Statistical illiteracy can have an enormously negative impact on decision making. This volume of collected papers brings together applied and theoretical research on risks and decision making across the fields of medicine, psychology, and economics. Collectively, the essays demonstrate why the frame in which statistics are communicated is essential for broader understanding and sound decision making, and that understanding risks and uncertainty has wide-reaching implications for daily life. Gerd Gigerenzer provides a lucid review and catalog of concrete instances of heuristics, or rules of thumb, that people and animals rely on to make decisions under uncertainty, explaining why these are very often more rational than probability models. After a critical look at behavioral theories that do not model actual psychological processes, the book concludes with a call for a "heuristic revolution" that will enable us to understand the ecological rationality of both statistics and heuristics, and bring a dose of sanity to the study of rationality.

This book provides an overview of the developments in the area of Bayesian evaluation of informative hypotheses that took place since the publication of the ?rst paper on this topic in 2001 [Hoijtink, H. Con?rmatory latent class analysis, model selection using Bayes factors and (pseudo) likelihood ratio statistics. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 36, 563-588]. The current state of a?airs was presented and discussed by the authors of this book during a workshop in Utrecht in June 2007. Here we would like to thank all authors for their participation, ideas, and contributions. We would also like to thank Sophie van der Zee for her editorial e?orts during the construction of this book. Another word of thanks is due to John Kimmel of Springer for his con?dence in the editors and authors. Finally, we would like to thank the Netherlands Organization for Scienti?c Research (NWO) whose VICI grant (453-05-002) awarded to the ?rst author enabled the organization of the workshop, the writing of this book, and continuation of the research with respect to Bayesian evaluation of informative hypotheses.

Edwin Hartman offers an account of his intellectual journey from Aristotle to organization theory to business ethics to an Aristotelian approach to business ethics. Aristotle's work in metaphysics and psychology offers some insights into the explanation of behavior. Central to this sort of explanation is characteristically human rationality. Central to successful organizations is characteristically human sociability. That human beings are by nature rational and sociable is the basis of Aristotle's ethics. Though a modern organization is not a polis in Aristotle's sense, it has good reason to treat people as rational and sociable on the whole, and thereby to preserve the organization as a commons of people linked by something much like Aristotle's account of strong friendship. Organizations that are successful in this respect, particularly those that deal with a nationally diverse workforce, may offer a far-reaching and attractive model.

Social movement studies have grown enormously in the last few decades, spreading from sociology and political science to other fields of knowledge, as varied as geography, history, anthropology, psychology, economics, law and others. With the growing interest in the field, there has been also an increasing need for methodological guidance for empirical research. This volume addresses this need by introducing the main methods of data collection and data analysis as they have been used in past research on social movements. Unlike other volumes, the book offers a practical, how-to approach and not simply a review of the methodological literature. Each author writes on a method they are very familiar with, having used it extensively in their own work. And each chapter presents specific discussions on every stage of research: from research design to data collection and the use of the information gathered. Throughout, research dilemmas and choices are presented, illustrated, and discussed. The volume offers an essential point of references for anyone undertaking research on social movements.

This book highlights major quantitative and qualitative methods and approaches used in the field of urban analysis. The respective chapters cover the background and relevance of various approaches to urban studies and offer guidance on implementing specific methodologies. Each chapter also provides links to real-world examples. The book is unique in its focus on Australian examples and subject matter, presented by recognized experts in the field.

Today, concerns about the financial stability of Social Security, trends in disability, health care costs, and the supply of caregivers are all driven by the coming explosion inthe number of people over the age of 65. Aging in America focuses on the economic and demographic portrait of the senior population and can provide a context for analysis of broader population issues. It provides a wide range of characteristics of the older population including: age composition, race and Hispanic origin, educational attainment, living arrangements, veteran status, employment and income, health insurance, disability and housing characteristics. Extracting comparative information from the Census Bureau's FactFinder dissemination system can be difficult and time-consuming. Aging in America provides comparative data on a variety of topics in a single, easy-to-use volume. Some of the benefits of Aging in America include: *It provides a cross-section of socio-economic characteristics focused on the aging population for commonly researched geographic areas: states, counties, cities, metropolitan and micropolitan areas, and congressional districts *The tables are structured to allow easy comparisons across geographic areas and easy profiling of characteristics for any area of reader interest

This book represents a close engagement with vulnerable populations in the city of Calabar in southeastern Nigeria. Following the traditions of Clifford Geertz' thick description, Elliot Eisner's arts-based research, and Laurel Richardson's poetic inquiry, Learning Calabar weaves prose and poetry in a hybrid form that evokes the everyday lives of gate keepers, grounds keepers, taxi drivers, cooks, and children with whom the author interacted during a Fulbright year. From the stance of a participant-observer, it traces her learning of history and the evolution of her understanding as she lived, along with her neighbors, in the chaos of governmental failure, extended power outages, and dysfunctional systems, aware that her privilege offered protections not afforded to her neighbors. This work opens doors to a long sweep of Nigerian history, while keeping a laser eye on people living now in the aftermath of that history, which is both culturally rich and politically torn. Written from the viewpoint of a learner, this book will be of interest to learners of West African history, cultural anthropology, ethnography, women's studies, cross cultural studies, and poetic inquiry. Its vibrant voice and poetic renderings also make it accessible and engaging for general audiences.

This thoroughly revised, extended and updated second edition of Silvia Gherardi's classic book gives the reader a must-read orientation through the myriad of methods and styles involved in practice-based research. Practice-based approaches to knowing, learning, innovating, and managing have thrived in recent years. Calling upon numerous narratives from a range of research fields, the author offers insight into the many possibilities of practice research, highlighting the inextricable links between humans and technology as the key emergent trend in management studies. Developing an innovative posthumanist approach, this novel book offers a useful and insightful compass for the navigation of practice-based studies through the lens of exemplar vignettes from internationally acclaimed researchers. A valuable and instructive work, this book is critical to any scholars of practice theories, as well as management and organizational studies and those with a keen interest in research methods. Masters students seeking insight into the development of practice-based studies, and PhD researchers developing their own methodologies will also find the guidance of this book indispensable in their studies.

This book seeks to introduce students to the challenges of 'real life' social research through a detailed consideration of eight recent empirical studies. Designed to complement existing introductory methods texts, it emphasises the importance of context in understanding and interpreting both the practice and 'product' of empirical research. The book focuses on research from eight key sub-areas of sociology, making it a useful secondary text for introductory courses on contemporary British society.

During the last two decades, structural equation modeling (SEM) has emerged as a powerful multivariate data analysis tool in social science research settings, especially in the fields of sociology, psychology, and education. Although its roots can be traced back to the first half of this century, when Spearman (1904) developed factor analysis and Wright (1934) introduced path analysis, it was not until the 1970s that the works by Karl Joreskog and his associates (e. g., Joreskog, 1977; Joreskog and Van Thillo, 1973) began to make general SEM techniques accessible to the social and behavioral science research communities. Today, with the development and increasing avail ability of SEM computer programs, SEM has become a well-established and respected data analysis method, incorporating many of the traditional analysis techniques as special cases. State-of-the-art SEM software packages such as LISREL (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1993a, b) and EQS (Bentler, 1993; Bentler and Wu, 1993) handle a variety of ordinary least squares regression designs as well as complex structural equation models involving variables with arbitrary distributions. Unfortunately, many students and researchers hesitate to use SEM methods, perhaps due to the somewhat complex underlying statistical repre sentation and theory. In my opinion, social science students and researchers can benefit greatly from acquiring knowledge and skills in SEM since the methods-applied appropriately-can provide a bridge between the theo retical and empirical aspects of behavioral research."

The competitiveness of firms, regions and countries greatly depends on the generation, dissemination and application of new knowledge. Modern innovation research is challenged by the need to incorporate knowledge generation and dissemination processes into the analysis so as to disentangle the complexity of these dynamic processes. With innovation, however, strong uncertainty, nonlinearities and actor heterogeneity become central factors that are at odds with traditional modeling techniques anchored in equilibrium and homogeneity. This text introduces SKIN (Simulation Knowledge Dynamics in Innovation Networks), an agent-based simulation model that primarily focuses on joint knowledge creation and exchange of knowledge in innovation co-operations and networks. In this context, knowledge is explicitly modeled and not approximated by, for instance, the level of accumulated R&D investment. The SKIN approach supports applications in different domains ranging from sector-based research activities in knowledge-intensive industries to the activities of international research consortia engaged in basic and applied research. Following a general description of the SKIN model, several applications and modifications are presented. Each chapter introduces in detail the structure of the model, the relevant methodological considerations and the analysis of simulation results, while options for empirically validating the models' structure and outcomes are also discussed. The book considers the scope of further applications and outlines prospects for the development of joint modeling strategies.

Investigates theoretically and empirically what it means to design technological artefacts while embracing the large number of practices which practitioners engage with when handling technologies. The authors discusses the fields of design and sociomateriality through their shared interests towards the basic nature of work, collaboration, organization, technology, and human agency, striving to make the debates and concepts originating in each field accessible to each other, and thus moving sociomateriality closer to the practical concerns of design and providing a useful analytical toolbox to information system designers and field researchers alike. Sociomaterial-Design: Bounding Technologies in Practice takes on the challenge of redefining design practices through insights from the emerging debate on sociomateriality. It does so by bringing forward a comparative examination of two longitudinal ethnographic studies of the practices within two emergency departments - one in Canada and one in the United States of America. A particular focus is placed upon the use of current collaborative artefacts within the emergency departments and the transformation into digital artefacts through design.

This book focuses on how important massive information is and how sensitive outcomes are to information. In this century humans now are coming up against the massive utilization of information in various contexts. The advent of super intelligence is drastically accelerating the evolution of the socio-economic system. Our traditional analytic approach must therefore be radically reformed in order to adapt to an information-sensitive framework, which means giving up myopic purification and the elimination of all considerations of massive information. In this book, authors who have shared and exchanged their ideas over the last 20 years, offer thorough examinations of the theoretical-ontological basis of complex economic interaction, econophysics, and agent-based modeling during the last several decades. This book thus provides the indispensable philosophical-scientific foundations for this new approach, and then moves on to empirical-epistemological studies concerning changes in sentiments and other movements in financial markets.

Advanced Statistics provides a rigorous development of statistics that emphasizes the definition and study of numerical measures that describe population variables. Volume 1 studies properties of commonly used descriptive measures. Volume 2 considers use of sampling from populations to draw inferences concerning properties of populations. The volumes are intended for use by graduate students in statistics and professional statisticians, although no specific prior knowledge of statistics is assumed. The rigorous treatment of statistical concepts requires that the reader be familiar with mathematical analysis and linear algebra, so that open sets, continuous functions, differentials, Raman integrals, matrices, and vectors are familiar terms.

The Good Research Guide provides practical and straightforward guidance for those who need to conduct small-scale research projects as part of their undergraduate, postgraduate or professional studies. The 7th edition covers topics in a clear, user-friendly style outlining the key points and explaining why they are important. The new edition has been updated throughout and has additional material on topics such as social media research, online surveys, image-based research and participatory action research. It also features new chapters on how to prepare for a research project, with specific guidance on: * how to undertake a literature review * how to write a research proposal * how to ensure the research is ethical * how to locate the project within a research paradigm Full of practical advice and valuable examples, this is the go-to book for students looking to improve their research skills. "Having this book at your side is like having your hand held from start to finish and every decision in between... I very much welcome a new edition for my students" Melanie Nind, Professor of Education, University of Southampton and Co-director, National Centre for Research Methods, UK "Comprehensively updated, this book remains the indispensable student guide to the research process... It's not just good, it's great!" Dr Tom Clark, Lecturer in Research Methods, The University of Sheffield, UK "The text is informative, concise, and attractive. Each chapter presents sections in an easy-to-read format with further reading ideas and link ups to the numerous topics covered throughout the book." Dr Alaster Scott Douglas, Reader in the School of Education, University of Roehampton, UK Martyn Denscombe is Emeritus Professor at De Montfort University. He has a research background in the fields of sociology, education and business studies and has published widely on research methods in the social sciences.

This book presents a series of analyses of educational policies - largely in the UK, but some also in Europe - researched by a team of social scientists who share a commitment to social justice and equity in education. We explore what social justice means, in educational policy and practice, and how it impacts on our understanding of both 'educational science' and 'the public good'. Using a social constructivist approach, the book argues that social justice requires a particular and critical analysis of the meaning of meritocracy, and of the way this term turns educational policies towards treating learning as a competition, in which many young people are constructed as 'losers'. We discuss how many terms in education are essentialised and have specific, and different, meanings for particular social groups, and how this may create issues in both quantitative survey methods and in determining what is 'the public good'. We discuss social justice across a range of intersecting social characteristics, including social class, ethnicity and gender, as they are applied across the educational policy spectrum, from early years to postgraduate education. We examine the ways that young people construct their identities, and the implications of this for understanding the 'public good' in educational practice. We consider the responsibilities of educational researchers to acknowledge these issues, and offer examples of researching with such a commitment. We conclude by considering how educational policy might contribute to a socially just, equitable and inclusive public good.

Are you planning a desk-based qualitative research project, but aren't sure how to get started? This essential book provides all the guidance and advice you'll need to complete your project. Using two key visual pedagogical tools, the Metaphorical Tent and the Research Triangle, the book shows you how to produce vibrant and stimulating in-depth qualitative research that draws on high-quality data readily available via the internet. The book * takes you through the research process step-by-step, from choosing a topic to writing up conclusions; * examines a wide range of written, visual and audio data sources; * includes helpful case studies to demonstrate the practical application of concepts. Concise, practical and jam-packed with valuable tips, features and examples, this book will enable you to complete a successful desk-based research project you can be proud of.

Agent-based modeling is a new technique for understanding how the dynamics of biological, social, and other complex systems arise from the characteristics and behaviors of the agents making up these systems. This innovative textbook gives students and scientists the skills to design, implement, and analyze agent-based models. It starts with the fundamentals of modeling and provides an introduction to NetLogo, an easy-to-use, free, and powerful software platform. Nine chapters then each introduce an important modeling concept and show how to implement it using NetLogo. The book goes on to present strategies for finding the right level of model complexity and developing theory for agent behavior, and for analyzing and learning from models. Agent-Based and Individual-Based Modeling features concise and accessible text, numerous examples, and exercises using small but scientific models. The emphasis throughout is on analysis--such as software testing, theory development, robustness analysis, and understanding full models--and on design issues like optimizing model structure and finding good parameter values. * The first hands-on introduction to agent-based modeling, from conceptual design to computer implementation to parameterization and analysis* Provides an introduction to NetLogo with nine chapters introducing an important modeling concept and showing how to implement it using NetLogo * Filled with examples and exercises, with updates and supplementary materials at http://www.railsback-grimm-abm-book.com/ * Designed for students and researchers across the biological and social sciences * Written by leading practitioners Leading universities that have adopted this book include: * Amherst College * Brigham Young University * Carnegie Mellon University* Cornell University * Miami University * Northwestern University * Old Dominion University * Portland State University * Rhodes College * Susquehanna University * University College, Dublin * University of Arizona* University of British Columbia* University of Michigan * University of South Florida* University of Texas at Austin * University of Virginia

"Jarvis does a real service by introducing a new vision of research into the current debates over the nature and mission of the academy."
--Continuing Higher Education Review

"Jarvis has managed to bridge the worlds of theory and professional practice in a way that will help each better understand the other."
--Jon Wergin, professor of educational studies, School of Education, Virginia Commonwealth University

Genuine understanding of any field can only be developed through practice in that field. Peter Jarvis, an internationally known authority in the field of professional adult and continuing education, shows how theories of practice evolve from the practice itself and are unique to each practitioner. Doing professional work gives practitioners many opportunities to question, test, and revise theories taught in graduate programs. Such practice-based research gives rise to personalized theories of practice and also raises new questions for personal exploration.

Using examples and vignettes drawn from professional fields and settings around the world, Jarvis provides valuable insights into the nature of professional practice, the ways professionals learn, and how education for practice can be enhanced at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Jarvis examines why so many practitioners find their professional education inadequate preparation for actual practice, and he calls for a partnership between higher education and the professional workplace that will meet the challenges of the relationship between the two.

The Practitioner-Researcher is designed to help all practitioners for whom research is a tool in improving practice--from graduate students and their professors to employees in diverse industries or professional groups--and to facilitate an understanding of the relationship between practice and theory within the worlds of work and learning.

This book presents the proceedings from ECONOPHYS-2015, an international workshop held in New Delhi, India, on the interrelated fields of "econophysics" and "sociophysics", which have emerged from the application of statistical physics to economics and sociology. Leading researchers from varied communities, including economists, sociologists, financial analysts, mathematicians, physicists, statisticians, and others, report on their recent work, discuss topical issues, and review the relevant contemporary literature. A society can be described as a group of people who inhabit the same geographical or social territory and are mutually involved through their shared participation in different aspects of life. It is possible to observe and characterize average behaviors of members of a society, an example being voting behavior. Moreover, the dynamic nature of interaction within any economic sector comprising numerous cooperatively interacting agents has many features in common with the interacting systems of statistical physics. It is on these bases that interest has grown in the application within sociology and economics of the tools of statistical mechanics. This book will be of value for all with an interest in this flourishing field.

This volume covers such topics as psychological ownership in organizations, employee perceptions of fairness when human resource systems change, a culture-based perspective of organization development implementation, and mapping the progress of change through organizational levels.

This series examines the interrelations of politics and society, bringing together articles from an international and interdisciplinary community of scholars.

Bernan Press proudly presents the sixteenth edition of Employment, Hours, and Earnings: States and Areas, 2022. A special addition to Bernan Press Handbook of U.S. Labor Statistics: Employment, Earnings, Prices, Productivity, and Other Labor Data, this reference is a consolidated wealth of employment information, providing monthly and annual data on hours worked and earnings made by industry, including figures and summary information spanning several years. These data are presented for states and metropolitan statistical areas. This edition features: Nearly 300 tables with data on employment for each state, the District of Columbia, and the nation's seventy-five largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) Detailed, non-seasonally adjusted, industry data organized by month and year Hours and earnings data for each state, by industry An introduction for each state and the District of Columbia that denotes salient data and noteworthy trends, including changes in population and the civilian labor force, industry increases and declines, employment and unemployment statistics, and a chart detailing employment percentages, by industry Ranking of the seventy-five largest MSAs, including census population estimates, unemployment rates, and the percent change in total nonfarm employment, Concise technical notes that explain pertinent facts about the data, including sources, definitions, and significant changes; and provides references for further guidance A comprehensive appendix that details the geographical components of the seventy-five largest MSAs The employment, hours, and earnings data in this publication provide a detailed and timely picture of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the nation's seventy-five largest MSAs. These data can be used to analyze key factors affecting state and local economies and to compare national cyclical trends to local-level economic activity. This reference is an excellent source of information for analysts in both the public and private sectors. Readers who are involved in public policy can use these data to determine the health of the economy, to clearly identify which sectors are growing and which are declining, and to determine the need for federal assistance. State and local jurisdictions can use the data to determine the need for services, including training and unemployment assistance, and for planning and budgetary purposes. In addition, the data can be used to forecast tax revenue. In private industry, the data can be used by business owners to compare their business to the economy as a whole; and to identify suitable areas when making decisions about plant locations, wholesale and retail trade outlets, and for locating a particular sector base.

Increasingly, social researchers are engaging with marginalized communities and becoming aware of their obligations to those they research. This book identifies issues associated with researching in what have traditionally been recognised as "hard to reach" communities and offers both conceptual analyses and practical suggestions on undertaking research that emphasizes the experience and contribution of those with whom the research is undertaken.