Student Perceptions of Web-Assisted Teaching Strategies

This study determines which Web-assisted teaching strategies social work students from a single university experience and perceive as valuable. The results demonstrate that most faculty use email, post grades online, and give out student email addresses to the class. Students perceive email communication with the instructor and the online provision of course information as the most valuable strategies. The impact of several student characteristics on value perception is also examined, revealing varying levels of influence. These findings suggest that the strategies students report as the most valuable are not necessarily the strategies most frequently used by faculty.     

Decision Making for Risk Management: A Comparison of Graphical Methods for Presenting Quantitative Uncertainty

Previous research has shown that people err when making decisions aided by probability information. Surprisingly, there has been little exploration into the accuracy of decisions made based on many commonly used probabilistic display methods. Two experiments examined the ability of a comprehensive set of such methods to effectively communicate critical information to a decision maker and influence confidence in decision making. The second experiment investigated the performance of these methods under time pressure, a situational factor known to exacerbate judgmental errors. Ten commonly used graphical display methods were randomly assigned to participants. Across eight scenarios in which a probabilistic outcome was described, participants were asked questions regarding graph interpretation (e.g., mean) and made behavioral choices (i.e., act; do not act) based on the provided information indicated that decision‐maker accuracy differed by graphical method; error bars and boxplots led to greatest mean estimation and behavioral choice accuracy whereas complementary cumulative probability distribution functions were associated with the highest probability estimation accuracy. Under time pressure, participant performance decreased when making behavioral choices.     

Processes of Religious and Spiritual Influence in Adolescence: Introduction to a Special Section

This paper serves as the lead article introducing the special section of the Journal of Research on Adolescence focused on processes of religious and spiritual influence during adolescence. The purpose of the special section is to review prior theory and research on the processes by which religiosity and spirituality might influence youth outcomes, present original cutting‐edge theory and research on processes of religious and spiritual influence, and point to the most fruitful directions and methodological approaches for future work in the area. The special section is guided by eight research questions which push researchers to go beyond mere bivariate associations between religion/spirituality and youth outcomes to unpacking the processes of influence at work.     

Perceived Risks of Conventional and Organic Produce: Pesticides, Pathogens, and Natural Toxins

Public risk perceptions and demand for safer food are important factors shaping agricultural production practices in the United States. Despite documented food safety concerns, little attempt has been made to elicit consumers' subjective risk judgments for a range of food safety hazards or to identify factors most predictive of perceived food safety risks. In this study, over 700 conventional and organic fresh produce buyers in the Boston area were surveyed for their perceived food safety risks. Survey results showed that consumers perceived relatively high risks associated with the consumption and production of conventionally grown produce compared with other public health hazards. For example, conventional and organic food buyers estimated the median annual fatality rate due to pesticide residues on conventionally grown food to be about 50 per million and 200 per million, respectively, which is similar in magnitude to the annual mortality risk from motor vehicle accidents in the United States. Over 90% of survey respondents also perceived a reduction in pesticide residue risk associated with substituting organically grown produce for conventionally grown produce, and nearly 50% perceived a risk reduction due to natural toxins and microbial pathogens. Multiple regression analyses indicate that only a few factors are consistently predictive of higher risk perceptions, including feelings of distrust toward regulatory agencies and the safety of the food supply. A variety of factors were found to be significant predictors of specific categories of food hazards, suggesting that consumers may view food safety risks as dissimilar from one another. Based on study findings, it is recommended that future agricultural policies and risk communication efforts utilize a comparative risk approach that targets a range of food safety hazards.     

Negotiating Partnerships in Research on Poverty With Community-Based Agencies

This article argues that researchers must negotiate true partnerships with poor women, maintain mutual support systems, and build mutual respect, if they are to have success in challenging poverty through research. The experience of establishing partnerships with community-based agencies is discussed and the rationale for including poor women in partnerships is considered in terms of the benefits and the challenges for researchers. Among the critical issues are problems of difference, including ethnicity, social class, and gender and relationships between researchers and participants. These issues are highlighted using two examples. A negative outcome from noncollaboration is represented by the case of an after-school program in an inner-city school. The failure to establish collaboration leads to disappointing results. A successful case is described by the cooperative efforts between researchers and poor women in a program for substance abuse. Several strategies and recommendations are offered in conclusion.     

A Comparison of Organic and Conventional Fresh Produce Buyers in the Boston Area

Food safety concerns and the demand for organically grown produce have increased significantly in the United States over the last decade. Key differences in lifestyle characteristics, food safety attitudes and beliefs, perceived food safety risks, and valuation of health risk reductions between organic and conventional food buyers remain largely unknown, however. To better characterize how buyers of organic fresh produce differ from their conventional counterparts, over 700 food shoppers were sampled from ten major retail stores in the Boston area. Survey results show that self-reported organic buyers are more likely than conventional buyers to engage in a variety of health-promoting and environmentally friendly behaviors. Organic buyers are less trusting of federal food safety agencies than are conventional buyers, and perceive greater benefits associated with organically grown produce than do their conventional counterparts. Further, organic buyers have significantly higher risk perceptions than do conventional buyers for food safety hazards associated with conventionally grown produce. Compared to conventional buyers, organic produce buyers also perceive significant risk reductions associated with switching to organically grown produce and are willing to pay a higher price to reduce perceived food safety risks. Few sociodemographic differences between buyer types were observed, possibly due to how organic and conventional food stores were matched. Survey findings highlight the need for greater public education about a range of food safety issues and farming practices to ensure that consumers are making informed decisions in the marketplace.     

Miracles of love: The use of metaphor in egg donor ads1

In recent years, the appearance of egg donor advertisements in American college newspapers, sometimes offering five‐ and six‐figure fees to ‘genetically gifted’ donors, has given rise to critical comment on both sides of the Atlantic, and has caused some to fear that the use of these procedures will eventually result in the creation of ‘designer babies’ with preselected genetic qualities. Whether such fears will be realized depends, to a great extent, upon how both the participants themselves and society as a whole come to view and understand these procedures. This article explores emerging images of assisted reproduction through an analysis of the use of metaphor in egg donor ads that appeared in the student newspaper of the University of California, Los Angeles. I argue that the attitudes displayed in these ads result from a mapping of existing cultural stereotypes associated with biological parenthood, including the role of childbearing in marriage and ‘coupledom’, onto the assisted‐reproduction process, and that these metaphors are used precisely because they construct this cultural model and adapt it to the new reality of the assisted‐conception experience.     

The Monetary Value of Voluntary Work: Conceptual and Empirical Comparisons

The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive comparison of different valuation approaches for estimating the monetary value of voluntary work both conceptually and empirically. This study adds to the literature by suggesting two approaches: (1) the leisure-adjusted opportunity cost approach (OCA), which corrects for voluntary work being a leisure substitute, is suggested as an alternative to the alternative-employment wage approach (AEWA). And (2) the volunteer judgment replacement wage approach (RWA), where volunteers state a wage rate that they consider adequate for the task they perform, is suggested as an alternative to the generic RWA. Using data on volunteers in German non-profit sports clubs (n = 566), the valuations show that the monetary value of 1 h of voluntary work is highest for the generic RWA (€14.27), followed by the AEWA (€14.03), the volunteer judgment RWA (€9.98), and the leisure-adjusted OCA (€1.78).