A multiple testing protocol for exploratory data analysis and the local misclassification rate

A false discovery rate (FDR) procedure is often employed in exploratory data analysis to determine which among thousands or millions of attributes are worthy of follow-up analysis. However, these methods tend to discover the most statistically significant attributes, which need not be the most worthy of further exploration. This article provides a new FDR-controlling method that allows for the nature of the exploratory analysis to be considered when determining which attributes are discovered. To illustrate, a study in which the objective is to classify discoveries into one of several clusters is considered, and a new FDR method that minimizes the misclassification rate is developed. It is shown analytically and with simulation that the proposed method performs better than competing methods.     

Cross-Field Comparison of Ethics Education: Golden Rules and Particulars

Research misconduct negatively impacts the scientific community and society in general. Providing training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) to researchers is one viable approach to minimizing research misconduct. Although recent evidence suggests ethics training can indeed be effective, little empirical work has examined the similarities and differences across fields. In the present study, we analyzed 62 empirical studies in engineering, biomedical science, social science, and mixed fields. The findings suggest certain instructional principles, or “golden rules,” apply generally to all fields. These golden rules include maintaining a field-specific or field-general approach and emphasizing processes in training. The findings also suggest that content areas contributing to instructional effectiveness vary as a function of field. Generally, it appears that all fields may benefit from taking a multi-pronged approach to ethics education wherein the salient field issues are covered. Implications for RCR education are discussed.     

Reducing Risk for Youth Violence by Promoting Healthy Development with Pyramid Mentoring: A Proposal for a Culturally Centered Group Mentoring

This article proposes ways to promote healthy psychosocial development among at-risk young African American males with a multigenerational culturally centered group mentoring intervention. The potential for addressing commonalities of risk factors for both internalized and externalized responses to environment stressors is discussed. The authors propose an innovative group intervention that is influenced by social learning theory, the triadic theory of influence, identity, and cognitive development theory. The article also highlights research that suggests benefits of culturally and therapeutically centered group mentoring. The focus of the proposed intervention is on psychosocial assets that are utilized to nurture life skills developed within the framework of a culturally centered multigenerational group mentoring process called pyramid mentoring.     

Translating Bourdieu into youth studies

ABSTRACT

Against a backdrop of lively discussion about the best ways to do youth studies, or sociology of youth, this article asks: Can Pierre Bourdieu’s work be translated into youth studies in ways that benefit the field? We begin by considering Bourdieu’s thoughts on the category of ‘youth’ using a new translation of this text, and then turn to an important discussion by Furlong, Woodman, and Wyn about certain long standing tensions in youth studies. These tensions are between writers engaging in the ‘structure versus agency’ debate that is mapped onto the ‘culture versus transitions’ binary. We consider the case for adopting a ‘middle-ground’ represented by Bourdieu’s writings. We argue that many in youth studies work from an unacknowledged substantialist tradition, which is contra to Bourdieu's relational perspective. The result includes misunderstandings of Bourdieu's thinking and expectations of his work, for example, that it can pass certain empirical tests. We argue that if Bourdieu's relational perspective is to be translated into youth studies, we will need a more determined effort to understand that perspective first.     

Evaluating paired categorical data when the pairing is lost

We encountered a problem in which a study's experimental design called for the use of paired data, but the pairing between subjects had been lost during the data collection procedure. Thus we were presented with a data set consisting of pre and post responses but with no way of determining the dependencies between our observed pre and post values. The aim of the study was to assess whether an intervention called Self-Revelatory Performance had an impact on participant's perceptions of Alzheimer's disease. The participant's responses were measured on an Affect grid before the intervention and on a separate grid after. To address the underlying question in light of the lost pairing we utilized a modified bootstrap approach to create a null hypothesized distribution for our test statistic, which was the distance between the two Affect Grids' Centers of Mass. Using this approach we were able to reject our null hypothesis and conclude that there was evidence the intervention influenced perceptions about the disease.     

How Do We Know What Works? A Review and Critique of Current Practices in Ethics Training Evaluation

Training is a costly investment. As such, it is of great interest to know the extent to which that investment is yielding a positive return. Recent meta-analytic efforts have observed that ethics training programs are, indeed, having a positive effect, leading to the conclusion that the programs are working. However, they have also uncovered considerable variability in the effectiveness of ethics training programs, which leads to the purpose of the present study—to review current practices in ethics training evaluation. Through this review of 243 studies, consisting of 380 ethics trainings, we identified major themes in evaluation practices and training design. The tradeoffs associated with these evaluation procedures and designs are discussed, along with directions for future research.     

Whole Curriculum Mapping of Assessment: Cartographies of Assessment and Learning

Approaches to curriculum design often occur at the unit or course level within social work education. Only rarely have ‘whole of curriculum’ approaches been discussed in the literature. This paper describes the creation of a ‘whole of curriculum approach’ to social work teaching and learning within an Australian University. The project involved the creation of a methodology and conceptual framework to map assessment across an entire social work curriculum. In doing so, the mapping exercise provided a way to evaluate the sequencing and integration of assessment tasks across the four-year degree pathway, and judge the effectiveness that such assessments fit with theories and research on assessment more broadly, and with the graduate outcomes for a social work degree. This paper outlines the background to the 2013 assessment project and its alignment to the curriculum mapping. It argues and explains how a systematic approach to mapping and improving social work curriculums can be achieved.     

An Autoethnographic Exploration of Learning and Teaching Reflective Practice

Learning and demonstrating reflective skills for practice is a key requirement for students and practitioners in Social Work in Australia. Yet teaching and assessing reflective practice continues to present a number of practical and ethical issues for educators. This paper will discuss reflective practice in the context of an autoethnographic study that researched learning to be a social worker and educator. The findings from the study suggest that educators should be cautious about the extent to which educational activities direct attention to student selves for the purposes of building skills in reflective practice. The conclusions suggest that the moral order of the discipline, the hidden curriculum and the course culture in addition to the actual activities can have a significant impact on the extent to which reflective practice assessments deliver learning benefits to students.