Organizational Power and the Institutional Review Board

In this essay, we respond to the narratives and essays in this issue by examining organizational power issues related to researchers and institutional research boards (IRBs). Rather than taking a singular perspective on power, we use multiple perspectives and suggest that the cumulative analyses provide the best understanding of IRBs and organizational power.     

The Volunteer Experience in Temporary Organizations: Volunteer Role Negotiation and Identification in a Pop-Culture Convention

The present study explores the role negotiations and identity of volunteers at a large Southwestern pop-culture convention. A sensemaking perspective was used to understand how volunteers retrospectively interpret their experiences as volunteers in this temporary organization. Data collection included participant observation and interviews of 26 volunteers. Data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis. Three role negotiation categories were identified: learning roles, negotiating roles, and making sense of roles. Ineffective communication during role learning and negotiation created ambiguity and uncertainty for volunteers. Volunteers identified with the convention primarily through communicative interactions with patrons but also through communicating with staff or by wearing artifacts (e.g., clothing). Results suggest modifying sensemaking theory to recognize individual as well as collective sensemaking.     

COLLABORATION FOR EXCELLENCE: ENGAGED SCHOLARSHIP AT COLLIN COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

American democracy depends on civic involvement. However, many Americans are increasingly withdrawing from civic responsibility and community involvement. In his best-selling book Bowling Alone , Harvard sociologist Robert D. Putnam presents data showing that Americans have become increasingly unwilling to engage in ways that make American democracy successful. Collin County Community College (CCCC) is addressing civic disengagement through engaged scholarship collaboration between service learning and learning communities programs. Although college students are politically disengaged, most report being or having been involved in some form of community service in the previous year and say they are motivated by giving back to the community and making a difference. Engaged scholarship at CCCC draws on this interest in community service to enhance learning communities, create deeper learning for students, and instill values of citizenship and civic engagement. Learning communities classes blend courses from 2 or more disciplines into a single course with a common theme, enabling students to understand the connection between disciplines. Most integrate a service learning component into that theme, often in the form of a class project promoting civic involvement. Institutional research data reflect increased student retention and success in these classes and a climate of increased communication and objectivity, practical experience in community organizations, and a deeper understanding of democratic ideals. Faculty member focus groups indicate increased satisfaction with teaching, enhanced interdisciplinary knowledge, and feelings of being innovative in the classroom. Engaged scholarship at CCCC enhances student learning, helps develop a unified vision among faculty members, and benefits the community.     

Analysis of Students' Aptitude to Provide Meaning to Images that Represent Cellular Components at the Molecular Level

The number of experimentally derived structures of cellular components is rapidly expanding, and this phenomenon is accompanied by the development of a new semiotic system for teaching. The infographic approach is shifting from a schematic toward a more realistic representation of cellular components. By realistic we mean artist-prepared or computer graphic images that closely resemble experimentally derived structures and are characterized by a low level of styling and simplification. This change brings about a new challenge for teachers: designing course instructions that allow students to interpret these images in a meaningful way. To determine how students deal with this change, we designed several image-based, in-course assessments. The images were highly relevant for the cell biology course but did not resemble any of the images in the teaching documents. We asked students to label the cellular components, describe their function, or both. What we learned from these tests is that realistic images, with a higher apparent level of complexity, do not deter students from investigating their meaning. When given a choice, the students do not necessarily choose the most simplified representation, and they were sensitive to functional indications embedded in realistic images.     

“These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty”: Older Children and Adults Struggle With Induced‐State Episodic Foresight

We explored children's and adults’ ability to disengage from current physiological states when forecasting future desires. In Study 1, 8‐ to 13‐year‐olds and adults (N = 104) ate pretzels (to induce thirst) and then predicted and explained what they would want tomorrow, pretzels or water. Demonstrating life‐span continuity, approximately 70% of participants, regardless of age, chose water and referenced current thirst as their rationale. Individual differences in working memory and undergraduate grade point average were positively related to performance on the pretzel task. In Study 2, we obtained baseline preferences from adults (N = 35) and confirmed that, prior to consuming pretzels, people do not anticipate wanting water more than pretzels the next day. Together, these findings indicate that both children and adults are tethered to the present when forecasting their future desires.     

Parental responses to sibling conflict: the effects of development and parent gender

Mothers' and fathers' responses to their children's spontaneous sibling conflicts were observed using a wireless microphone system. Eighty-eight two-child, two-parent families participated in three home observations. Secondborn children were 3 to 5 years of age and firstborn children were 2 to 4 years older. Associations between parents' enactment of three categories of conflict management strategies (passive nonintervention, child-centered management, and parental control) and sibling interaction quality varied according to children's ages, gender of the monitoring parent, and type of strategy used. Passive nonintervention was highly associated with the occurrence of subsequent conflict. Younger sibling dyads, in particular, behaved more antagonistically when their parents did not intervene. In contrast, older sibling dyads were less involved and less close when their mothers intervened in any way. Results suggest that relatively younger sibling dyads may benefit more than older dyads from parental intervention.     

Victimizers and Their Victims: Children''s Conceptions of the Mixed Emotional Consequences of Moral Transgressions

4-8-year-old children's conceptions of the emotional consequences of moral transgressions were assessed in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, most children expected victimizers to feel positive emotions and victims to feel negative emotions, but 8-year-olds who assessed victims first subsequently attributed less positive emotions to victimizers. Despite efforts to manipulate the salience of victims' losses in Experiment 2, children had similar expectations about the emotional consequences of transgressions. However, a developmental shift emerged: 4-year-olds attributed extremely positive emotions to victimizers due to the material gains produced by victimization, whereas 8-year-olds attributed less positive emotions to victimizers, in part due to the unfairness and harm produced by victimization. Probe questions revealed that older children also attributed additional negative-valence emotions to victimizers, suggesting that victimizers are expected to feel conflicting rather than exclusively positive emotions. Discussion focused on potential cognitive constraints in children's conceptions of moral emotions.     

Tactile,maternal, and pharmacologic factors involved in the “transport response” in rat pups

A series of eight experiments was run to characterize the potentiation of the transport response reported with tactile stimulation. Experiments 1A–C were designed to investigate the types of tactile stimulation that could potentiate an initially weak transport response. Experiments 2A–C were designed to assess the effect of maternal/littermate deprivation on responsiveness to external stimuli in 9- and 16-day-old rat pups. Experiments 3A and 3B were designed to investigate, pharmacologically, underlying mechanisms for the transport response potentiation effect. It was found that if the initial stimulus in producing a strong transport response is inadequate, additional tactile stimulation can potentiate the response. The additional stimuli work best if they are diffuse, if discrete inputs can summate over areas, or if they encompass the snout area. It also was found that isolation could lead to increased responsiveness to stimuli normally eliciting or potentiating the response in 9- and 16-day-old rats. Finally, results indicate that both dopaminergic and beta-noradrenergic systems are important in the response potentiation seen with maternal/littermate deprivation.     

Fostering conceptual change and critical reasoning about HIV and AIDS

One of the challenges of science education is for students to develop scientific knowledge that is personally meaningful and applicable to real‐life issues. This article describes a middle‐school science intervention fostering adolescents' critical reasoning in the context of HIV by strengthening their conceptual understanding of HIV biology. The intervention included two components: critical reasoning activities that fostered knowledge integration and application to real‐world problem solving, and science writing activities that promoted argument building. Two seventh‐grade classes participated in the study. One class participated in the critical reasoning and writing activities (CR&W); the other class participated in critical reasoning activities only (CR group). Results demonstrate significant pre‐ and posttest improvements on measures of students' HIV knowledge, HIV understanding, and critical reasoning about realistic scenarios in the context of HIV, with the improvements being greater in the CR&W group. The discussion focuses on the role of conceptual knowledge in health reasoning, the role of science writing in fostering knowledge integration, and the benefits of a “thinking curriculum” approach to integrated health and science education. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 844–863, 2007