Durable Research,Portable Findings: Rhetorical Methods in Case Study Research

ABSTRACT

Case studies have been a central methodology employed by scholars working in the rhetoric of science and technical communication. However, concerns have been raised about how cases are constructed and collected, and what they convey. The authors reflect on how rhetoricians of science and technical communication researchers can – and do – construct a variety of case-based mixed-methods studies in ways that may make our research more portable and durable without undercutting the important and central role of case-based analysis.     

Rhetorical meta-language to promote the development of students’ writing skills and subject matter understanding

Background: Feedback is one of the most significant factors for students’ development of writing skills. For feedback to be successful, however, students and teachers need a common language – a meta-language – for discussing texts. Not least because in science education such a meta-language might contribute to improve writing training and feedback-giving.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore students’ perception of teachers’ feedback given on their texts in two genres, and to suggest how writing training and feedback-giving could become more efficient.

Sample: In this study were included 44 degree project students in biology and molecular biology, and 21 supervising teachers at a Swedish university.

Design and methods: The study concerned students’ writing about their degree projects in two genres: scientific writing and popular science writing. The data consisted of documented teacher feedback on the students’ popular science texts. It also included students’ and teachers’ answers to questionnaires about writing and feedback. All data were collected during the spring of 2012. Teachers’ feedback, actual and recalled – by students and teachers, respectively – was analysed and compared using the so-called Canons of rhetoric.

Results: While the teachers recalled the given feedback as mainly positive, most students recalled only negative feedback. According to the teachers, suggested improvements concerned firstly the content, and secondly the structure of the text. In contrast, the students mentioned language style first, followed by content.

Conclusions: The disagreement between students and teachers regarding how and what feedback was given on the students texts confirm the need of improved strategies for writing training and feedback-giving in science education. We suggest that the rhetorical meta-language might play a crucial role in overcoming the difficulties observed in this study. We also discuss how training of writing skills may contribute to students’ understanding of their subject matter.     

Rhetorical legacies of the National Woman's Party: Shuttling rhetorics,endurance, and survival

ABSTRACT

This contribution explores “shuttling rhetorics” to help explain why the story of the National Woman's Party (NWP) framed many suffrage centennial celebrations. Drawing parallels between the tactics of the NWP and the Greenham Common Peace Camp of the 1980s and 1990s, this essay puts forth shuttling rhetorics as a way to trace movement as a mode of resistance. As an analytic, shuttling rhetorics allow critics to unsettle traditional understandings of protest rhetorical situations and understand how (mostly white) protestors’ expectations of violence and survival expose their inherent dependence on body privilege.     

Neglected Facets of Peirce’s ‘Speculative’ Rhetoric

Abstract

The author presents a novel interpretation of Peirce’s ‘speculative rhetoric’ (the third and culminating branch of his general theory of signs), then draws out the most important implications of Peircean rhetoric for understanding our educational practices and, more generally, human learning. Improvisation and the unanticipated emergence of novel purposes are herein stressed.     

The pedagogy of the impressed: how teachers become victims of technological vision

In Queensland, Australia, a beginning or probationary teacher can be appointed as either a permanent employee, or on a temporary engagement, or on 'contract'. Temporary engagements for beginning teachers represent an example of the trend towards the increasing casualisation of the teaching profession. There is a paucity of research on this topic. This paper reports on the results of a questionnaire administered to primary and secondary beginning teachers whose first appointment in 1997 was a temporary engagement. It reports on their feelings, opinions and perceptions towards such temporary engagements. The key finding was that the majority of beginning teachers on temporary engagement desired to be permanent employees, the main reason cited being that of job security. The majority of the participants found it extremely difficult to cope with the uncertainty surrounding the practice of temporary engagements. Identified also were a number of confusing perceptions perpetuated by a lack of understanding about obtaining a permanent position with Education Queensland. The findings suggest that lack of job security does need to be acknowledged as a critical factor for the beginning teacher, that the conflict between the need for job security and the changes in employment practices must be addressed, and that, under school-based management, the principal needs to take professional responsibility for the special needs of this beginning teacher group.     

The vacuous rhetoric of diversity: exploring how institutional responses to national racial incidences effect faculty of color perceptions of university commitment to diversity

Abstract

Recent news cycles have illuminated the disparate, racialized experiences of Black people in the United States but university leadership responses have been reactionary, or worse non-responsive. This study examines how university responses to national racial incidences such as the police brutality affect how faculty of color in one discipline understand the university’s commitment to diversity and ultimately how it affects the faculty experience. Illuminating how university actions affect not only faculty attitudes, but also faculty work has implications on broader university diversity outcomes and rectifying the racist, colonial founding of universities as national institutions. Findings show that there was increased race-related service taxation that was paired with resiliency and resistance tactics, and self- and community-driven coalition building. There are implications for institutional leaders around increasing a diversified student body through attention to community incidences and redefining community relationships to the university.     

Q-Rhetoric and Controlled Equivocation: Revising “The Scientific Study of Subjectivity” for Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

ABSTRACT

This article offers a revision to an existing social science methodology, Q methodology, through “Q-Rhetoric.” After detailing Q methodology’s theoretical underpinnings and practical method, and persistent critiques of the methodology, the article employs perspectives from rhetorical theory and Amerindian anthropology to suggest a methodological correction. It concludes by detailing the use of Q-Rhetoric to intervene in a Wisconsin stream management controversy, proposing Q-Rhetoric as a pragmatic and theoretically sound methodology for working across disciplinary divides.     

Dolores Huerta,the United Farm Workers,and people power: Rhetorical participation in Latina/o/x suffrage and social movements

ABSTRACT

Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, was and still is involved in a number of social justice causes, including voter participation. Since her days working at the Community Service Organization in the 1950s, she has long advocated for registering and organizing voters as part of a broader strategy to enfranchise Mexican, Mexican American, and other historically marginalized groups. This essay explores a few brief examples of her calls to get out the vote and participate in social movements more broadly to address the deep-seated problems of “citizenship excess” that face Mexican, Mexican American, and other immigrant communities (as well as many others) in the United States. In addition, Huerta has strongly advocated for “people power” as a way to get marginalized people into activism, especially those with intersectional identities related to race, ethnicity, gender, class standing, sexuality, and political orientations.     

Attitudes towards science and views of nature of science among elementary school students in terms of gender,cultural background and grade level variables

Background: There is a growing interest in investigating attitudes towards science and views of Nature of Science among elementary grade students in terms of gender, cultural backgrounds, and grade level variables.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes toward science and views of Nature of Science among Spanish students, Spanish students of gypsy ethnicity and second-generation Spanish students with east-European heritage, and to determine if their attitudes are related to their views of Nature of Science.

Sample: Data for this study was gathered from seven elementary schools in Spain, forming a convenience sample of 149 students enrolled from 2nd to 5th grade.

Design and Methods: The Nature of Science Instrument (NOSI) and an adaptation of the Test of Science Related Attitudes scale (TOSRA) were used. Follow-up structured interviews were performed with 15 participants.

Results: Regarding gender, boys had better attitudes toward Science than girls but more naïve views of the empirical Nature of Science. In relation to cultural background, second generation Spanish students with east-European heritage reported significantly better attitudes toward Science than Spanish students and Spanish students of gypsy ethnicity. No differences in Nature of Science views were found. Concerning grade level, third graders had more positive attitudes toward Science than fifth and sixth graders and more informed views of the tentative Nature of Science. Finally, no relation between Nature of Science views and attitudes towards Science were identified.

Conclusion: This study stress the need to address the steady decline in positive attitude toward Science and to improve students’ views of Nature of Science from early elementary grades, and to use gender and culturally inclusive science teaching strategies.     

High school students’ approaches to learning physics with relationship to epistemic views on physics and conceptions of learning physics

Background and purpose : Knowing how students learn physics is a central goal of physics education. The major purpose of this study is to examine the strength of the predictive power of students’ epistemic views and conceptions of learning in terms of their approaches to learning in physics. Sample, design and method : A total of 279 Taiwanese high school students ranging from 15 to 18?years old participated in this study. Three questionnaires for assessing high school students’ epistemic views on physics, conceptions of learning physics and approaches to learning physics were developed. Step-wise regression was performed to examine the predictive power of epistemic views on physics and conceptions of learning physics in terms of their approaches to learning physics. Results and conclusion: The results indicated that, in general, compared to epistemic views on physics, conceptions of learning physics are more powerful in predicting students’ approaches to learning physics in light of the regression models. That is, students’ beliefs about learning, compared with their beliefs about knowledge, may be more associated with their learning approaches. Moreover, this study revealed that the higher-level conceptions of learning physics such as ‘Seeing in a new way’ were more likely to be positively correlated with the deep approaches to learning physics, whereas the lower-level conceptions such as ‘Testing’ were more likely to positively explain the surface approaches, as well as to negatively predict the deep approaches to learning physics.     

The feminist civics lesson of 19: The Musical

ABSTRACT

This essay examines 19: The Musical—a memorial project that marks the suffrage centennial. The author employs an intersectional lens to examine the arguments this memorialization makes about a suffrage past as well as a feminist present and future. This intersectional emphasis is especially important given the prevalent present-day assumption of the suffrage movement as an entirely white women's endeavor—one that especially forgets the racism and exclusivity that riddled the suffrage movement.     

Childhood experiences of maltreatment,reflective functioning and attachment in adolescent and young adult mothers: Effects on mother-infant interaction and emotion regulation

BackgroundMaternal childhood experiences of maltreatment affect parenting and have consequences for a child’s social-emotional development. Adolescent mothers have a higher frequency of a history of maltreatment than adult mothers. However few studies have analyzed the interactions between adolescent mothers with a history of childhood maltreatment and their infants.ObjectiveThe aim of the study was to examine the effect of maternal childhood experiences of maltreatment on mother-infant emotion regulation at infant 3 months, considering both infant and mother individual emotion regulation and their mutual regulation.ParticipantsParticipants were 63 adolescent and young adult mother-infant dyads recruited at a hospital.MethodsThe mothers were administered the Adult Attachment Interview to evaluate reflective functioning and attachment and the Childhood Experiences of Care and Abuse was used to evaluate maternal childhood experiences of maltreatment. Mother-infant interactions were coded with a modified version of the Infant Caregiver Engagement Phases.ResultsDyads with mothers with childhood maltreatment (vs dyads with mothers with no maltreatment) spent more time in negative emotional mutual regulation (p = .009) and less time in positive and neutral mutual emotion regulation (p = .019). Cumulative maternal childhood experiences of maltreatment were associated positively with mother and infant negative states at individual and dyadic level and with the AAI scales of Passivity and Unresolved Trauma (p < .05). The effect of cumulative maternal childhood experiences of maltreatment on mother-infant emotion regulation was direct and not mediated by maternal attachment and reflective function.ConclusionsMaternal childhood experiences of maltreatment increase the risk connected to early motherhood, affecting mother-infant emotion regulation.     

Contentious dialogue: University presidential response and the 2016 U.S. presidential election

ABSTRACT

In recent years, technology has made it possible, and at times critical, for college and university presidents to increase their campus-wide public communication. However, there is little research that analyses these frequent and timely presidential communications. Using grounded theory, this study took steps to fill this gap by analysing the unprecedented response campuses had to the 2016 United States presidential election of Donald Trump. The analysis focused on the responses of presidents from the fifty state flagship universities and found emergent themes of unity, contentious election, negative event, university values, civil dialogue, services offered, and emotional rhetoric, while also finding significance in whether the letters were sent proactively or reactively.     

A Canonical Correlation Analysis ofBehavior Problems and School Achievementfor Different Grades,Sexes, and Races

Abstract

Using education survey data from 6,883 Grade 6 students in 148 schools and from 6,868 Grade 8 students in 92 schools in New Brunswick, Canada, the author applied student and school characteristics to explain differences among students and schools regarding students' sense of belonging to school. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed that in Grades 6 and 8, discrepancies in students' sense of belonging were mainly within schools, rather than between schools. At the student level, sense of belonging in both grades was affected more by students' mental and physical conditions and less by their individual and family characteristics. Students' self-esteem was the single most important predictor of their sense of belonging, followed by their health status. At the school level, school climate (academic press or expectation in Grade 6 and disciplinary climate in Grade 8) was more important than school context in shaping students' sense of belonging.     

Brooklyn College Research in Teacher Effectiveness

Abstract

Relationships between grade-estimates and class-standing of college students and their ratings of selected instructor-characteristics were determined by chi square analyses of a standard questionnaire completed by 1,975 Ss enrolled in a state university. Students expecting high grades rated their instructors significantly higher than did those expecting low grades. Freshmen viewed grading policies more favorably than did upper-class Ss. Data indicate that instructors might seriously consider reducing the complexity of their classroom presentations for freshmen and, conversely, increasing the sophistication of their pedagogical skills for seniors.     

Physical or psychological child abuse and neglect: Experiences,reporting behavior and positions toward mandatory reporting of pediatricians in Berlin,Germany

BackgroundChild abuse and neglect (CAN) are common, with a high number of undetected victims. Since 2012, the German Federal Child Protection Act grants doctors an opportunity to circumvent their duty of confidentiality if they suspect CAN may be occurring, despite the reporting of CAN not being mandatory.ObjectiveThis study examines pediatricians’ reporting behavior in cases of CAN and what their attitudes are toward mandatory reporting.Participants and settingAll 378 primary care pediatricians and pediatric psychiatrists in the German capital of Berlin were asked to complete a questionnaire anonymously. The questionnaire was sent by mail to all primary care pediatricians (N = 302) and pediatric psychiatrists (N = 76) in private practice.MethodsPatterns of reporting, response tendencies, and correlations with socio-economic factors were described and statistically examined.ResultsThe response rate was 42% (N = 157). Of the pediatricians, 28% report every suspected case to the authorities. The majority, namely 73%, has difficulties in detecting CAN, and 64% would like additional training. Furthermore, 52% are aware of legally guaranteed counseling options being available if CAN is suspected. Whereas 71% consider mandatory reporting necessary to protect children more effectively, 57% are sure it would simplify their work.ConclusionsMore training on diagnosing CAN should be offered to pediatricians. It is necessary to have a full and frank discussion about making reporting mandatory in cases where there is a reasonable suspicion of CAN. Doctors believe that mandatory reporting standardizes and simplifies working procedures. It may possibly reduce the number of undetected cases of CAN and would allow more children and families access to early protection and supporting measures.     

The Ethical Function of Research and Teaching

Abstract

It is the epistemic as well as the ethical responsibility of academics to aim to approach their research and teaching with a proper understanding of the ultimate ethical purpose or telos of their defining activities and products,which is the practical aim of promoting human flourishing. Minimally, academics should aim at understanding, and a key component of understanding is to understand the ideal ethical purpose of what is being researched and taught. For instance, sadistic Nazi medical researchers and teachers—Mengeles of sorts—in addition to having reprehensible commitments,would be significantly ignorant about their own intellectual concerns by virtue of their abject (belief-expressing) commitments. I will show that insights drawn from extreme cases such as this one apply across disciplines and in less extreme cases.     

Posthuman feminism and the rhetoric of silent cinema: Distributed agency,ontic media,and the possibility of a networked historiography

This essay pursues a pressing question in the study of posthuman rhetoric: Now that distributed agency has, to a degree, been theorized, to what use can it be put by feminists? In attempting one provisional response, the essay argues on behalf of the importance of a posthuman conception of ontic media, recuperating feminist agency not within a particular historical individual but, instead, in the relationships between her mediational networks and their nodes. Taking as its primary artifact Anita Loos’s groundbreaking 1916 film His Picture in the Papers, the essay historicizes and articulates Loos’s particular brand of indirect-qua-distributed feminist agency. In doing so, the essay gestures more broadly toward the role of such networks in the recovery of feminist critiques previously resistant to historicization due to their distributed nature.     

Coparenting,Parenting Stress,and Authoritative Parenting among Hong Kong Chinese Mothers and Fathers

SYNOPSIS

Objective. This paper examines whether the effects of spousal coparenting on authoritative parenting are mediated through parenting stress. Design. A total of 166 married, heterosexual couples in Hong Kong with a preschool child provided information about their spouse’s level of cooperation and triangulation in their coparenting relationship at Time 1; their own parenting stress at Times 1 & 2; and their authoritative parenting at Times 1, 2, and 3. Results. Cooperation at Time 1 affected fathers’ authoritative parenting at Time 3 completely mediated through fathers’ parenting stress at Time 2. There were no mediated or direct effects on authoritative parenting for mothers, although triangulation at Time 1 predicted mothers’ parenting stress at Time 2. Conclusion. Parenting stress mediates the relation between coparenting and authoritative parenting for fathers, suggesting the need to encourage cooperation from mothers. In this way fathers’ stress related to their role as parent will decrease, helping to promote their authoritative parenting.     

Research capacity for local innovation: the case of conservation agriculture in Ethiopia,Malawi and Mozambique

Purpose: The limited uptake of improved agricultural practices in Africa raise questions on the functionality of current agricultural research systems. Our purpose is to explore the capacity for local innovation within the research systems of Ethiopia, Malawi and Mozambique.

Design/methodology/approach: Using Conservation Agriculture (CA) as a case study, we qualitatively explore with 26 locally based agricultural researchers the context of CA research and promotion, including their perceptions on persistent research gaps and issues in closing them.

Findings: Respondents identified that CA was not yet a finished product, with concerns regarding the benefit, feasibility and relevance of CA implementation. They asserted that while further adaptation was required, they were unable to do this due to institutional constraints within their research, extension and policy contexts.

Practical implications: We find that CA continues to be considered a donor-driven intervention in its current form and requires substantial further adaptation to local contexts before researchers will deem it ready for farmer uptake. The five research gaps identified by respondents highlight practical areas where further adaptations must occur.

Theoretical implications: Our findings suggest a lack of participatory research and extension most likely reflects limited financial, human and social capital to implement more participatory approaches. Without addressing these capacities, widespread adoption of complex farming systems change appears unlikely.

Originality/Value: Whilst many studies have identified a need for local innovation to enable CA utilisation, few have qualitatively explored directly with local researchers the capacity of such systems to do so. We address this gap in the literature.