Telling Your Story: Effective Packaging of Assessment Data,Closing Address of the 23rd Annual North Carolina Serials Conference

In the closing address of the 23rd annual North Carolina Serials Conference, Donna Tolson of the University of Virginia (UVA) and Peggy Myers of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) presented “Telling Your Story: Effective Packaging of Assessment Data.” In their address, they shared their experiences with selecting and packaging assessment data according to the intended audience and utilizing the data for internal decision making and external advocacy.     

Exploring the Concept of Moral Distress with Community-Based Researchers: An Australian Study

ABSTRACT

Community-based research (CBR) refers to an applied research methodology that is conducted in community settings in partnership between academic and nonacademic participants in research. This article reports on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with 11 Australian CBR researchers between 2008 and 2009. The interviews were designed to explore whether university-employed CBR researchers experience the particular phenomenon of “moral distress,” or feelings of helplessness to act in accordance with one's moral values due to systemic or institutional constraints. Study results found that the CBR researchers experienced unavoidable moral distress at varying levels of intensity related to blurred boundaries between settings, participants, and stakeholders. Based on the outcomes of this study, further research and enhanced professional development and training practices are recommended.     

Morality and Sexual Issues in Older Adolescent Females

A follow-up study to Carol Gilligan’s work in female adolescent moral development was conducted in the presentation of a hypothetical moral sexual situation to eight older, culturally diverse adolescent females in their first year of college. The naming of a “Good Friend’s” conflict and the personal moral reasoning of the interviewees were audiotaped, transcribed and analyzed using a sequence of four readings as subscribed by Gilligan and her associates. Examples of Justice reasoning, a Care reasoning, and an Integrated moral reasoning are presented along with suggestions for educators and therapists.     

Multivariate meta-analysis for data consortia,individual patient meta-analysis,and pooling projects

We discuss maximum likelihood and estimating equations methods for combining results from multiple studies in pooling projects and data consortia using a meta-analysis model, when the multivariate estimates with their covariance matrices are available. The estimates to be combined are typically regression slopes, often from relative risk models in biomedical and epidemiologic applications. We generalize the existing univariate meta-analysis model and investigate the efficiency advantages of the multivariate methods, relative to the univariate ones. We generalize a popular univariate test for between-studies homogeneity to a multivariate test. The methods are applied to a pooled analysis of type of carotenoids in relation to lung cancer incidence from seven prospective studies. In these data, the expected gain in efficiency was evident, sometimes to a large extent. Finally, we study the finite sample properties of the estimators and compare the multivariate ones to their univariate counterparts.     

BRIEF FAMILY-FOCUSED INTERVENTION ON THE PEDIATRIC CANCER UNIT

Behavioral problems that frequently occur in pediatric cancer treatment settings, such as food refusal and the resistance to treatment, have been successfully treated utilizing family therapy techniques. The theoretical background that supports this mode of intervention and several case studies are presented.     

The impact of funding sources and board representation on consumer control of service delivery in organizations serving low-income communities

This article examines the influence of funding sources and board members on the degree to which an organization enhances consumer control of the organization or limits access to services for some groups of clients. Based on a study of decision making in organizations serving three low-income communities, a limited degree of board influence on an organization's choice of service strategies can be traced to both the power of donors to demand service strategies that reflect their interests and the efforts of staff members to limit the ability of the board to engage in policy-making. The high degree of dependence of low-income communities on external funding restricts the development of boards as decision-making bodies that effectively reflect community interests.     

Crusading Journalism: Changing Public Attitudes and Policy-Making Agendas

This is the third in a series of studies on the agenda-settingeffects of news media investigations of social issues. Researchershad access to a local five-part television investigation ofrepeatedly brutal police officers before it was broadcast inthe February 1983 sweeps period. Using random-digit-dialingto select a sample of Chicago area viewers, researchers surveyed428 members of the general public on their attitudes towardvarious social issues, including the conduct of city policeofficers. We hypothesized that respondents exposed to the serieswould change their responses to questions about police brutality,which they did in statistically significant numbers. A similarsurvey of so-called elites, policy makers or persons with aprior interest in police behavior, also was undertaken beforeand repeated after the series was broadcast. Although no statisticallysignificant change in elite opinions of police behavior occurred,small but statistically significant changes in knowledge ofspecific police acts were recorded. Researchers discuss thefindings of study three and speculate about the different agenda-settingeffects of the three series.     

The mental health of the never-married

Although the interaction between mental health and marital status has been the object of much social scientific research, little is known about the mental health of never-married people. This article reviews research relevant to mental health and marital status as it pertains to never-marrieds. Methodological problems and current gaps in such research are pointed out. The mental health of never-marrieds is examined from three popular models of mental health—the social protection, social reaction, and social selection models. Each model offers competing explanations for differences in rates between married and unmarried people and between unmarried men and women. Suggestions are offered for improvement in researching the mental health of this neglected group.     

TRANSITION TO DIVORCE:

This study integrates social exchange theory and the literature on stressful life events into a life-course approach to women's marital duration. We hypothesize that circumstances facilitating a successful transition into marriage have a cumulative effect, enhancing the likelihood of increased marital duration. By contrast, factors easing the transition to divorce have a negative impact on marital duration. We draw on a sample of 313 wives and mothers in an upstate New York community interviewed in 1956 and reinterviewed thirty years later. We find that structural factors (marital duration and previous marriage) and factors that increase women's options outside of marriage, such as self-esteem and returning to school, are more important than attitudinal factors in hastening the transition to divorce. Factors that ease the transition to marriage (similarity in religious beliefs and educational level) may not necessarily affects its duration.     

Perceptions of Family-Friendly Policies: University Versus Corporate Employees

This study adds to a growing literature examining the impact of family-friendly policies in a variety of industries by examining the differences between corporate and university employees in their subjective perceptions of work-family policies. Differences by gender and dependent care responsibility in these perceptions in the university sample are examined and compared to results that have been found in corporate settings. Data collected in a university setting was compared to similar data of thirty-seven Business Week 1000 companies. The results show that the university sample employees were significantly more negative toward their workplace's work-family climate than were the corporate sample employees. In addition, significant gender and dependent care responsibility differences exist within the university sample.