the educational gaming. They then had to submit their research to a review board in order to possible get it published. This article talked a little more on the review process but none the less they gathered classrooms of students and gave some the educational gaming and others had normal learning styles. In my opinion I think this data gathering would do the job but I could see better ways of doing this. But all in all their research was sound and effective.

Chen, Nian-Shing, and Gwo-Jen Hwang. “Transforming the Classrooms: Innovative Digital   Game-Based Learning Designs and Applications.” Educational Technology Research and Development, vol. 62, no. 2, Dec. 2014, pp. 125–128., doi:10.1007/s11423-014-9332-y.

I dug deeper into the statistics of the Hawaiian public school education to gather more information about what students were achieving more than others and to possibly gather some hypothesis. I was able to go the the DOE (Department of Education) website of the state of Hawaii which has public records of the achievement levels of students that differentiate between female and male, ethnic background and socioeconomic background. Through this website, I was able to find that native islanders do have a significant achievement gap. In elementary school, they seem to show very little improvement throughout their time through the grades which is very important to note especially when doing the long experiment on how the new place-based curriculum improves a students scores and attitude towards school throughout their time in elementary. These will be helpful to use as comparisons when I finally have my own results. What I would like to find now though is more information on what could be leading to this achievement gap. What I could look for now is the exact curriculum that is taught in schools. I would like to try and get my hands on a TE (Teacher’s Edition) from an elementary Hawaiian classroom. The teacher’s edition is a book that mirrors the books students get for each subject. Having these TEs will help me to see exactly what is being encouraged in classrooms, but it is not always necessary to include all activities so an interview will be detrimental to the continued gathering of my research.