An easy-to-use guide to American regional folklore with advice on conducting research, regional essays, and a selective annotated bibliography. American Regional Folklore begins with a chapter on library research, including how to locate a library suitable for folklore research, how to understand a library's resources, and how to construct a research strategy. Mood also gives excellent advice on researching beyond the library: locating and using community resources like historical societies, museums, fairs and festivals, storytelling groups, local colleges, newspapers and magazines, and individuals with knowledge of the field. The rest of the book is divided into eight sections, each one highlighting a separate region (the Northeast, the South and Southern Highlands, the Midwest, the Southwest, the West, the Northwest, Alaska, and Hawaii). Each regional section contains a useful overview essay, written by an expert on the folklore of that particular region, followed by a selective, annotated bibliography of books and a directory of related resources. Fully annotated bibliographies on the folklore of each of eight regions of the United States Engaging overview essays by folklore scholars introduce each of the U.S. regions covered A list of literary authors who incorporate folklore themes in their writings, together with a brief list of some of their major works A list of folklore-related museums, with addresses and phone numbers, a list of folklore journals, and, when possible, a list of websites

Since the pioneering discoveries of Hodgkin, Huxley, and Katz, it has been clear that specific ion conductance pathways underlie electrical act- ity. Over the ensuing 50 years, there has been ever increasing, and occasi- ally explosive, changes in the scope of efforts to understand ion channel behavior. The introduction of patch clamp technology by Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann about 20 years ago led to the realization of the great variety of novel ion channel species, and the subsequent revolution in cl- ing has revealed an even greater diversity of the underlying molecular entities. Today, advances in the study of ion channel structure and function c- tinue at a high pace, from angstrom resolution imaging of crystallized ch- nels to their genetic manipulations in animals. In this regard, the field is a balanced one that inquires not only what ion channel entities are there, or how they operate, but also where are these molecular electronic switches? However, this balance is not particularly well presented to the general sci- tific audience or to specialists in the field. There are plenty of wonderful and useful books and monographs, as well as conferences and meetings on v- tually every aspect of ion channel structure and function. However, we are unaware that the channel localization theme has been considered in a u- fied forum.

Experts present proven methods and techniques for studying about or in Africa! Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa helps you steer clear of washouts, cave-ins, and dead ends on the road to successful research onor inAfrica. This one-of-a-kind research guide presents practical solutions to frequently occurring problems in the study of Africa, including Internet accessibility problems, errors that will affect a known item search, the imposition of colonial legacy, and dealing with gender and class bias. Unlike most references on Africa that concentrate on collection development, this unique book focuses on the study of Africa, making it a must-have for academic librarians, Africanist scholars, and Africana librarians. Specialists, generalist librarians, and end users all depend on tools designed to provide access to information in libraries and on the web including OPACs databases, and search engines. In this book, these tools, research methods, and the accessibility of information on Africa are examined, offering students and professionals a thorough guide to the most successful researching route. Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa provides assistance in the research process according to a variety of categories including: evaluating OPACs and similar databases for known-item searching using keywords, subject headings, bias, indexing, full-text searching, terminology, cataloguing, user-centered information services, and other search strategies to find what you are looking for using Internet resources to your advantage using the partnerships between the U.S. and African libraries and scholarly institutions to help improve information access using techniques for reference librarians to act as a force increasing women's roles in the study of Africa and much more! Research, Reference Services, and Resources for the Study of Africa offers all the information necessary to avoid research hang-ups that affect the study of Africa, and the necessary information to pass these skills on to students.

When reading and thinking about published research, students often find it difficult to understand the complexity of what is involved in the process of research and how it is presented. And although there are many books about research and research methods, very few focus specifically on critically reading research that has been completed by others.

Understanding Research: An Introduction To Reading Research aims to introduce key concepts through the use of simple language to promote better understanding, build on South African examples and case studies, and develop the conceptual knowledge and necessary skills to evaluate research carefully and critically.

Contents include the following:

• Quality research and what it means
• Different research paradigms and ways of engaging with research
• Design and various styles of research
• Methods of collecting data
• Analysing and presenting both qualitative and quantitative data
• Interpretation and quality standards

Understanding Research is an indispensable guide for all students in the social sciences and education who want to learn more about reading and understanding research.

Agreement among raters is of great importance in many domains. For example, in medicine, diagnoses are often provided by more than one doctor to make sure the proposed treatment is optimal. In criminal trials, sentencing depends, among other things, on the complete agreement among the jurors. In observational studies, researchers increase reliability by examining discrepant ratings. This book is intended to help researchers statistically examine rater agreement by reviewing four different approaches to the technique. The first approach introduces readers to calculating coefficients that allow one to summarize agreements in a single score. The second approach involves estimating log-linear models that allow one to test specific hypotheses about the structure of a cross-classification of two or more raters' judgments. The third approach explores cross-classifications or raters' agreement for indicators of agreement or disagreement, and for indicators of such characteristics as trends. The fourth approach compares the correlation or covariation structures of variables that raters use to describe objects, behaviors, or individuals. These structures can be compared for two or more raters. All of these methods operate at the level of observed variables. This book is intended as a reference for researchers and practitioners who describe and evaluate objects and behavior in a number of fields, including the social and behavioral sciences, statistics, medicine, business, and education. It also serves as a useful text for graduate-level methods or assessment classes found in departments of psychology, education, epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, communication, advertising and marketing, and sociology. Exposure to regression analysis and log-linear modeling is helpful.

Qualitative research is a key form of research in education; the findings of such projects frequently play a central role in shaping policy and practice. First time qualitative researchers require clear and practical guidance from the outset. However, given the diversity of both subject matter and methodological approaches encompassed by qualitative research, such guidance is not always easily come by.

Qualitative Educational Research in Action: Doing and Reflecting is a collection of ten first-hand accounts by educational researchers of qualitative inquiries they carried out. The subjects are diverse, taking in school restructuring, policy analysis, critical literacy, phenomenology and the student teacher relationship. Each chapter outlines the research question investigated and provides an overview of the project's findings, before going on to describe how each researcher approached the challenges of their particular inquiry. The researchers reflect upon the unexpected turns qualitative research can take and the way such projects can move through different theoretical and methodological positions, often ending up significantly removed from the original premise, but all the more valuable for that.

Anyone conducting qualitative research in education will be heartened and inspired by this collection, and will also find in it invaluable guidance on dealing effectively with the idiosyncrasies and pitfalls of qualitative research- guidance that is all the more valuable for coming from those who have themselves navigated similar difficulties.

In the revised and updated second edition of The Tone of Teaching, bestselling author Max van Manen defines sound pedagogy as the ability to distinguish effectively between what is appropriate, and what is less appropriate in our communications and dealings with children and young people as parents and educators. The author: -Shows how tactful educators develop a caring attentiveness to the unique; to the uniqueness of children, and to the uniqueness of their individual lives-Describes how this "tone" of teaching can be sustained by the cultivation of a certain kind of seeing, listening, and responding to each child in each particular situation-Offers practical insights for both educators and parents

Received an honorable mention by the Prose Award Committee in the Best Textbook in Physical Sciences/Mathematics 2017 category The PROSE Awards draw attention to pioneering works of research and for contributions to the conception, production, and design of landmark works in their fields. Featuring peer-reviewed contributions from noted experts in their fields of research, Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects presents state-of-the-art approaches to reproducibility, the gold standard of sound science, from multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. Including comprehensive coverage for implementing and reflecting the norm of reproducibility in various pertinent fields of research, the book focuses on how the reproducibility of results is applied, how it may be limited, and how such limitations can be understood or even controlled in the natural sciences, computational sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and studies of science and technology. The book presents many chapters devoted to a variety of methods and techniques, as well as their epistemic and ontological underpinnings, which have been developed to safeguard reproducible research and curtail deficits and failures. The book also investigates the political, historical, and social practices that underlie reproducible research in contemporary science studies, including the difficulties of good scientific practice and the ethos of reproducibility in modern innovation societies. Reproducibility: Principles, Problems, Practices, and Prospects is a guide for researchers who are interested in the general and overarching questions behind the concept of reproducibility; for active scientists who are confronted with practical reproducibility problems in their everyday work; and for economic stakeholders and political decision makers who need to better understand the challenges of reproducibility. In addition, the book is a useful in-depth primer for undergraduate and graduate-level courses in scientific methodology and basic issues in the philosophy and sociology of science from a modern perspective. A comprehensive, insightful treatment of the reproducibility challenges facing science today and of ways in which the scientific community can address them. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication, University of Pennsylvania How can we make sure that reproducible research remains a key imperative of scientific communication under increasing commercialization, media attention, and publication pressure? This handbook offers the first interdisciplinary and fundamental treatment of this important question. Torsten Hothorn, Professor of Biostatistics, University of Zurich Harald Atmanspacher, PhD, is Associate Fellow and staff member at Collegium Helveticum, ETH and University Zurich and is also President of the Society for Mind-Matter Research. He has pioneered advances in complex dynamical systems research and in a number of topics concerned with the relation between the mental and physical. Sabine Maasen, PhD, is Professor for Sociology of Science and Director of the Munich Center for Technology in Society (TU Munich) and Associate Fellow at Collegium Helveticum (ETH and University Zurich). Her research focuses on the interface of science, technology, and society, notably with respect to neuroscience and its applications.

This second edition has been substantially revised and expanded to form a truly comprehensive, practical guide to research methods and statistical analysis. The text retains the successful student-centred approach, assuming no background knowledge. Logically and intuitively organised, the book introduces key terms and concepts, progressing through the process of selecting a study and analysing results right through to the final point of preparing a report. This edition has been extensively revised to offer more detailed coverage - including more depth on topics such as power, meta-analysis, ethics, the literature review, questionnaire design, small sample research, and graphing techniques. Coverage of qualitative methods has been expanded to include more on software tools and IPA. The book offers a range of support focused on essential concepts, practicalities, and a new feature to highlight important research from the scientific literature. The examples have been increased and updated to help clarify concepts and further support the reader in developing both a conceptual and practical understanding of research and analysis. The book relates to the most recent version of PASW statistics (previously SPSS).

Short-term therapy doesn't have to be second-best This valuable book explores a variety of brief therapy approaches with young adults between 17 and 25. Each case discussion thoroughly covers the salient points of the client, the problem, and the treatment, as well as segments of the treatment transcripts that illustrate the critical aspects of the counseling. A post-hoc question-and-answer section explores alternative ways the therapist could have handled the client and allows in-depth examination of successful treatment approaches. Case Book of Brief Psychotherapy with College Students offers constructive suggestions for dealing with common presenting problems, including: depression individuation issues PTSD impulse control in mandated psychotherapy cult membership post-rape trauma bereavement issues With comprehensive references and a fascinating variety of presenting problems, Case Book of Brief Psychotherapy with College Students is a helpful resource for any psychologist, social worker, or therapist whose clients include young adults.

Reimagining Narrative Therapy Through Practice Stories and Autoethnography takes a new pedagogical approach to teaching and learning in contemporary narrative therapy, based in autoethnography and storytelling. The individual client stories aim to paint each therapeutic meeting in such detail that the reader will come to feel as though they actually know the two or more people in the room. This approach moves beyond the standard narrative practice of teaching by transcripts and steps into teaching narrative therapy through autoethnography. The intention of these 'teaching tales' is to offer the reader an opportunity to enter into the very 'heart and soul' of narrative therapy practice, much like reading a novel has you enter into the lives of the characters that inhabit it. This work has been used by the authors in MA and PhD level classrooms, workshops, week-long intensive courses, and conferences around the world, where it has received commendations from both newcomer and veteran narrative therapists. The aim of this book is to introduce narrative therapy and the value of integrating autoethnographic methods to students and new clinicians. It can also serve as a useful tool for advanced teachers of narrative practices. In addition, it will appeal to established clinicians who are curious about narrative therapy (who may be looking to add it to their practice), as well as students and scholars of autoethnography and qualitative inquiry and methods.

This accessible textbook introduces a wide spectrum of ideas, approaches, and examples that make up the emerging field of implementation science, including implementation theory, processes and methods, data collection and analysis, brokering interest on the ground, and sustainable implementation. Containing over 60 concise essays, each addressing the thorny problem of how we can make care more evidence-informed, this book looks at how implementation science should be defined, how it can be conducted, and how it is assessed. It offers vital insight into how research findings that are derived from healthcare contexts can help make sense of service delivery and patient encounters. Each entry concentrates on an important concept and examines the idea's evidence base, root causes and effects, ideas and applications, and methodologies and methods. Revealing a very human side to caregiving, but also tackling its more complex and technological aspects, the contributors draw on real-life healthcare examples to look both at why things go right in introducing a new intervention and at what can go wrong. Implementation Science: The Key Concepts provides a toolbox of rich, contemporary thought from leading international thinkers, clearly and succinctly delivered. This comprehensive and enlightening range of ideas and examples brought together in one place is essential reading for all students, researchers, and practitioners with an interest in translating knowledge into practice in healthcare.

Psychological science constructs much of the knowledge that we consume in our everyday lives. This book is a systematic analysis of this process, and of the nature of the knowledge it produces. The authors show how mainstream scientific activity treats psychological properties as being fundamentally stable, universal, and isolable. They then challenge this status quo by inviting readers to recognize that dynamics, context-specificity, interconnectedness, and uncertainty, are a natural and exciting part of human psychology - these are not things to be avoided and feared, but instead embraced. This requires a shift toward a process-based approach that recognizes the situated, time-dependent, and fundamentally processual nature of psychological phenomena. With complex dynamic systems as a framework, this book sketches out how we might move toward a process-based praxis that is more suitable and effective for understanding human functioning.

With the advent of computers, very large datasets have become routine. Standard statistical methods don't have the power or flexibility to analyse these efficiently, and extract the required knowledge. An alternative approach is to summarize a large dataset in such a way that the resulting summary dataset is of a manageable size and yet retains as much of the knowledge in the original dataset as possible. One consequence of this is that the data may no longer be formatted as single values, but be represented by lists, intervals, distributions, etc. The summarized data have their own internal structure, which must be taken into account in any analysis.

This text presents a unified account of symbolic data, how they arise, and how they are structured. The reader is introduced to symbolic analytic methods described in the consistent statistical framework required to carry out such a summary and subsequent analysis.

Presents a detailed overview of the methods and applications of symbolic data analysis. Includes numerous real examples, taken from a variety of application areas, ranging from health and social sciences, to economics and computing. Features exercises at the end of each chapter, enabling the reader to develop their understanding of the theory. Provides a supplementary website featuring links to download the SODAS software developed exclusively for symbolic data analysis, data sets, and further material.

Primarily aimed at statisticians and data analysts, "Symbolic Data Analysis" is also ideal for scientists working on problems involving large volumes of data from a range of disciplines, including computer science, health and the social sciences. There is also much ofuse to graduate students of statistical data analysis courses.

Thinking in Education Research examines the resources available from philosophy and theory that can be practically applied to any educational research project. Nick Peim argues that the current well-established divide between theory and the empirical in research methods is unhelpful to students. Instead, Thinking in Education Research looks at major lines of thinking in modern European philosophy, from Kant to Freud and Derrida to Malabou, and how they provide a rich resource for every stage of conducting research. By getting students engaged in 'how to think' and 'how to do', Peim illustrates that thinking is in fact a vital part of how you do research and is not an aside. Essential aspects of the research endeavour are re-examined in the light of key philosophical positions to offer constructive potential, including: - defining the object; - giving an account of the field; - the relation to truth; - the process of writing and constructing a case; and - the value attributed to formal knowledge. Thinking in Education Research does not try to resolve the unresolved issues of research thinking but rather encourages readers to productively engage with them so that we can enhance the possibilities of research practice and find opportunities for its expansion and refinement. Throughout the chapters, clear and concise summaries of key philosophical positions and ideas are complemented with boxed accounts of how the philosophical debates discussed can be applied to real research projects. These features encourage the reader to consider how they can develop thinking and apply theory at every stage of their own research. This is essential reading for any educational research methods student or practicing researcher for important ways of thinking afresh about research methodology.

Embodied inquiry is the process of using embodied approaches in order to study, explore or investigate a topic. But what does it actually mean to be 'embodied'? This book explores why and how we use our bodies in order to research, what an embodied approach brings to a research project, and the kinds of considerations that need to be taken into account to research in this way. We all have bodies, feelings, emotions and experiences that affect the questions we are interested in, the ways in which we choose to approach finding out the answers to those questions, and the patterns we see in the data we gather as a result. Embodied Inquiry foregrounds these questions of positionality and reflexivity in research. It considers how a project or study may be designed to take these into account and why multimodal and creative approaches to research may be used to capture embodied experiences. The book offers insights into how to analyse the types of data emerging from embodied inquiries, and the ethical considerations that are important to consider. Accounting for the interdisciplinary nature of the field, this book has been written to be a concise primer into Embodied Inquiry for research students, scholars and practitioners alike.

Introducing key ideas of narrative inquiry, this is the first book to explore in depth the theoretical underpinnings of the methodology. The authors open up ways of thinking about people's experiences and their lives, which are situated and shaped by cultural, social, familial, institutional, and linguistic narratives. The authors draw on a range of theorists, creative nonfiction writers, poets, and essayists. The book is arranged into five parts covering a range of topics including: embodiment, memory, knowledge, wonder, imagination, community, responsibility, and place. Each section ends with a methodological discussion of their work involving refugee families with young children from Syria.

Negotiating the Complexities of Qualitative Research in Higher Education illuminates the complex nature of qualitative research, while attending to issues of application. This text addresses the essentials of research through discussion of strategies, ethical issues, and challenges in higher education. In addition to walking through the methodological steps, this text considers the conceptual reasons behind qualitative research and explores how to conduct qualitative research that is rigorous, thoughtful, and theoretically coherent. Seasoned researchers Jones, Torres, and Arminio combine high-level theory with practical applications and examples, showing how research in higher education can produce improved learning outcomes for students, especially those who have been historically marginalized. This book will help students in higher education graduate programs to cultivate an appreciation for the complexity and ambiguity of the research and the ways to think through questions and tensions that emerge in the process. New in This Edition: Emphasis on participant representation and researcher reflexivity and positionality Additional conceptual frameworks that ground qualitative work in higher education and analyze power to reveal structural inequities A wider array of approaches including Participatory Action Research, Critical Discourse Analysis, and visual methodologies and methods A new chapter on writing that covers getting started, writing as analysis, writing to capture complexity, and positioning oneself in writing Updated citations and content throughout to reflect the newest thinking and scholarship New end-of-chapter discussion questions and activities to bolster accessibility of theory and help instructors support students' work on their course research projects.

This substantially revised second edition remains the only comprehensive survey in English of methods and methodology in the discipline. Comprises 39 chapters - 21 of which are new, and the rest revised for this edition. 56 contributors from ten countries cover a broad range of topics. Three clear parts: Methodology, Methods, and Techniques. Illustrated by case studies. Essential reading for students and researchers in the study of religion/s.

This book provides insights into the lived experiences of researchers as they negotiate the undulating terrain of the world of paradigms and seek to find their niche. Each chapter presents the journeys of postgraduate candidates, early career researchers and established scholars, starting with an overview of their paradigm, the application of the paradigm to their specific research context, and concluding with the authors reflecting on their identification with and use of the paradigm. The volume acknowledges that determining the paradigm that best aligns with a scholar's personal ideologies and the underlying assumptions of the research can be rather daunting, challenging and perplexing to scholars who are starting their research journey. It offers an accessible exploration of research paradigms and will be a valuable resource for postgraduate researchers, emerging scholars and PhD supervisors.

Evaluation research findings should be a key element of the policy-making process, yet in reality they are often disregarded. This valuable book examines the development of evaluation and its impact on public policy by analysing evaluation frameworks and criteria which are available when evaluating public policies and services. It further examines the nature of evidence and its use and non-use by decision-makers and assesses the work of influential academics in the USA and UK in the context of evaluation and policy making. The book emphasises the 'real world' of decision-makers in the public sector and recognises how political demands and economic pressures can affect the decisions of those who commission evaluation research while providing recommendations for policymakers on adopting a different approach to evaluation. This is essential reading for under-graduate and post-graduate students of policy analysis and public sector management, and those who are involved in the planning and evaluation of public policies and services.