A blended learning curriculum for training peer researchers to conduct community-based participatory research

Peer researchers (PRs) are research team members who share traits (e.g. gender, age, sexual orientation, diagnosis, income, housing situation, etc.) with study participants. Participatory methods and some fields (e.g. HIV/AIDS) expect PRs to be equitably involved in a project. Moreover, in Canada, there is a current impetus to include ‘the patient’ in health research. PRs often join a project without any formal research training, yet they are frequently tasked with suggesting appropriate language, recruiting participants, conducting interviews, administering surveys, analyzing data, and presenting findings. While there is literature on PR hiring, ethical considerations of PR engagement, and PR experiences, the methods of training PRs remain underreported. A blended learning curriculum (i.e. combination of webinars, didactic in-person presentation, filmed simulation, etc.), informed by the principles of action learning and the concept of reciprocity, has shown preliminary effectiveness in training PRs across two studies. This paper will present the curriculum, alongside exploratory evaluation results (n?=?7), with details on how the curriculum changed from one study to the next and how reciprocity between academic and peer researchers led to stronger collaborations.     

Media Research and Policy: the triple null hypothesis

The modern world rests on the beliefs that activity can bring about improvements, that research can identify the actions which deliver improvements and that policy can set the framework for enabling these identified actions to take place. The triple null hypothesis postulates that all three beliefs are false. In the context of educational media, particularly in distance education, the triple null hypothesis states that:

• Media don't matter

• Research doesn't matter

• Policy doesn't matter

This paper discusses possible relationships between the three null hypotheses. Media is used here as an example. Other examples might be teaching paradigms, staff development, etc. The general argument can apply to any activity: neither the activity itself, nor research on it nor policy on it matter. If the triple null hypothesis is true then there is a vacuum of pressure for action, research and policy. Practitioners, researchers and policy makers construct beliefs to fill the vacuum.     

Economic Hardship and the Development of Five- and Six-Year-Olds: Neighborhood and Regional Perspectives

The present study examines the association between neighborhood characteristics and the development of 5- and 6-year-olds. We also explore how region might moderate the effects of neighborhoods on children, thus considering both larger (regional) and smaller (community) contexts of families. We find that structural aspects of the neighborhood at the census tract level are associated with child development in the early school-age period. For the sample as a whole, neighborhood factors play a role in both cognitive and socioemotional outcomes, even when family factors are controlled. Yet only modest support for neighborhood influences on child development is evident in our main effects models. It appears that neighborhood influences on child development are underestimated or masked unless the associations are examined separately by two areas of the United States: the Midwest and Northeast versus the South and West. Significant associations between neighborhood variables and children's development are seen in the Northeastern and Midwestern regions, but less so in the Southern and Western regions of the United States. Greater economic and social resources as measured by average neighborhood SES (income, education, occupation) and greater ethnic congruity as measured by more neighbors of the same racial heritage as the child are related to higher cognitive functioning, but only in the Northeast and Midwest. Furthermore, children in these regions show more competent behavioral functioning when the relative presence of adults to children in the neighborhood is higher. In these regions, African-American but not white children show higher levels of behavior problems when community male joblessness rates are higher. We speculate about processes that might underlie these neighborhood and regional effects and point to directions for further research.     

Sexual Health Transformation Among College Student Educators in an Arts-Based HIV Prevention Intervention: A Qualitative Cross-Site Analysis

We examined the sexual health change process experienced by 26 college student sexual health educators from three geographic regions of the United States who participated in a multisite arts-based sexual health prevention program. We conducted eight focus groups and used a phenomenological approach to analyze data. We drew from social cognitive theory (SCT) to examine how sexual health knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, and communication shifted across the duration of participation. Findings suggest that the college student sexual health educators (a) developed enhanced sexual health awareness and critical consciousness, (b) questioned their own sexual health education and challenged previous beliefs, and (c) demonstrated self-efficacy related to intended behavior change and their perceived role as social justice advocates. We present both similarities and differences regarding the sexual health change process among the college student sexual health educators across the three sites.     

Lesson and learning studies—An edifying story

It would be difficult to find any pedagogical story that is comparable to that of jugyou kenkyuu (or lesson study in English) that has been practised for over a century in Japan in isolation and became a method that was used worldwide in less than 10 years. Because of its uniqueness and its history, it is an irrefutable challenge to understand what it is really about, how its basic aspects such as a lesson or teachers' knowledge and its development, the culture of education, the measurability of educational activities and other main aspects of education are or can be conceptualised and in which ways these can travel in a globalised arena of education. In this article, we try to give answers to these and some other relevant issues related to lesson study via the author's subjective view and individually‐constructed narrative.     

Review of conversation theory and a protologic (or protolanguage), Lp

This is the eleventh ERIC/ECTJ Annual Review Paper, preparation of which was supported by the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Clearinghouse on Information Resources, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. The material in this article was prepared pursuant to a contract with the National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Education. Contractors undertaking such projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their judgment in professional and technical matters. Points of view or opinions do not necessarily represent the official view or opinion of NIE. The preparation of this paper was also supported by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences under grant MDA903-82-C-0055 to Concordia University, Centre for System Research and Applied Epistemology. An erratum to this article is available at .     

The role of stimulus disparity in concurrently available reinforcement schedules

Eight White King pigeons were exposed to various two-component arrangements of concurrently available variable-interval reinforcement schedules. Line orientation stimuli associated with each component differed by 45,15, or 0 deg for different subjects. Relative responding matched relative reinforcement with 45 deg separation, while undermatching resulted with 15 deg separation and extreme undermatching resulted with 0 deg separation. Since obtained relative reinforcement indicated contact with the contingencies in all conditions of line orientation disparity, it is concluded that stimulus disparity between components of concurrently available reinforcement schedules is an important determinant of response distribution between components.     

Why children tell: a model of children's disclosure of sexual abuse

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated variables associated with delay of disclosure of child sexual abuse and tested a model of time to disclosure. METHOD: Data were obtained for 218 alleged child sexual abuse victims whose cases had been referred to District Attorneys' Offices. Five variables were posited to influence the delay between an abusive event and children's disclosure of that event to a reporting adult: child's age, gender, type of abuse experienced (intrafamilial or extrafamilial), perceived responsibility for the abuse, and fear of negative consequences of disclosure. These variables were used to create a model of factors influencing children's disclosure of sexual abuse. RESULTS: Results indicated that age, type of abuse, fear of negative consequences, and perceived responsibility all contributed to predicting time to disclosure. There was significant support for the model, suggesting that children who were older, came from incestuous families, felt greater responsibility for the abuse, and feared negative consequences of disclosure took longer to disclose. CONCLUSIONS: Children's cognitive appraisal of others' tolerance of disclosure of child sexual abuse, and their own perceptions of responsibility for the abuse, are crucial to the decision to disclose. When evaluating children for possible sexual abuse, developmental, cognitive, and socio-emotional factors need to be taken into consideration.