Professionalization of evaluative research: Conflict as a sign of health

Morell and Flaherty (1978) present arguments about the current status of evaluative research as a profession. This paper contains a critique, using a process model of professional development, of the perspectives employed by Morell and Flaherty. Issues discussed are the nature and substance of conflicts in evaluative research, including conflicts over methodological perspectives, the role of the evaluator in program planning, and the appropriate uses and users of evaluative information. The paper concludes with a discussion of the needs within the profession of evaluative research if it is to remain viable and responsive to change.     

Fertility, labor force participation, and tastes: An economic psychology perspective

Economic and economic psychology models of wife's labor force participation and family size decisions are examined within the context of a marriage cohort. Among other results, it was found that tastes influence the demand for work and number of children, along with traditional economic determinants such as opportunity costs and income. Tastes have an especially strong impact when modeled as unobservables, in order to correct for measurement error. Further, the often observed empirical association between labor force participation and fertility is found to be spurious and not necessarily causal in nature. That is, labor force participation and fertility negatively covary largely as a consequence of common economic and taste antecedents and not due to reciprocal interactions. Hypotheses were tested using a new structural equation methodology.     

Binge drinking and alcohol-related problems among community college students: implications for prevention policy

Binge drinking and alcohol-related problems among students at traditional 4-year universities have been well documented. However, little is known about the frequency of their such behaviors and its consequences among community college students, who comprise roughly 44% of all undergraduate students in the United States. The present study examined binge drinking and alcohol-related problems in 762 (61% female) ethnically diverse (65% Caucasian, 20% Hispanic, 9% African American) community college students (mean age = 26.23, SD = 7.81). Based on gender-specific criteria, 25% engaged in binge drinking. As compared to nonbingers and current abstainers, bingers had higher rates of drinking-related problems. The implications of these findings for research and for prevention/intervention programs are discussed.     

Pilot test of a home-based program to prevent perceived insufficient milk

Problem

Although the World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, only 22% of U.S. mothers do so. Mothers’ perceived insufficient milk (PIM) is the primary reason for breastfeeding discontinuation globally. There are two changeable causes of PIM: (1) mothers’ misinterpretation of their infant’s behavior, and (2) mothers’ lack of confidence in their ability to breastfeed.

Maternal Age,Psychological Maturity,Parenting Cognitions,and Mother–Infant Interaction

In the context of the trend toward delayed childbearing, the aim of this study was to examine relations among maternal age and the quality of maternal interactive behavior at 7 months assessed using sensitivity and mind‐mindedness, while also considering whether age effects were attributable to psychological maturity and parenting cognitions. Participants were 150 Australian mothers (mean age 33‐years) and their firstborn infants who were participating in a prospective study of parenthood. Path analysis showed maternal age had both direct and indirect associations with maternal interactive behavior. Older mothers made more mind‐related comments to their infants. They were also more sensitive; however, this effect was indirect and explained by greater psychological maturity (hardiness) and a more internal locus of control with regard to parenting. Results suggest that older maternal age may confer some benefits in terms of responsive parenting in infancy.     

Social Action Research and the Commission on Community Interrelations

The Commission on Community Interrelations (CCI) was officially launched in 1945 by the American Jewish Congress (AJC) with Kurt Lewin as its chief consultant. Its intent was to bring research to bear on religious and racial discrimination. Espousing the ideals of democratic social engineering, CCI's action research projects aimed for scientific credibility and social utility. This article examines CCI's development from 1944 to 1952. By the early 1950s, changes within the AJC and in local communities and increased legal and mass protest strategies for racial justice as well as changes within social psychology as a subdiscipline challenged the viability of CCI's action research programs.     

On minimum <Emphasis Type="Italic">m</Emphasis>-connected <Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis>-dominating set problem in unit disc graphs

Minimum m-connected k-dominating set problem is as follows: Given a graph G=(V,E) and two natural numbers m and k, find a subset S⊆V of minimal size such that every vertex in V∖S is adjacent to at least k vertices in S and the induced graph of S is m-connected. In this paper we study this problem with unit disc graphs and small m, which is motivated by the design of fault-tolerant virtual backbone for wireless sensor networks. We propose two approximation algorithms with constant performance ratios for m≤2. We also discuss how to design approximation algorithms for the problem with arbitrarily large m. This work was supported in part by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong under Grant No. CityU 1165/04E, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 70221001, 10531070 and 10771209.