I'm requesting a previously used writer who might not specialize in this field, but in hopes that in the event they cannot complete this essay that they may be able to pass it along to someone who can fit the requirements. I don't actually need this paper until the 15th, so there is plenty of time. I'm just paying extra to get the best writer possible. I know this is a tedious paper with a lot of requirements.

The prompt/instructions talk about access to iLearn articles (which I'd like to be used for my 8 resources at the writer's discretion). To access these articles (as well as the Garcia article that is talked about), go to: https://ilearn.sfsu.edu/sp2013/blocks/ereserves/view.php?search=View+eReserves&id=3510

Login: 910652540


Click on Variations in Human Sexuality (upper left-hand corner), then scroll down a little bit and look on the bottom right-hand side for "View eReserves". There should be 89 articles available to choose from.

Another resource needed is the book "Sex at Dawn" by Ryan and Jetha. If this is not available to the writer, please let me know.

As long as all the requirements in the instructions are met, everything else is up to the writer's personal discretion as far as which articles, stories or anecdotes to use. Please also let me know if there is anything else I can provide to help in the writing process.

Thank you very much again! Below is the writing prompt and detailed instructions:


Review Essay: Scientific Approaches to Hookup Culture(s)
Sexuality Studies 400/Psychology 450/Sociology 400

Instructions
I. Due Date and Submission Requirements:
Wednesday May, 15th class at 11:10. We do not accept late work. Students will submit both an electronic copy to ILearn and a hard copy to your TA. The written and the electronic versions must be EXACTLY the same or we will not consider any points for the paper.
The electronic copy must also be submitted to ILearn by Wednesday, May 15th by 10am. The hard copy is due one hour later at the beginning of class.
II. Essay Topic/Content Expectations for the 8-page paper (not including references).

A. Carefully follow these steps:
1. Read the Review by Dr. Garcia, et. al, Sexual Hookup Culture: A Review from the General Review of Psychology and available at Ilearn/ereserves. You will need to be familiar with the major theoretical frameworks and the empirical research reviewed in this review.
2. You will be using Google Scholar for this assignment. Read the entry in Wikipedia about Google Scholar. This entry will help you understand how Google Scholar works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Scholar. Read this entry before conducting a search in Google Scholar.
3. Using Google Scholar, you will need to locate a primary research article on the topic. The article you locate must be primary (not secondary) research. You will need to read about primary research at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_research. We will discuss the distinction between primary and secondary research in class as well.
4. The article you located must have been published in a peer reviewed/refereed journal and published since 2005 (Google Scholar lets you set the years of publication). Choose a primary research article that addresses some aspect of the research reviewed in Garcia (Sexual Hookup Culture) essay and fits with your thesis statement.
5. If you are logged into your SFSU account, you will be able to access full articles for free from your computer at home, as well as on campus. Here are instructions for on and off campus access to library materials: http://www.library.sfsu.edu/services/accounts/index.html
6. Visit your Teaching Assistant and/or Dr. Carrington during office hours to discuss your search for an article, as well as to discuss the thesis statement for the paper.

B. Essay Topic & Personal Reflection
Based on the review of the scientific and legal literature provided by Dr. Garcia, the book you have read for class (Sex at Dawn By Ryan & Jetha), as well as the primary research article you locate using Google Scholar, develop a plausible scientific explanation of why a hookup culture developed in contemporary American culture and why it takes the form it currently takes. Your thesis statement should answer the question: Why do some societies and/or ecological contexts and some historical periods embrace this kind of hookup culture while other societies and/or ecological contexts and other historical periods prohibit and persecute the practice(s)? You should explore how different scientific theories (e.g., evolutionary psychology, biological anthropology, sexual script theory, Marxist/conflict theory, feminist theory, sociobiology) explain and account for a Hookup Culture.

The essay might consider the following questions: What factors (social, biological, ecological, psychological, evolutionary) seem most important in explaining the emergence of a Hookup Culture and what factors help us understand the varying social responses to it? Based on the evidence, are there gender differences that are important to the explanation? How would an evolutionary psychologist or a sociobiologist account for the growth or decline of a Hookup Culture? What kind of scientific evidence exists that helps us understand the ebb and flow of these practices among human populations? Finally, how might social science make sense of the recent debates over casual sex in different regions of the world: what factors explain why these debates have emerged and what does this tell us about the changing systems of sexual and social regulation among humans?
1. Overview
Write the essay as if you were writing to someone who is literate, but who has never heard the essay prompt or read the book or the article, and you want to explain how the concepts/evidence would help them understand sexual orientation:
a.). Use a thesis statement in the introductory paragraph to frame the essay. Read up on thesis statements:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/thesis.htm

2. Application of Course Concepts
a). Compare and contrast the perspective of the articles with one another and with perspectives covered in other course readings.
b). Apply theoretical perspectives covered in course lectures/readings that would help illuminate the issues addressed by the question.
III. Essay Format Guidelines:
A. Length: 8 pages give or take page (no longer, no shorter) not including the references/bibliography page. Use 12 point Times New Roman font. Use standard 1.25 margins (In Microsoft Word, Go to File, Page Set Up to set margins).
B. Thesis and Introduction: A Clear, Focused and Well Developed Thesis Statement Must Appear in the First Paragraph. Please underline the thesis statement.
All work must be typewritten (Size 12 point font: Times New Roman), double-spaced with 1.25-inch margins. Use standard indentation of three or five spaces. Please write in essay form. Begin the essay in an inviting, enticing, perhaps provocative, way: provide an interesting quotation, begin with a startling statistic, ask a provocative question, recount a story, or tell a joke pertinent to your topic. Then move toward a thesis or a controlling statement. The thesis should provide a framework for the entire essay. In addition, the introductory paragraph should briefly state what the essay will cover and suggest a tone for the paper. You can read about thesis statements on-line at The Guide to Grammar and Writing website:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm

C. Paragraph and Sentence Style
Each paragraph within the essay should possess a topic sentence. The topic sentence links the paragraph to your paper thesis and reinforces the thesis of the essay. One should accompany the topic sentence of each paragraph with at least five sentences illustrating and elaborating upon your topic sentence. Effective paragraphs usually consist of at least five solid sentences. Please make smooth transitions between paragraphs. One canlocate information about transitional sentences and phrases at the The Guide to Grammar and Writing website:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/transitions.htm

Please write in gender inclusive language (for example: use human instead of man).
IV. Citation Expectations
Use accurate and extensive citation (5 per page/35 overall are required). We do not mean five quotations, but rather five citations (on average) per page. Please seek assistance if you find the distinction between citation and quotation confusing.

Please use the Chicago Manual of Style or the APA citation format common to sociology, psychology and human sexuality studies. You can choose either style, but not others. I recommend the Chicago style given its simplicity, ease of use, and widespread use in sexuality research. One can locate the rules for and examples of each style at the following website: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
If one follows the Chicago style, one simply includes the following information at end of the sentence: (authors last name, year of publication, colon, two spaces, and the page number).
For example:
Laws intended to strip women of autonomy and control over their own bodies proliferated with the rise of the patriarchal states (Carson 1991: 136). Notice, this is not a direct quotation, but rather a paraphrase of Carsons point. This citation prevents plagiarism as well as gives credit to Carson for the ideas and evidence.

Please do not use extensive quotation. Paraphrase quotations. If you must use a quotation, because you cannot accurately rephrase the quote without plagiarizing, follow the quote with the authors name, a comma, the year of publication, a colon, two spaces, and the page number, all in parenthesis, same as above. However, one also provides quotation marks around the quoted materials.
The essay must provide a references page. This references page will constitute the last page of the essay and include the Garcia essay, the book by Ryan and Jetha, and the primary research article you locate.

V. Major Check List: Major Compositional And Organizational Concerns. Students will lose at least 10pts for each one of these six criteria if missing or undeveloped:

1. ___Does the introductory paragraph use an easily identifiable and well-developed thesis statement? Please refresh your knowledge about using a thesis statement at: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/thesis.htm
2. ___Does the essay contain the required number of citations (40 total or 5 per page on average)? Providing this citation prevents plagiarism and keeps the essay closely knit to course readings.
3. ___Do most paragraphs use clear topic sentences linking the paragraph to the thesis statement?
4. ___Does the essay make extensive use of empirical evidence (quantitative or qualitative) from multiple research sources?
5. ___Does the essay use a transitional sentence or transitional phrase between every paragraph? Such transitions enable smooth and logical flow across paragraphs. See http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/transitions.htm for assistance with transitional words, phrases and sentences.
6. ___Does the essay contains the required number of pages within page?
VII. Minor Check List: Students will lose 2pts each for failing to abide by each of these twelve criteria:

1. ___Remember to underline the thesis statement!
2. ___Does the essay open with an enticing and inviting quotation, question, observation, or fact?
3. ___Does the paper use a 1.25 inch margin (standard) on all sides of every page?
4. ___Does a page number appear on every page of the essay?
5. ___Do most paragraphs consist of at least five sentences, and rarely more than eight sentences?
6. ___Does the essay italicize (not underline or quote) book/journal/website titles?
7. ___Does the essay include a well-developed conclusion paragraph?
8. ___Does the essay indent each new paragraph (3 or 5 spaces)?
9. ___Does the essay avoid skipping lines between paragraphs?
10. ___Does the essay use 12 point font type, Times New Roman style, and double spacing?
11. ___Does the essay use block quote (indent all text 5 spaces on both right and left margins and single space the type) for quotations extending three or more lines?
12. ___Do not use report covers or title pages. Simple print your full name and student ID on the top right of page 1 of the essay.
There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that (dlzit) completes this order.

thank you in advance:
please number each question as you answer them in essay form(you do not have to rewrite the question:

1) for each of the following characteristics, distinguish between the scientific approach and everyday approaches to knowledge: general approach, observation, reporting, concepts, instruments, measurement, and hypotheses.

2) Differentiate between an independent variable and a dependent variable, and provide an example of each that could be used in an experiment

3) what is the major advantage of using operational definitions in psychology?In what two ways has the use of operational definitions been criticized?

4) Distinguish between the accuracy and the precision of a measuring instrument.

5) what is the difference between the validity of a measure and the reliability of a measure?

6) what three characteristics are used to describe testable hypotheses?

7) Identify the four goals of the scientific method and briefly describe what each goal is intended to accomplish
There are faxes for this order.

make sure to use quotes, references, name authors and page numbers when it is appropriate
use APA if necessary,

- include references always in case you quote an author or refer to an author or model,

- provide an explanation or name for each question, and

- give at least 1 example for each question when necessary, see readings for this.

- these questions must be complete after you do the readings, and are entirely based on the readings based on the course and the authors we refer to in this class.



These questions come from Rick Housers book (Houser. R. (2009). Counseling and educational research: Evaluation and application. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage)

you can also use McLeod. J. (2003). Doing counselling research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

1. Why is it important to acquire necessary skills in research for a counselor?

2. What are the two purposes of Housers book and explain?

3. What does Houser truly believes in relation to research and counselors.? Explain

4. What are the 2 advances that science and scientific advances have led to? Explain.

5. Explain the love-hate relationship with science that is present in our society?

6. How does Best and Kahn define science? Explain

7. How does Moore define research? And explain.

8. What are the common elements of science according to Moore? And epxlain.

9. What is the ultimate goal of science? Explain.

10. What are the different approaches to obtain knowledge according to Moore? And explain.

11. What does Salkind suggest for quality research?

12. How do we make decisions in our daily lives?

13. What are the sources of knowledge? And explain each one.

14. What are the 4 types of knowledge according to Gall, Gall, and Borg? And explain each one.

15. Explain knowledge from a descriptive approach

16. Explain knowledge from a predictive approach

17. Explain knowledge from an improvement approach

18. Explain knowledge from an explanation approach

19. What are the 8 type of errors that Babbie describes?

20. What error do Gall, Gall, and Borg suggest? And explain each one.

21. What tendency do we have as researchers that may affect our outcomes according to Pottick, Kirk, & Hsieh, 2007; Strohmer, Pellrin, & Davidson, 1995)? And explain.

22. Explain the misleading notion of good scientist in relation to a humanistic perspective opposite to psychology from a scientific approach?

23. Explain the scientist-practitioner method?

24. Explain the practitioner-scientist method?

25. What are the scientist and fractioned according Manicas and Secord?

a)The former practices science by creating at least partially close systems

b) The latter uses the discoveries of science but also employs a great deal of knowledge that extends beyond science p. 7

26. What are the assumptions about science according to Heiman?

a) Lawful to predict and control

b) Understandable

27. Name and explain the 3 theoretical orientations in research explanation according to Gall et all.?

a)mechanistic

b)post-positivistic, and

c)scientific realism

28. What is evidence-based practice?

29. What are the steps for the scientific process?

30. What are the traditional 3 sections of an article?

31. What are the traditional 8 subdivisions of an article?

32. What are the 4 purposes and goals of Housers book (p. 11-12)

33. What are the 2 types of program evaluation?

Formative and summative (p. 12)

34. What are the 3 divisions of Housers book?

35. What are the summaries of each Housers book chapter?

Here is the assignment task.

Using your organisation, choose a particular process from your specific functional area (purchasing, supply chain management) and critically discuss that process in the context of appropriate and relevant management theories and philosophies. For example is your process operated classically, scientifically, through a HR approach or a hybrid of these philosophies..
In conducting this critique, critically reflect upon the current management responses adopted by your organisation and also the options available to suggest alternatives or improvements for managing that process in the future.

The basis for my assignment is that I want to show the change from a classical/scientific approach to supply chain management to a hybrid of scientific/HR one. The books that have been recommended are.

Boyett, J and Boyett, J. The guru guide
Drainer, S. the management century
Cole, G.A. And Kelly, P management theory and practice
Saunders, M strategic purchasing and supply chain management.
Mintzberg, lampel and Ahistrand strategy safari the Oxford handbook of business history.

The company I work for I manufactures equipment for the mining industry and has done so since 1929. We are privately owned by an American corporate organisation. I will send over some details that I've pulled together.

The essay title is: "Does Durkheim's study of suicide follow his rules?" (1,500 words)

Below is an essay plan and what to include in the essay and the word count for each section:

Introdution (200 words)
-A breif outline of Durkheim's study & how it contributed to both the theoritical and methodological development of sociology.
-Then how it has fallen under criticms
-Generally set out what your going to say in the main essay. If you cant make up 200 words thats ok, just make the other sections longer so that the essay is 1,500 words

Section 1 (400 words)
-Outline the study of suicide by Durkheim (how he followed his rules)
-What he found (the 3 types of suicide, how the 3 types of suicide relate to one another, how to distinguish between a normal and pathological society)
-Make the outline of his study as detailed as possible please

Section 2 (400)
-Start this paragraph by oulining what his rules of sociology methodology were for conducting social research.
-Criticims: what did Durkheim do wrong in his study that made critics argue that he did not follow his rules? please give as much detail as possible of all that he was criticised for doing wrong. use as much literature as possible.
-What should he have done to have followed his rules? give as much detail please, what critics say.

Section 3 (300)
-compare the good aspects of his research on suicide and compare this to the negative aspects e.g, his use of statistics reducing validity and so forth. Be as detailed as possible

Conclusion (200)

-Background on the contextual issues that reduce the value of his research
-How posivists sociologists have used Durkheim to defend their scientific approach to sociology
-A breif outline of your opinion on the research e.g:its dated but has been a stepping stone for other work, his methods of research being not accurate but still found out what we did not know.
-ypur opinion should really come through in the conclusion about whether he followed his rules of social research or not.

OVERALL COMMENT:
Concentrate mainly on whether the study of suicide followed Durkheim's rules or not.

Thank you

Your task is to take the term, existentialism, and define it for yourself so that you feel you truly understand it. You'll then need to define the term as Camus defined it for himself. All this preliminary research is needed in order for you to make the connections between the philosophy and the main character, Meursault, in The Stranger. How can this philosophy be applied to his novel? How does Meursault manifest these characteristics? Do any of the characters in the novel reflect this world of absurdity?

The Original task is above..., but i wrote my essay and i attached it below.
Please edit my essay comparing the original task.
My instructor said i got a good intro, but
Some paragraphs (espacially the last two paragraphs)
need to be re-written because i missed Camus' purpose and they are confused to the original task. Some other parts can be re-written when you think it is required.
Also,i need a grammar chack.
Please polish my essay well.

The Stranger & Existentialism

?Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing, that are primary and that cannot be reduced to or explained by a natural-scientific approach or any approach that attempts to detach itself.? For existentialism, human beings can be understood only from the inside and it emphasizes action, freedom, and decision as fundamental to human existence and is fundamentally opposed to the rationalist tradition and to positivism (Wikipedia). The Stranger reflects existentialism that our world is a universe which has no place for us, in which our life makes no sense. In the novel, Meursault is portrayed as aloof, detached and unemotional. He does not think about events and their consequences. He also fails to express any emotion in his relationship with his friends. Meursault?s complete indifference to society and human relationships causes him to appear as the actual stranger. His strange opinions and unexpected remarks put him in this position, without ever really giving him an opportunity to be truly understood.

Meursault?s life was full of existentialism, for he believed that life just happened, nothing you could do would change the future, and that everything happened by a chance. He seems to live in his own world, socializing with others, but not caring too deeply about what happens in his life. For example, when his mother died, his thoughts were, ?Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don?t know (3). He just accepted it and decided that is was what was supposed to happen without any extreme feelings about her death. Also he never cries at her funeral and he refuses to look at his mother one last time after she had passed away, where the funeral director viewed this as extremely odd.
His existentialism appears to be casual and indifferent about life events. After he kills an Arab, not once does he shows any remorse or guilt for what he did. Nothing seems to be very significant to him. Camus seems to indicate that Meursault is almost oblivious and totally unruffled and untouched by events and people around him. He didn?t even consider his fate early on in his trial. In chapter three part two,
Usually people didn?t pay much attention to me. It took some doing on my part to understand that I was the cause of all the excitement. I said to the policeman, ?Some crowd!? he told me it was because of the press and he pointed to a group of men at a table just below the jury box. He said, ?That?s them? (83-84).
He doesn?t even care about death at this point, only how he is excited to see all these new people and be able to watch the court proceedings.

Before Meursault?s incarceration, he lived a life of desire based on his own satisfaction. His life was completely self-centered and focused on his own physical pleasures. His relationship with Marie was totally based on sex rather than love. He wanted to see a comical movie the day after he buried his mother. By letting these physical pleasures dominate his life, he created an attitude and behavior that was unaccepted and seen as wrong to the rest of society. He never asked anything from anyone and never once expected anything from others. Meursault is passive and his passive nature set himself apart from others and lived extremely independent (Bronner 44). This attitude is proven even further when Meursault refused a promotion based on the fact that he was satisfied with the life he had. When he had proposed a promotion he said,
..It was all the same to me. Then he asked me if I wasn?t interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn?t dissatisfied with mine here at all. He looked upset and told me that I never gave him a straight n=answer, that I had no ambition and that I was disastrous in business (41).
The thought of ambition and success never even crossed his mind and turning down the opportunity made no difference to him. This would appear extremely strange to anyone because there isn?t anyone who doe not want to earn more money, respect, and even have the opportunity to live in Paris.
Meursault is an outsider not only for others but also for himself. He looks at himself without trying to analyze his actions and their consequences. He is far from social convention or intellectual problems (poplyansky 80). Initially, the relationship with Raymond, Meursault always seemed to never truly consider his friendship even though the two did spend time together and Meursault did him a favor by writing him a letter. Also, his final interaction with the chaplain showed how Meursault was unable to connect with and understand others perspectives. The difference between Meursault and the rest of society, courtesy of the chaplain, became clear when he and the chaplain discussed their views of after life and religion. Meursault never thought that the way in which he was living was wrong or even sinful and that is what set him apart from every other human being. His lack of awareness and ignorance for social values appeared in chapter five, when the chaplain said, ?More could be asked of you could be asked to see.? ?See what?? (118) Religion never played a role in Meursault?s life and his stubborn attitude and close-mindedness never permitted him to understand where others were coming from. Meursault always saw life in a totally different perspective than everyone else and could never be rationed with.
During Meursault?s trial, the prosecutor basically reviewed all of society?s impressions of Meursault and how he was a self absorbed bastard. He constantly accused Meursault of being inconsiderate and cold-hearted by bringing up instances in his life that had nothing to do with the shooting. All of Meursault?s problems and complications were because of his appearances as a stranger, which he caused through his ignorance of social conventions (poplyansky 80). Yes Meursault?s only crime was that of ignorance. He was inconsiderate, but the fact is that he didn?t know any better and no one is able to change what without the help from other. Unlike the rest of society, he didn?t like to express himself. However, a lot can be misunderstood from silence because his silence appeared as ignorance.
People overlooked what his true personality was and what his true intentions were, causing him to appear as an unwanted stranger. In the Camus?s novel, existentialism seems to imply that the human being is free to do whatever he pleases and that made Meurasault as an unwanted stranger in our society. An unwanted stranger Meurasault, however, he never taught right from wrong and how to be considerate of them. Meursault lived his life different from any other, but he finally understood that what he had one was wrong and that every action has a consequence, and his consequence was.

There are two sources for this Module's Case:

Tony Oulton has an interesting article about "management research for information" (Oulton, Tony. (1995) Management research for information. Library Management. Vol.16, Iss. 5; pg. 75-81 -- available through ProQuest); here's the abstract:

It is suggested that the conclusions of a research study, whether one's own or another's, have value as a source of information for decision making. Experienced managers and prompt students of management are reminded about various approaches to research. Research is defined, and an evaluation is made to determine its worth in terms of validity, reliability and generalizability. Various approaches to research, in particular quantitative and qualitative research, and the interpretation of findings are examined. The use of statistical inference, statistical expression of probability and nonparametric and multivariate statistics is explained.

Don't let the last part scare you yet; it's not all that technical.

A Consumer's Guide to the Business and Management Literature by Dr. John Kmetz of the University of Delaware (available at http://www.buec.udel.edu/kmetzj/PDF/Chapter1.pdf) is a very useful discussion of alternate kinds of sources of knowledge in the field of business.

When you've read through both of these sources, please compose a short (ca. 4-6 pages) paper on the general topic of believability in business research. The following questions are suggested as things to think about, not necessarily as point to be answered specifically in your paper:

What do each of these sources tell you about the basis for believing what you read in a research study? Do you believe them?

Are there any other insights into the question of believability that you've gained from the Background Readings? The General References listed at the top of the Background Readings page? Other sources? What are the insights?

We said earlier that this course was to cultivate in you twin capacities: to be practitioners capable of conducting research in your domain, and to be educated users and critics of the research of others. To what degree might these things require different skills? What might those differences be?

What's the current state of your thinking about believability? How can we ensure that we disseminate only truth in our own research? How can we be sure that we believe only the truth in others' research?

How important is truth, really, to the businesses and organizations with whom we work and on behalf of whom we conduct research?


When your paper is done, send it in to CourseNet.


Chapter 1
A Consumer's Guide to the Business and Management
Literature
Introduction
This chapter began years ago as a short tip sheet for students who were often puzzled
and frustrated by their ventures into the academic literature. These experiences were
usually motivated by course requirements from faculty in our MBA program, most of
whom genuinely believed that the rigor and quality of the research reported in the
academic journals exceeded that from any other source. Students were therefore not only
encouraged but required to become consumers of material from the academic journals as
well as other more general sources of information.
The literature of management has been very much a part of the broader
information explosion of recent decades. Consumers seeking to use this material must
cope with a bewildering variety of information. This variety not only takes the form of a
huge number of sources, but differences along many dimensionsspecificity, readability,
and applicability, among others. The quality of many publications is perceived
differently by different users, and advice from these sources on what to believe and to do
is often confusing and contradictory.
This chapter has two purposes. The first is to provide a guide to interpreting and
using the management literature, to help one search through the material, categorize and
sort it expediently, and make ones own decisions about the quality and utility of the
information found. If a consumer using information gathered and summarized by others in
the form of reports or reviews, these guidelines will help to formulate relevant questions to
ask of those who provide the original information. In that regard, the second purpose is to
provide a critical view of the management literature, to balance the arguments of the
champions of each category below.
The basic message of this chapter is quite simple: there is a lot of information out
there competing for attention, and there is a great deal of good material in that. At the
same time, every source of information has its limitations, and there is no single source
that either is without some drawbacks on one hand, or that can meet the information needs
of every consumer every time, on the other. Some means of making a decision about what
to use for different purposes is needed, and this chapter is intended to provide some help
toward that end.
Locating and Selecting What Is Needed
The ability to keep up with all the literature in even a specialized field is rapidly being
overwhelmed by the volume of material available. This is one of the key implications of
the information explosion. Fortunately, recent advances in electronic search and
information retrieval have at least made searching the literature much more efficient.
2
While electronic databases are not yet entirely comprehensive, almost all new material can
be located electronically (and a significant amount of older material is being added all the
time). Finding time to read it all is another matter, of course.
Databases are being created by individual libraries around the country, and most
now provide comprehensive lists of the holdings of these libraries. The University of
Delaware, for example, has created DelCat for its book holdings, similar to the electronic
catalogs at the majority of US libraries; Web links to the electronic catalogs of many other
libraries are available. There are extensive CD-ROM databases for journals and
periodicals, and these are of enormous value to the business researcher. The main
difference between the book and periodical databases is that abstracts or descriptions of the
contents of books are not provided, so that the user cannot make a preliminary evaluation
of the contents. This is particularly unfortunate in the case of the specialized books, which
often provide excellent summaries of particular areas of research; this is also changing.
Access to these resources at Delaware is available through campus terminals or an outside
modem at (302) 831-0100 (up to 33000 bps). Modem settings are No parity, 8 data bits,
and 1 stop bit (N-8-1). A Web browser is needed to use the Library databases, and for the
Web version of DelCat. Browsers may be obtained for free by University students from
the Smith Hall computing site or by downloading from the University technology support
Web site.
The other type of information which is not always located through a database
search is from the proceedings of the professional societies. Unlike most professional
groups in the physical sciences and engineering, not all of the social sciences abstract and
keyword the majority of their papers, and so many do not appear in the databases. There
is a major difference between the types of materials covered in proceedings, depending on
the discipline. In the physical sciences, proceedings carry summaries of the most current
materials being presented at a professional conference; in the management literature, they
either carry developmental or preliminary work or papers not considered good enough to
submit to journals.
In addition, there are rapidly-growing numbers of Web sites which also provide
information directly from the source (for example, the International Standards
Organization and the World Trade Organization, both located in Geneva, Switzerland,
support excellent Web pages). Given the diversity of sites and flexibility of access and
operation, the eb has become a major gateway for information that fits into all of the
categories below.
Types of Literature
At first glance, the management literature may appear to be much more homogeneous than
it really is. There are actually several different management literatures, and each of these
occupies a specialized niche. Thus, an important problem is how to find the appropriate
3
material for the consumers needs. To a considerable extent, this requires some idea of the
content carried in each of the different categories of material.
I will begin by categorizing the types of literature in the field, and then offer
suggestions on methods to locate, select, and interpret the types. The management
literature can be roughly divided into five groups:
1. Popular press and electronic documents
The popular press refers to general readership publications, including such well-known
names as The Economist, Business Week, Fortune, Inc., and many others. Also included
in this category are business newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and Barrons. A
lesser-known set of publications in this group comes from various government or serviceorganization
publishers, including publications such as Business America from the US
Department of Commerce, and materials from the Chamber of Commerce. Most are
distributed nationally, and many of them are also distributed electronically through the
World Wide Web.
The familiar trade publications found in nearly every industry in the US and
elsewhere also fall into this category. These are valuable sources of information specific
to an industry, and many carry articles on broader management practices similar to those
found in the national publications. These are increasingly being widely distributed through
electronic media, and have become much more accessible than in the recent past.
The most current newsworthy information on matters in the business world is
found in the popular press. If the researcher wants current information on the Pacific Rim
or Europe, it is most likely to be found in this category. The market niche these
publications target is the business or technical reader; they differ in orientation, in that the
mass-market publications aim for general information while the trade journals are highly
specific to industries. Their values are for practical, hands-on, applicable information that
will be useful to their readers. Reportage, not analysis is the simplest characterization
of material carried in these outlets.
2. Practitioner books and compendia
The type of book found here is practitioner-oriented, such as Blown to Bits, Competing for
the Future, The One-Minute Manager, and countless others. They are found in
bookstores, newsstands, and airport terminals all over the world. Two examples of these
types of books are Goldratts (1986) The Goal, which has been both a commercial success
and has had wide impact on manufacturing management in the US and abroad; another is
Peters and Watermans (1982) In Search of Excellence, which has been a commercial
success and very influential, but has also been roundly criticized as being a poor
prescription for many firms (and equally poor at identifying excellentcompanies). These
books emphasize readability and applicability, and target the executive and professional
4
markets; indeed a large part of this category is made up of the professional press. A
book for every occasion might characterize material in these publications.
3. Practitioner journals
These are journals written primarily by academics and published through universities or
academic outlets, but with content oriented toward practitioners. Included in this group
are The Academy of Management Executive, and others such as the Harvard Business
Review, California Management Review, and Organizational Dynamics.
While the number of these journals is relatively small, they have a well-defined
niche, being written primarily for executives and management professionals. They also
serve as outlets for academics who want to write for executives and colleagues, but in
executives terms. The practitioner journals serve as a bridge between the popular press
and academic materials, in that many ideas from the theoretical world can be made
accessible to potential users. What appears in these journals is less likely to be as current
as the popular press, but it is still topical. Articles on new theoretical or other academic
developments are often covered; they provide some insight into the current thinking in
academia, but are not necessarily as concerned with theoretical developments or technical
issues as the academic literature. The values reflected in these journals are also those
common to both the practitioner and the theoreticianboth want fresh information and
new ideas, but want some objectivity and closure as well. Bridges, not new roads are
characteristic of the material in these journals.
4. Academic books and compendia
Literature in this category comes from specialized academic publishers of books and
collections of materials, principally to provide outlets for research summaries, essays,
theoretical articles, and similar materials. (This may be changingin recent years
competitive pressures have forced many o f these houses to offer more professional titles.)
Publishing houses such as Sage, JAI, Lawrence Erlbaum, and Ashgate are well-established
in this area. While these are oriented toward academics and researchers, these compendia
are generally made up of chapters and essays by well-established scholars in the field, who
provide an overview of the area and point out its strengths, along with its limitations and
shortcomings as well. Most of these summaries are based on journal publications, but are
not journal publications themselves.
Additionally, of course, there is the college textbook, by no means a homogeneous
type itself, but sharing a common orientation to the undergraduate or graduate student.
Texts are highly variable with respect to the depth of coverage of material and orientation
(theory versus practice), but they usually value clarity and are aimed at the mass market
for students. Texts therefore are valued for readability as well as for scholarly criteria, and
do not assume familiarity with the field. The purposes and values of these publications are
5
similar to those of the other three categories, respectively, for each type of publication. A
book for every discipline is the characteristic of these publications.
5. Academic journals
These are journals which publish academic theory and research. They carry articles
almost exclusively written and read by academics. Several kinds of articles are published,
but most are either theoretical papers or literature reviews, or the results of empirical
research itself. These are highly specialized, and assume that the reader is familiar with
previous research done in specialized fields on which articles are written. Most
professional organizations publish proceedings of their major meetings, and these include
material similar to the professional journals. Both frequently require expertise in
complicated statistical and mathematical procedures, and give much detail on the steps
taken in the research being reported. Because of these properties, their articles have highly
selective audiences, and usually do not report information in a way which lends itself to
direct application.
In the academic world, where much of ones career depends on publish or perish
criteria, there has been a tremendous expansion of these journals and outlets. The market
niche these journals occupy is almost exclusively the academic world, with very little
readership among practitioners. The purpose of the journals is to enable scholars to
communicate their theories and findings with each other; of equal importance is to enhance
the prestige of the contributing authors and their institutions. Their nominal values are
those of science and the scientific method. Analysis, not reportage is the characteristic
of these jourals.
Survey Research
One other popular type of research has generated many questions from students over the
years, and this is the survey. While not a category in their own right, surveys are a
popular way to gather empirical data on many subjects, and are widely used to evaluate
many questions, both for academic research and for practical matters in industry and
elsewhere. While they are relatively easy to do and are very flexible, those same
properties make it easy for them to be done poorly. Statistical significance is not so much
the issue with surveys, but two problems afflict many of them: (1) wording of survey
questions, and (2) the nature of the sampling and data collection.
A good survey always follows three guidelines: (1) it uses neutrally-worded
questions; (2) it uses a random (probability) sample; and (3) data are collected from all
sample members. The last part is often the hardest, and the most importantif the
researcher does not get all the members of the sample, a survey cannot be truly considered
as representative.
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The divergence between the categories of literature also reflects the diversity of
topics in the field. There is an abundance of interesting things to write about in business
and management, and each category of literature carries information which is valid
within its own sphere. However, readership studies and reports (Buckley, Ferris,
Bernardin, & Harvey, 1998; Byrne, 1990; Gopinath & Hoffman, 1995; Hambrick, 1994;
Thomas & Kilmann, 1994; Lorsch, 1979; Oviatt & Miller, 1989; Price, 1985; Kilmann,
Thomas, Slevin, Nath, & Jerrell, 1994) consistently show a nearly complete divergence
between those who read popular press versus academic journals (categories 1 and 2 vs. 4
and 5), and only limited integration of these materials through the practitioner journals in
category (3). This is even true in education (Miller, 1999), and is evidenced by the July
14, 2000 introduction of a bill by Delawares US Representative Michael Castle to require
scientific standards for education research. What is current or useful or good is
therefore by no means similar between categories, and there is every reason to expect that
what is considered valuable by those who read one category will not necessarily even be
known to other consumers.
However, from the perspective of what the different types of materials try to
accomplish, it should be borne in mind that each has its special contribution to make. The
popular press is invaluable for current information in a rapidly changing, time-driven
business environment, and not everything that business does lends itself to scientific
investigation. Those interested in underlying, deeper trends and phenomena must detach
themselves from the everyday din of business to look more carefully into data specifically
gathered to address those issues. Thus, the reality is that no single source or type of
literature can do everything that all consumers might need, and materials from the different
sources are not interchangeable. Each category of the business and management literature
has its strengths and weaknesses, and the next section will summarize these.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Literature Types
1. The popular press. The major strengths of the popular press and Internet sources are
that they are current, keyed to the specialized interests of their readership, and highly
readable. More than any other category, quality of writing is important to most popular
publications, and the information in them is much more comprehensible, and therefore
useful, to readers. The major publications in the field have highly accurate, credible
reporting; this may not necessarily be true of all Web sources, however, since many of
them have advocacy roles as well as simply providing information.
The problem inherent in the popular press is the same as its strengthcurrency.
This means that much of the information in this category is incomplete and uneven, in the
sense that some aspects of an issue may be very well developed while other parts are only
fragmentary. Usually this is the nature of newsthe story is only partially complete.
On a few occasions, this unevenness may reflect conscious or unconscious biases from
authors or editorial staff. Coupled with these limitations is the lack of scientific rigor
measures and criteria, other than relatively standard financial and physical performance
7
data, are often not provided or well explained. In some cases, reports of outcomes are not
well substantiated. Faddishness is one of the inherent risks of reliance on popular
reportingconcepts of what is ideal, or even workable, may come and go very rapidly,
with little solid evidence of utility, acceptability, or economic payoff.
The World Wide Web is a particularly interesting case. The freedom and ease of
access inherent in the Web allow one to find anything from jumper settings on computer
hard disks to restoration of the American chestnut tree. It also allows hate groups and
terrorists to communicate freely at the other extreme. With its appetite for timely
information, the business community depends on the Web increasingly, not only for
conduct of its B2B transactions, but for more general information as well. Some of this,
from professional news sources and reporting organizations, is monitored and subject to
editorial controls which place a premium on accuracy; other information sources place a
premium on image. For one example, I have yet to read a clear description of the details
of the Procter & Gamble matrix organization on their website; for another, I have students
do country reports on European nations for one of my courses, and despite the fact that
unemployment in the European Union hovered around 11 percent for much of the midand
late 1990's, it was nearly impossible to find any member of the EU 15 nations which
reported unemployment higher than that average on their official national websites!
2. Practitioner books and compendia. The diversity of this field makes generalizations
about strengths and weaknesses very difficult. The popular-market books are of such
variable quality and diverse focus that they cannot really be summarized. The best advice
one can give is to read reviews of them, if available, and to maintain a healthy skepticism
about them. Many of these books are written from the point of view of one individuals
beliefs and experiences, and no matter how heartfelt the authors convictions that these
personal lessons represent generalizable truths, the validity of this view is hard to establish.
These books can be as subject to faddishness as the popular press, and are often the
primary vehicle for new fads. Caution is the watchword.
Having given that caution, it is only fair to note that many very high-quality books
and compendia have been generated within this category, particularly the professional
press. Anyone who has uttered the words, core competence has been influenced by
Competing for the Future (Hamel & Prahalad, 1994); A Future Perfect (Micklethwait &
Wooldridge, 2000) is one of the most lucid and balanced examinations of globalization to
be found anywhere; The Fifth Discipline (Senge, 1990) has arguably done more to make
managers aware of the complexities of organizations than anyone before in the field of
systems theory. Consumers can get major value from sources like these, but there are
many volumes in this group which are thinly disguised pitches for a new fad, many of
which can be damaging to company health; one is inclined to think of reengineering as a
case in point (Hammer & Champy, 1993).
3. Practitioner journals. The strengths of the practitioner journals are that they usually
are less subject to faddishness than the popular press, and that their articles undergo a
8
review process similar to the academic journals. These journals are also highly readable,
and do not presume expertise (or much interest) in methodology or theory. They deal
with current events, but often with more objectivity than the popular press.
The weaknesses of the practitioner journals are that they sometimes drift in the
direction of philosophy and generality, and that they have limited immediate application
potential for either practitioners or academic researchers. This lack of direct utility is a
function of the bridge role that these journals play: they typically try to avoid
involvement in short-term trends and industry-specific issues, but also avoid reporting
many of the theoretical and research-methodological questions of greatest interest to
academics. Partly because of this breadth of interests, they can sometimes fall prey to
faddishnessarguments long on philosophy and short on validity have found outlets here:
the end of nationality-based consumer preferences (Levitt, 1983), organizational
reengineering (Hammer, 1990), and the death of hierarchy through computers (Leavitt &
Whisler, 1958).
4. Academic books and compendia. Compendia and annual editions are very similar to
the academic journals in both their strengths and weaknesses. One of the major
advantages of many of these works is that they summarize and evaluate progress in whole
areas of academic researchoften some of the best literature reviews of a field are to be
found in these publications. But as was noted above, the fact that these are not journals
means that many of these items slip through the databases, so that their availability is more
limited. Also, these materials are usually prepared from a research perspective, and thus
tend to be technical and presume familiarity with the research area. Because their
readership is academic, there is a tendency to present materials in academic terminology,
which may result in the reviews being far less useful to non-expert consumers than they
might otherwise be.
5. Academic journals. The strengths of the academic journals, grounded in the traditions
and value system surrounding academic research, are that they try to avoid the pitfalls of
popular literature through application of relatively more scientific rigor. While academic
research may not reflect current events, and may be very conservative in its willingness to
advocate a position (or even a firm conclusion, in many cases), the objectivity of the
research, the scrutiny of reviewers before an article is published, and the reliance on more
rigorous methods all reduce subjectivity, faddishness, and unclear thinking, especially in
the empirical research literature. The primary safeguard against such errors is the use of
quantitative measures and careful data collection, along with statistical analysis to analyze
and evaluate the data. The assessment of meaning is fundamentally shaped by what
empirical data say.
The weaknesses of the academic literature, as with other literatures, are the obverse
of the strengths. The social science model that predominates in management research is
far less mature than the model of the hard sciences. Thus, while the traditions and
values of the scientific approach are adhered to as far as the field will allow, much
9
improvement in the social science model in management research is needed before this
literature can be considered truly scientific.
An irony in this connection is that while many individual studies in the social
science tradition are quite good, the literature as a whole falls far short of achieving
scientific credibility. Generally speaking, the more closely the academic literature
approaches the methods and procedures of the soft social sciences, such as
communication, decision making, motivation, leadership, team building and group
behaviors, school psychology, and the like, the more unlikely it is that individual studies or
the literature as a whole have scientific validity (Meehl, 1967). This weakness will be
discussed in more detail below.
Suggestions for Interpreting Management Literature
Interpretation is the hardest part of the job in using the management literature. Each of the
different categories above has at least one unique strength not found in other categories,
and at least one major drawback or limitation which is not offset by any of the others. The
short answer to the question of what to accept or believe, then, is that it falls to the user.
At present, none of the categories provides completely reliable or generalizable
information.
Two general points should be kept in mind when evaluating information from any
of these sources. The first concerns time and timeliness. In general, the more rigor
involved in publishing anything, the less timely it becomes. Thus, one is always faced
with a tradeoff between timeliness of information and something approaching more
scientific rigor. However, this is not a simple time-vs.-quality tradeoff; each category
contains examples of high and low quality relative to others within its group.
The second point is that there is an underlying economic motivation to all of these
types of publications. In the case of purely commercial publications, the motivation is
simple and directsell copies. In other cases, and particularly the academic literature, the
motivation is indirect. Journals and books may be used to build personal and institutional
prestige, which results in pay raises and the ability to attract good faculty and students. In
my first academic job at the University of Southern California, a wise senior colleague
once advised me that there are only two questions that really matter in academic
publication. If the publication is a book, the question is Will it sell?; if an article, the
question is Will it impress? I have never found reason to discount that wisdom, and I
would recommend that it be borne in mind by any consumer.
By this point, the reader may have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to
find anything that can be believed, and to trust nothing, no matter what the source. That is
far from the case. It is important to bear in mind that in nearly any kind of serious
literature the author or researcher is not intending to deceive. Even when errors are found,
10
they are usually the result of misinformation, miseducation, often with the best of
intentions, or simply an honest mistake.
Fortunately, the increasing ease of access to information provides opportunities to
cross-check and broadly evaluate material and ideas. In addition, we can formulate some
guidelines to help interpret these literatures, once we are aware of their relative strengths
and weaknesses. In fact, many of the limitations in one category often suggest some of
the precautionary steps we should take in another.
General Suggestions for Interpreting Information
MAGIC. One excellent general set of guidelines for the evaluation of information comes
from Abelson (1995), a source which is really intended for more technical academic
audiences but in my view has wide applicability in all categories. He refers to the
following five criteria which are summarized by the acronym MAGIC:
Magnitude (of effect or outcome)how large?, how often?, what percentage
of events? what are base rates? are the kinds of questions we should ask to see
how large an effect is.
Articulation (of argument, including possible opposing positions)is the research
story told well, and does it consider both sides of an argument in reasoned form?
Generality (breadth of applicability)is the argument something that has wide
implications, or is it very specific to a time or set of circumstances, and how is that
claim supported?
Interestingness ( the argument has the potential to influence someone, perhaps to
even change beliefs)this is usually a matter of having compelling support for an
argument.
Credibility (whether the argument is methodologically or perhaps theoretically
sound)have alternative arguments been confronted? Are the data too good to
be true? Is the conclusion based on a small difference of one out of 100 findings
or only on personal experience?
Although Abelson addresses an academic audience whose interests are in using
statistical information most effectively, his ides strike me as having much applicability to
many questions we face in business, where cause and effect can never be that clear and
every story might have another side we have not yet considered. Without too much effort,
it is easy to apply MAGIC criteria to many kinds of questions.
Measurement. In any of the categories of literature (not just empirical studies and
surveys), results, findings, payoffs, and similar things are often reported. Thus,
11
another very useful question to ask is How was that measured? Often the details are not
supplied, or the result is not supported. Whether someone claims that there was a huge
benefit from a new information system or a huge unrecovered cost, it is always a good
idea to ask how that result was obtained. Measuring most things, even the seemingly
obvious ones like costs and returns, is often harder than it first seems. For that reason, it is
worth keeping in mind that most surveys are not cheap or simple, and are not undertaken
out of disinterest in the outcome.
This is an area where the academic research literature has a lot of value. Whether
we think a particular theory or idea is worth studying or not, we usually can tell how data
were obtained. It is common to publish the actual measures used, no matter what the
variables being studied. This is very unusual in the other categories of literature. Once
again, however, be wary of the claims of what those measures showthis is the
interpretational problem.
Advocacy and Generalizability. Any item in the literature must be evaluated carefully for
its generalizability. The primary question is the extent to which a finding can be
considered to be representative of a large groupdoes the result apply in general? In the
popular press, many single-case or single-company studies are reported, and the extent to
which the conclusions from one study might apply to a broader population of
organizations is always an open question.
A common characteristic of materials which are argued to be generalizable is the
advocacy of some position, whether intended or not. A problem or an opportunity may be
widespread; convincing people that it is also huge is much more likely to evoke action
than something widespread but small. Since the time and energy to do a study or an
article showing some effect is usually not trivial, there is a vested interest in having some
impact when the story comes out. This can easily lead to the kind of sensationalism that
Stossel (1997) calls junk science.
Multiple Sources. One of the benefits of having several different categories of material to
draw from is that they allow consumers to cross-check arguments. This may not always
be possible because some topics tend to be specific to one or the other of the categories,
but over time a topic usually generates multiple papers and studies, and even within a
category some triangulation is possible. With the increasing ease of literature searches
through databases and the Web, finding multiple items is less of a problem than before.
For any kind of material, it is always useful to avoid extremes, either in sources we
select, or in criteria we use to accept material of a specific type. Just because some
advocacy researchers are prone to overstatement in their zeal, it is not necessarily true that
advocacy of a particular position is unwarranted. Neither is it true that objective
researchers have no stake in the outcomes of their research. We might value experience
more than experiment, and therefore tend to disregard academic research in favor of
stories from the trenches. But it is hard to generalize from one experience to another,
12
and so we might do well to take a more dispassionate look at a subject if we can, and
academic research often meets that need very well.
Suggestions for Interpreting Academic Research Information
The academic literature is harder to evaluate because of its specialized nature and the
persistence of many of the limitations discussed earlier. In many cases, to be quite frank,
there is little reason for the research consumer to go into this material directly unless
needing some very specialized information in the field being investigated, and frequently
with the help of a knowledgeable assistant. Given the specialized nature of this body of
literature, it is necessary to go into some additional details on the problems inherent in it,
particularly the empirical research in the field.
Limitations of the Academic Literature. In the academic world, the professional
journals and materials are valued above all others. They are considered to provide the
most rigorous analysis of important questions and serve as communication media among
professionals. However, the primary weaknesses to guard against in the academic
literature are those inherent to the soft social sciences, which are weak sciences at best
(Meehl, 1986; Meehl, 1990) and in my view are not yet fully science at all. Those
wishing to go into this question in more detail should read Chapter 4.
The majority of my comments in this section are related to the empirical research
literature in management. A bit of background or review may be helpful. Empirical
research is usually conducted by forming a theoretical model, stated in the form of one or
more hypotheses; gathering data to measure the variables in the model; and then
examining the results. The paper derived from this process is then submitted to a
professional journal. It is almost certain that it will be subjected to blind peer review;
unlike the physical sciences, it is likely to be revised one or more times on the basis of
reviewer comments before finally being accepted for publication. However, the large
majority of articles submitted to the most prestigious of these journals are rejected.
The questions we ask in empirical research studies can almost all be reduced to
one of two formswhether one group of items is different from another, or whether two
groups are associated with each other. All that we really measure in research are these
two thingsdifferences or associations. Differences are usually measured as the
difference between averages or means, and association is usually measured as a
correlation. We refer to the difference or the association as the effect, and to its
magnitude as the effect size (technically, this is a raw effect, not standardized, but this
point need not concern us here).
For example, we want to know whether classroom training for workers actually
improves job performance. We may sample people given classroom training and people
not given classroom training, and compare their job performance to see whether there is a
difference. We could also see whether people given more hours of training perform better
13
than those with fewer hours, to see whether the amount of classroom training is associated
with job performance. The research question is to see whether differences in training are
related to differences in performance, i.e., a performance effect.
Since we call this kind of question an hypothesis, the overall process of collecting
data and analyzing it this way is hypothesis testing. Also, we almost always base our
studies on samples of people, rather than a whole population. We state our hypothesis in a
form known as a null hypothesis, which proposes that the groups to be evaluated are
assumed to be drawn from the same population, even if we really do not think they are.
For example, even though we sample people given classroom training and people not
given classroom training, the null hypothesis says that we assume there will be no
difference in performance between them, as if they came from the same untrained
populationthis is why we call the hypothesis null. The objective of testing the null
hypothesis is to see whether we can reject itthe null hypothesis is a straw man we try
to knock down. If the difference is big enough, or the association strong enough, we reject
the null hypothesis, and conclude that we cannot say that classroom training did not make
difference in job performance (but we still cannot say with certainty that it did). This
may seem a strange way to do empirical research, but this method lets us use some very
powerful statistical tools.
How do we know if we found anything? To answer that question, we need to look
at the effect size, and that is straightforward: if there is a difference between things, or an
association between things, how big is it? The problem is deciding when an effect is big
enough to be meaningful. There are no short, good answers to that questionin the end, it
falls on the researcher to conclude that the effect size is meaningful, and on the consumer
to decide if the researcher has made a convincing case.
So far, this all sounds very good, and these general methods can be applied to
many different kinds of data. This analytical technique can be a very powerful tool if used
correctly. Unfortunately, there are several problems in the soft social science model which
greatly limit the utility of much academic business research. Although I am treating them
separately, they are highly interdependent. Three problems in particular are endemic to
the soft social science research tradition: (1) the lack of research replication; (2) the
inability to cumulate or generalize the results of research; and (3) the incorrect
interpretation of statistical significance.
These problems are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, but the practices of the
soft social science model are such that virtually no research is ever replicated, so that
errors may go undetected, challenges to published interpretations of findings are not likely
to be reported, or failures to replicate a published study are not reported. For a number of
reasons, there is a premium placed on novelty and originality in this research tradition, so
that nearly every study published is dissimilar in some respects to previous work (even on
the same subject), so cumulation of research toward reasonably firm conclusions is not
possible.
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Finally, statistical significance has effectively become a substitute for effect sizes,
meaning that many conclusions based on support from statistical significance are highly
questionable, and any finding based on a large sample will be able to claim support for a
theory based on rejection of the null hypothesis. This is simply an error, and is a very
serious limitation to the credibility of research based on soft social science methods. For
present purposes, the only thing we need to be aware of is that the p level tells us the
likelihood that we got the data we did as a result of sampling error, or P(D|H), and nothing
more.
The consumer should always be mindful of an obvious but crucial difference
between the social and physical sciencesthe physical world can be counted on to behave
in ways determined by physical forces, and the world of human behavior cannot. In the
business world, this is especially true since organizations strive to differentiate themselves
from others, and to find a niche where they can succeed. This precaution becomes very
important when reading popular-market books based on the research. But because of
the limitations of academic research based on statistical significance, just about any
position on any argument can be supported in that literature as well. Most academic
researchers make the statistical misinterpretations discussed above, and the best journals
are filled with them.
Effect Size Is What Matters. How should we evaluate an empirical study if we need to?
The answer to that problem is straightforward: the user should consider the effect size, and
can use that to further evaluate the power of the test. Power in the broad sense (i.e, not
strictly just 1 - $) depends on three things: (1) the effect size, (2) the level of statistical
significance, as a check on P(D|H), and (3) sample size.
For example, if we measured two groups on a five-point scale of performance on
some task, is it important that the average for Group A is 3.87, and the average for Group
B is 3.99? On a five-point scale, a difference of 0.12 units (the effect) is so small we
would probably conclude it means nothing; on the other hand, means of 3.13 and 3.99 are
far enough apart to indicate that these groups probably differ in some material way. This
is exactly what effect means.
Effect sizes in tests of association are usually expressed as correlation coefficients
(r for simple correlation and R for multiple correlation). Correlations are best interpreted
conservatively as squared values: that interpretation is literally the percentage of variance
in the dependent variable explained by the independent variable(s). An r of .21 explains a
little more than 4 percent of the variance in the dependent variable (.0441, to be exact)
the other 96 percent is unexplained.
The interpretation of findings through statistical power makes very good sense: we
consider sample size (and method, by implication) to determine if we have enough of the
right cases to measure what we want; we check statistical significance to estimate the risk
of sampling error; and then we see how big the effect is. Based primarily on the latter, we
15
make our call as to what the results tell us. (Although it is never seen in the management
or social sciences, I agree with Cohen (1990, 1994) that confidence intervals should be
reported as well.) When reading a paper, look for direct reporting of effectsusually
mean differences or correlation coefficients (there are also specialized and standardized
measures of effect size, but these are rarely used). Since results reported in many studies
are not measures of effect size, be prepared to simply disregard them.
There has been a recent important improvement in the reporting of results. Since
1995, the American Psychological Association has required publication of R2 and adjusted
R2. Shortly thereafter, the Academy of Management followed suit, and an article by
Waller, Huber, and Glick (1995) actually discussed the importance of Type II error (an
important source of error which is completely ignored when the criterion of merit is
statistical significance); there was even a short discussion of the issue of statistical power
in that article. In addition, there are some journals where publication of data to support
meta-analysis has been encouraged, to allow better accumulation of studies (see Hunter,
Schmidt, and Jackson (1982) for a clear and convincing explanation of meta-analysis, or
Schmidt (1992) for a briefer discussion; like Cohen (1990, 1994), I am a big fan of metaanalysis).
The American Psychological Association Task Force on Statistical Inference
(Wilkinson & the Task Force on Statistical Inference, 1999), about which we will hear
more in Chapter 4, also recommended some positive changes in reporting and discussing
research results. But unfortunately, the Task Force failed to fully confront the limitations
of significance testing, and that problem persists and in fact, is spreading and
contaminating other areas of research outside the soft social sciences.
Interpreting Survey Results. I noted earlier that if a researcher does not get all the
members of a survey sample, the results cannot be truly considered as representative. This
is where many surveys get into trouble, and can become misleading. Allowing
respondents to select themselves (actively or passivelyi.e., allowing some participants to
not participate, or simply not chasing down the final hard-to-reach subjects) creates what
Norman Bradburn of the National Opinion Research Centers calls SLOPSSelf
seLected Opinion PollS (Tanur, 1994). However trendy or otherwise interesting, these
are not representative surveys. An example of a SLOPS survey is the famous fax poll
of Ross Perot during the 1992 Presidential campaign. He reported that the overwhelming
response of the survey (50 percent of the American people) was in favor of an
immediate balanced budget. While half of the people who faxed may have stated that
opinion, this was by no meansa representative surveyonly those who were already
watching, a self-selected audience, knew there was a survey being done, and of those the
only respondents were those with a fax machine (which the majority of the population has
never owned).
The problem of wording of survey questions often produces results which are very
good at attracting attention, but very poor at providing information. Daniel Koshland,
editor of Science, refers to these as Oy Veys, rather than true surveys (Tanur, 1994).
Either of these can yield results which are fun, exciting, sensational, and often the raw
16
material for a book or an appearance on a talk show, but they are not science. An example
of this (and a SLOPS as well) was the famous Shere Hite survey of womens relationships
conducted through Redbook magazine. She asked readers to complete an eight-page
longhand form describing womens problems in their relationships with men, and then
published it as representative of the whole population. She made claims such as 98
percent of the women in the US feel men treat them in demeaning ways in their
relationships. The criticism of her incorrect methods became so intense that she
eventually left the US, and now lives in Switzerland (doing the same thing, by the way).
The recent popular book Stiffed (Faludi, 1999) makes an equally serious error of nonrepresentative
sampling of American males, many of which would be considered fringe
groups. All of these are fun to read, but none of them are science, any more than the
conclusions one might reach by surveying customers as they enter a Wal-Mart.
Learning from SurveysFour General Questions. The discussion of surveys
earlier also suggests four very good questions to keep in mind in evaluating nearly any
item from the management literature: (1) Who sponsored the survey (or study, or
article)?; (2) How was the sample determined (or source of any kind)?; (3) How were the
data collected?; (4) How were the questions worded? For cases involving specific survey
questionnaires, we might also ask, (5) How were options for responses arranged? The
first four questions are useful for just about anything in the literaturebooks and articles
from descriptive and non-research literature, as well as surveys and academic research.
Keep It Simple, Stupid. Another guideline is to place relatively more weight on
conservative statistical procedures, simple designs, and simple methods when making
judgements about the reliability of research claims. It is also completely appropriate to be
skeptical of studies relying on multivariate methods. This is contrary to much of the
conventional wisdom that leads to a bountiful career as an academic researcher, but
multivariate methods often produce statistics which are difficult to interpret clearly, such
as interaction effects. Many multivariate procedures rely on model assumptions which are
frequently unmet, and multivariate methods always capitalize on any form of random
association between measures, no matter what the source. Abelson (1995) points out that
many of these rely on omnibus tests and are about as precise as playing a guitar while
wearing mittens.
In contrast, tests of differences between group means and tests of association
through correlation or contingency tests are robust, well understood, and have meaningful
interpretations. In a literature review, findings based on these simpler procedures should
always be given more weight than results from complex or multivariate procedures.
Simple procedures are always the most powerful.
If these guidelines are followed in evaluating the academic research, using it will
be much easier for the simple reason that the majority of it will be rejected as inconclusive.
And that is completely appropriateno user wants to base important decisions on
ambiguous information, and if that is all there is, then we want to develop our own.
17
On the other hand, while the null hypothesis is something we continue to use in the
academic literature despite its flaws, it suggests a good approach to interpreting much of
what we read from any source: assume it is no different from anything else you have read
before. If you are convinced it had value at the end of the item, then it probably did. But
a willingness to ask hard questions, and a healthy skepticism, is a good perspective for any
consumer or any researcher.
Conclusion
Much of this chapter has focused on the limitations of the different categories of
management literature rather than the relative advantages. In part, I have chosen this
because any of the sources tend to be championed by those who find them most helpful, of
course; there is, in other words, an inherent form of advocacy which characterizes all the
different types of literature. Those who favor the richness and currency of company case
histories prefer the popular and bridge-journal presses; scholars and academics favor the
academic research journals; and so on.
But while I have been critical of all of these sources, each also has its advantages,
and no single source can provide all the information consumers might want for different
purposes. The point is that we need to look at both the roses and the thorns to have a
balanced view of what the literature has to offer. We are fortunate to have rich
information resources available to us, and we want to use that resource as intelligently and
effectively as we can. I hope this guide will provide some assistance in that direction.
Beware the Canals on Mars
There is a famous story about Sir Percival Lowells study of the canals on Mars, based on
his years of observations from the Lowell Observatory. He saw them because he knew
they were there from the 1877 work of Giovanni Schiaparelli, and carefully documented
and mapped how they changed over the seasons. He also found almost four times as
many canali as Schiaparelli! Having our present knowledge of Mars topography from
unmanned landings and close satellite photography, we now know there are no such
features at all. True believers in a particular management approach (or anything else) will
always find support for it. This is true for any kind of literature at all, and if even the
most careful of hard scientists can fall prey to it, the popular press and social sciences are
even more prone. Beware of the canals on Mars!
18


There are faxes for this order.

I request for Writers

Reading Assignment:
KSSR:
Plato: from The Republic 51 [Note: Plato spends the first 5 pages here justifying equality for women; this is important to the history of women's rights, but don't get so immersed in Socrates' argument here that you neglect Plato's singular ideas on pages 56-64; there are several ideas here on which you will need to comment]
Descartes: from Discourse on Method 65 [pay particular attention to the four steps of his method, especially step one]
Bacon: Preface to Novum Organum 91 [pay particular attention to his idea of the progressive stages of certainty]
Darwin: from The Descent of Man 94
Nietzsche: from The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche 75 [when Nietzsche uses the word pity he means compassion; he also means for this value to stand for all Christian values. If you disagree with Nietzsche, the best way to argue against his position is to explain the benefits (to society and to the individual) of the values he attacks.]

IN DEFENSE OF THE WEST:
Chapter Two Making Tradition Rational and Scientific 15
NOTE: Dr. Devine's book is intended to provide historical and philosophical context for the ideas in the main readings each week. You do not have to refer to ideas from his book in your threads each week, though you may (briefly) if you wish.

Each of these readings promotes a scientific approach to understanding reality generally and sometimes human behavior in particular. Some of them sharply critique faith and/or traditional knowledge. Some proposed ideas for constructing a better society. All of them challenge us as readers with the originality or perhaps outrageousness of their thoughts and approaches. WRITE A 1,000-WORD MINIMUM ESSAY IN WHICH YOU ARGUE EITHER FOR OR AGAINST A STRICTLY SCIENTIFIC OR RATIONAL APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING REALITY, INCLUDING HUMAN BEHAVIOR, AND ADDRESSING HUMAN PROBLEMS, INCLUDING SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ONES.
A Word of Advice: Do not be abashed by the famousness of these authorities. You should be willing to critique the logic and conclusions of these critics of Western traditions. However, you must give good, argumentatively defensible reasons for either agreeing or disagreeing with their ideas. For one example, if you are a person of faith, it is understandable that you might take offense at Nietzsche's attack on Christian values. In fact, Nietzsche would be disappointed if you were not offended. However, just saying he's wrong because he attacks faith and Christian values is not persuasive. Please remember that supplying reasons for our opinions is what distinguishes critical opinions from ordinary opinions.

question first and then continue to answer. Do Not Use Outside Sources.
Berliner readings refer to educational research, however, at the same time that educational researchers themselves are expanding their repertoire; such as the federal government narrowing their focus on scientific research.

Discussion Question
1.What do you think are some likely outcomes of this conflict?

Educational Research: The Hardest Science of All: by David C. Berliner

Under the stewardship of the Department of Education, recent acts of Congress confuse the methods of science with the process of science, possibly doing great harm to scholarship in education. An otherwise exemplary National Research Council report to help clarify the nature of educational science fails to emphasize the complexity of scientific work in education due to the power of contexts, the ubiquity of interactions, and the problem of decade by findings interactions. Discussion of these issues leads to the conclusion that educational science is unusually hard to do and that the government may not be serious about wanting evidence-based practices in education.

Scientific Culture and Educational Research (this issue), as well as the National Research Council (NRC) report from which it draws, are important documents in the history of educational research. I commend the authors and panelists who shaped these reports, and I support their recommendations. But it is not clear to me that science means the same thing to all of us who pay it homage, nor do I think that the distinctions between educational science and other sciences have been well made in either report. There are implications associated with both these issues.

Definitions of Science
I admire Richard Feynmans (1999) definition of science as the belief in the ignorance of authority (p. 187). Unrestricted questioning is what gives science its energy and vibrancy. Values, religion, politics, vested material interests, and the like can distort our scientific work only to the extent that they stifle challenges to authority, curtailing the questioning of whatever orthodoxy exists. Unfettered, science will free itself from false beliefs or, at the least, will moderate the climate in which those beliefs exist. As politicians recognize that facts are negotiable, perceptions are
rock solid, so there is no guarantee that science will reduce ignorance. But as long as argument is tolerated and unfettered, that possibility exists. Another admirable definition of science was provided by Percy Bridgman (1947), who said there really is no scientific method, merely individuals doing their damndest with their minds, no holds barred (pp. 144145). I admire Feynmans and Bridgmans definitions of science because neither confuses science with method or technique, as I believe happens in recent government proclamations about the nature of appropriate, and therefore fundable, educational research. World-renowned scientists do not confuse science with method. As Peter Medawar said, what passes for scientific methodology is a misrepresentation of what scientists do or ought to do. The evidence-based practices and scientific research mentioned over 100 times in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 are code words for randomized experiments, a method of research with which I too am much enamored. But to think that this form of research is the only scientific approach to gaining knowledgethe only one that yields trustworthy evidence reveals a myopic view of science in general and a misunderstanding of educational research in particular. Although strongly supported in Congress, this bill confuses the methods of science with the goals of science. The government seems to be inappropriately diverging from the two definitions of science provided above by confusing a particular method of science with science itself. This is a form of superstitious thinking that is the antithesis of science. Feuer, Towne, and Shavelson, representing the entire NRC committee, clearly recognize this mistake, and we should all hope that they are persuasive. To me, the language in the new bill resembles what one would expect were the government writing standards for bridge building and prescription drugs, where the nature of the underlying science is straightforward and time honored. The bill fails to recognize the unique nature of educational science.

Hard and Soft Science: A Flawed Dichotomy
The distinctions between hard and soft sciences are part of our culture. Physics, chemistry, geology, and so on are often contrasted with the social sciences in general and education in particular. Educational research is considered too soft, squishy, unreliable, and imprecise to rely on as a basis for practice in the same way that other sciences are involved in the design of bridges and electronic circuits, sending rockets to the moon, or developing new drugs.
But the important distinction is really not between the hard and the soft sciences. Rather, it is between the hard and the easy sciences. Easy-to-do science is what those in physics, chemistry, geology, and some other fields do. Hard-to-do science is what the social scientists do and, in particular, it is what we educational researchers do. In my estimation, we have the hardest-to-do science of them all! We do our science under conditions that physical
scientists find intolerable. We face particular problems and must deal with local conditions that limit generalizations and theory buildingproblems that are different from those faced by the easier-to-do sciences. Let me explain this by using a set of related examples: The power of context, the ubiquity of interactions, and the problem of decade by findings interactions. Although these issues are implicit in the Feuer, Towne, and Shavelson article, the authors do not, in my opinion, place proper emphasis on them.

The Power of Contexts
In education, broad theories and ecological generalizations often fail because they cannot incorporate the enormous number or determine the power of the contexts within which human beings find themselves. That is why the Edison Schools, Success for All, Accelerated Schools, the Coalition of Essential Schools, and other school reform movements have trouble replicating effects from site to site. The decades old Follow-Through study should
have taught us about the problems of replication in education (House, Glass, McLean, & Walker, 1978). In that study, over a dozen philosophically different instructional models of early childhood education were implemented in multiple sites over a considerable period of time. Those models were then evaluated for their effects on student achievement. It was found that the variance in student achievement was larger within programs than it was between programs. No program could produce consistency of effects across sites. Each local context was different, requiring differences in programs, personnel, teaching methods, budgets, leadership, and kinds of community support. These huge context effects cause scientists great trouble in trying to understand school life. It is the reason that qualitative inquiry
has become so important in educational research. In this hardest-to-do science, educators often need knowledge of the particularthe localwhile in the easier-to-do sciences the aim is for more general knowledge. A science that must always be sure the myriad particulars are well understood is harder to build than a science that can focus on the regularities of nature across contexts. The latter kinds of science will always have a better chance to understand,
predict, and control the phenomena they study. Doing science and implementing scientific findings are so difficult
in education because humans in schools are embedded in complex and changing networks of social interaction. The participants in those networks have variable power to affect each other from day to day, and the ordinary events of life (a sick child, a messy divorce, a passionate love affair, migraine headaches, hot flashes, a birthday party, alcohol abuse, a new principal, a new hild in the classroom, rain that keeps the children from a recess outside the school building) all affect doing science in school settings by limiting the generalizability of educational research findings. Compared to designing bridges and circuits or splitting either atoms or genes, the science to help change schools and classrooms is harder to do because context cannot be controlled.

The Ubiquity of Interactions
Context is of such importance in educational research because of the interactions that abound. The study of classroom teaching, for example, is always about understanding the 10th or 15th order interactions that occur in classrooms. Any teaching behavior interacts with a number of student characteristics, including IQ, socioeconomic status, motivation to learn, and a host of other factors. Simultaneously, student behavior is interacting with
teacher characteristics, such as the teachers training in the subject taught, conceptions of learning, beliefs about assessment, and even the teachers personal happiness with life. But it doesnt end there because other variables interact with those just mentioned the curriculum materials, the socioeconomic status of the community,
peer effects in the school, youth employment in the area, and so forth. Moreover, we are not even sure in which directions the influences work, and many surely are reciprocal. Because of the myriad interactions, doing educational science seems very difficult, while science in other fields seems easier. I am sure were I a physicist or a geologist I would protest arguments from outsiders about how easy their sciences are compared to mine. I know how messy their fields appear to insiders, and that arguments about the status of findings and theories within their disciplines can be fierce. But they have more often found regularities in nature across physical contexts while we struggle to find regularities across social contexts. We can make this issue about the complexity we face more concrete by using
the research of Helmke (cited in Snow, Corno & Jackson, 1995). Helmke studied students evaluation anxiety in elementary and middle school classrooms. In 54 elementary and 39 middle school classrooms, students scores on questionnaires about evaluation anxiety were correlated with a measure of student achievement. Was there some
regularity, some reportable scientific finding? Absolutely. On average, a negative correlation of modest size was found in both elementary and middle school grades. The generalizable finding was that the higher the scores on the evaluation anxiety questionnaire, the lower the score on the achievement test. But this simple scientific finding totally misses all of the complexity in the classrooms studied. For example, the negative correlations ran from about ?.80 to zero, but a few were even positive, as high as +.45. So in some classes students evaluation anxiety was so debilitating that their achievement was drastically lowered, while in other classes the effects were nonexistent. And
in a few classes the evaluation anxiety apparently was turned into some productive motivational force and resulted in improved student achievement. There were 93 classroom contexts, 93 different patterns of the relationship between evaluation anxiety and student achievement, and a general scientific conclusion that completely missed the particularities of each classroom situation. Moreover, the mechanisms through which evaluation anxiety resulted in reduced student achievement appeared to be quite different in the elementary classrooms as compared to the middle
school classrooms. It may be stretching a little, but imagine that Newtons third law worked well in both the northern and southern hemispheresexcept of course in Italy or New Zealandand that the explanatory basis for that law was different in the two hemispheres. Such complexity would drive a physicist crazy, but it is a part of the day-to-day world of the educational researcher. Educational researchers have to accept the embedded-ness of educational phenomena in social life, which results in the myriad interactions that complicate our science. As Cronbach
once noted, if you acknowledge these kinds of interactions, you have entered into a hall of mirrors, making social science in general, and education in particular, more difficult than some other sciences. Decade by Findings

Interactions
There is still another point about the uniqueness of educational science, the short half-life of our findings. For example, in the 1960s good social science research was done on the origins of achievement motivation among men and women. By the 1970s, as the feminist revolution worked its way through society, all data that described women were completely useless. Social and educational research, as good as it may be at the time it is done, sometimes shows these decade by findings interactions. Solid scientific findings in one decade end up of little use in another
decade because of changes in the social environment that invalidate the research or render it irrelevant. Other examples come to mind. Changes in conceptions of the competency of young children and the nature of their minds resulted in a constructivist paradigm of learning replacing a behavioral one, making irrelevant entire journals of scientific behavioral findings about educational phenomena. Genetic findings have shifted social views about race, a concept now seen as worthless in both biology and anthropology. So previously accepted social science studies about differences between the races are irrelevant because race, as a basis for classifying people in a research study, is now understood to be socially, not genetically, constructed. In all three cases, it was not bad science that caused findings to become irrelevant. Changes in the social, cultural, and intellectual environments negated the scientific work in these areas. Decade by findings interactions seem more common in the social sciences and education than they do in other scientific fields of inquiry, making educational science very hard to do.

Conclusions
The remarkable findings, concepts, principles, technology, and theories we have come up with in educational research are a triumph of doing our damndest with our minds. We have conquered enormous complexity. But if we accept that we have unique complexities to deal with, then the orthodox view of science now being put forward by the government is a limited and faulty one. Our science forces us to deal with particular problems, where local knowledge is needed. Therefore, ethnographic research is crucial, as are case studies, survey research, time series, design experiments, action research, and other means to collect reliable evidence for engaging in unfettered argument about education issues. A single method is not what the government should be promoting for educational researchers. It would do better by promoting argument, discourse, and discussion. It is no coincidence that early versions of both democracy and science were invented simultaneously in ancient Greece. Both require the same freedom to argue and question authority, particularly the government. It is also hard to take seriously the governments avowed desire
for solid scientific evidence when it ignores the solid scientific evidence about the long-term positive effects on student learning of high-quality early childhood education, small class size, and teacher in-service education. Or when it ignores findings about the poor performance of students when they are retained in grade, assigned uncertified teachers or teachers who have out-of-field teaching assignments, or suffer a narrowed curriculum
because of high-stakes testing. Instead of putting its imprimatur on the one method of scientific inquiry to improve education, the government would do far better to build our community of scholars, as recommended in the NRC report. It could do that by sponsoring panels to debate the evidence we have collected from serious scholars using
diverse methods. Helping us to do our damndest with our minds by promoting rational debate islikely to improve education more than funding randomized studies with their necessary tradeoff of clarity of findings for completeness of understanding. We should never lose sight of the fact that children and teachers in classrooms are conscious, sentient, and purposive human beings, so no scientific explanation of human behavior could ever be complete.
In fact, no un-poetic description of the human condition can ever be complete. When stated this way, we have an argument for heterogeneity in educational scholarship and for convening panels of diverse scholars to help decide what findings are and are not worthy of promoting in our schools. The present caretakers of our government would be wise to remember Justice Jacksons 1950 admonition: It is not the function of our government to keep the citizens from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. Promoting debate on a variety of educational issues among researchers and practitioners with different methodological perspectives would help both our scholars and our government to make fewer errors. Limiting who is funded and who will be invited to those debates is more likely to increase our errors.

Here is the information provided by the professor. The paper can be no longer than 10 pages, this does not include appendixes:

As a capstone experience, you will write a Business Research Proposal concerning a business management problem. The management problem should be behaviorally oriented, business centered, and social-scientific in focus.

Note: You are urged to work with a partner on this project (i.e. one paper, two authors, both receive the same grade). In the past, students who chose to work collaboratively have told me they learned more, were better challenged, and performed at a higher level on this assignment when working with a partner than when working alone.

Proposals over the 10 page limit will be returned to the author, ungraded. There is no minimum page requirement. Proposals should be double spaced, with 1" margins on all sides, free from spelling and grammar errors. According to APA guidelines, appendices, title page, and references do not count toward your page total.

Proposals over the 10 page limit will be returned to the author, ungraded. There is no minimum page requirement. Proposals should be double spaced, with 1" margins on all sides, free from spelling and grammar errors. According to APA guidelines, appendices, title page, and references do not count toward your page total.

You may find it helpful to think of developing your proposal in a series of steps:

1) Decide on a problem worthy of investigation. The problem should focus on the business environment. As this is a social-scientific approach to research, it should focus on some aspect of human behavior in the business environment (note: We will be engaging in conference topics and exercises early in the semester, to help you choose a topic and narrow your focus).

2) Find out what social scientific research findings already exist, by doing some preliminary library work. The existing social scientific research may lead you to revise your own research question.

3) Conduct a thorough literature search in which you ultimately locate no less than four high-quality empirical research articles, published in social scientific journals, that pertain to your problem. Remember that you must be able to explain the direct relevance of each article to your own investigation, articulating exactly how it might inform your own research (Note: Your sources should be no older than 1990).

Note: At least three of your sources must come from social scientific journals. They must be articles wherein the author proposes a research question, conducts a literature review, designs an experimental study, uses statistics to summarize the results of the study, and provides a final answer to the research question.

4) Formulate a research plan, based on prior research and your imagination, in which you suggest a sampling procedure, a set of measures for the independent variable, a set of measures for the dependent variable and a system for collecting data to test your hypothesis and rule out extraneous variables. The description should include inducements for your subjects to participate. Be sure that your research plan represents the highest standards of ethical social scientific research.

5) Make up (invent/ fake/imagine/pretend) a data set of hypothetical raw numbers. Your proposal creates a real hypothesis, then shows how a researcher would really go about testing that hypothesis, including an appropriate research design and data analysis. The only "fictional" item in your proposal is the actual data set. Since we don't have time for you to actually measure your IV and DV, you'll have to use your knowledge or common sense to create "scores" for your participants, showing what your IV and DV would probably look like, if you had indeed measured them. The numbers should be formatted in such a way to suggest the trends you think you might find if you were to actually collect data as specified in step 4, above.

6) Suggest a statistical routine for analyzing your data using appropriate statistics. Explain which statistical routine will be employed and for what purpose. Justify your choice of statistical analysis. What makes it appropriate in your particular research situation? How does it match the data or the research question being tested? Explain the statistical assumptions that are necessary for conducting such a test (i.e. normality, number of observations, etc.) Demonstrate that you have tested these statistical assumptions, to assure they haven't been violated. Show your calculations and output. Describe the patterns you see. Explain what conclusions you'd draw if this output was presented to you for inspection.

7) Write the above information into an outline of no more than 10 pages. The final document should include headings designating the various portions of a business research proposal, as discussed on pp. 96 - 102 in Cooper and Schindler (2006). It is best to write in the past tense, explaining what you did and why, and what your data revealed.

For LOTS of detailed information about how to approach, conceptualize, and write this major paper, please click the link below. This link is especially helpful for novice researchers and is full of hints and how-to's.

It also tells you exactly how your paper will be graded.



Business Research Proposal

IMPORTANT! Please remember that all papers must now be submitted to Turniti.com. See instructions at the end of this document.

I will use the rubric below to grade your proposal. Your BRP should follow this format and order of headings, outlined by Cooper and Schindler (2006).

Section Heading Tasks
Executive Summary
(2 points)
Brief identification of and background on the business management problem
Brief review of the research question or hypothesis

Brief statement of the benefits expected from your approach

Note: "Brief" here means 1 - 2 sentences.

Problem Statement
(3 points)
Formal re-statement of the business management problem.
Some background on the problem (historical, political, social, economic, religious, or industrial beginnings).

Current consequences of the problem.

List any "restrictions:" aspects of the problem that are beyond your current investigation and won't be included in your statistical analyses.

Research Objectives
(4 points)
Purpose(s) of the investigation is stated.
The research hypothesis is stated (as in a "causal" study).

The independent variable(s) is explicitly labeled for the reader

The dependent variable(s) is explicitly labeled for the reader (showing that the writer is able to distinguish an "independent" from a "dependent" variable).

Literature Review
(6 points each x 4 prior studies required = 24 total points)
(1 point) Cites the author(s) of each study, using guidelines of the American Psychological Association manual (5th ed.).
(1 point) Reviews the purpose of each prior research project

(1 point) Reviews the methodology followed in each prior research project, so the reader can determine whether the methods were biased, whether the sample represents the population, etc. (i.e. Was this "good research?")

(1 point) Reviews the specific findings reached by author(s )of each study

(2 points) Explicitly links each study to the current investigation, explaining the relevance of the prior research and exactly why/how it provides support to the current investigation (i.e. does it suggest a particularly effective methodology? Does it contain measures you intend to use for your IV or DV? Do the findings imply what you'll be likely to find in your statistical analysis of the data?)

Importance/Benefits of the Study
(1 point)
Potential helpful outcomes of the knowledge gained from the study are listed (i.e. managerial, social, political, economic benefits are linked to the study's results)
The proposed helpful outcomes are realistic (i.e. dealing with questions that can actually be answered through the type of data gathering and analysis you're proposing. The suggested helpful outcomes do not go beyond the data that's to be collected).

Research Design
(20 points)
(3 points) Provides a conceptual definition of the IV and DV
(5 points) Provides a full operational definition of the IV and DV, including measurement indicators and scoring procedures for measurement scales

(5 points) Describes a valid sampling plan, using appropriate terminology from class.

(4 points) Describes procedures for collecting data from participants, using the highest ethical standards.

(3 points) Identifies at least one extraneous variable and explains how it will be "controlled" in the study's design.


Data Analysis
(18 points)
(4 points) Identifies an appropriate statistical analysis tool (one that fits the data and research hypothesis).
(3 points) Justifies use of this statistical analysis, rather than some other possible analytic tool (explicitly identifies the characteristics that make the chosen statistical analysis "fit" this situation).

(3 points) Describes the calculation of this statistical analysis, including formulae and procedures for interpreting "significance."

(4 points) Describes any statistical assumptions necessary for running such an analysis.

(4 points) Actually checks that the necessary statistical assumptions of this test have not been violated.

Nature and form of results
(15 points)
(3 points) Shows a fictional data set (in an appendix) listing, at minimum, final scale "scores" for the IV and DV

(3 points) Shows statistical output for the analysis of the fictional data

(3 points) Directly states the research hypothesis and null hypothesis

(3 points) Correctly interprets the meaning of the statistical output, in relation to the null and research hypotheses.

(3 points) Correctly explains the conclusion to be reached from the statistical results: What do these results mean within the context of the original research problem

Qualification of researchers
(1 point)
Professional research competence is listed for each investigator (for some writers, MGMT 650 is the research competence component).
Relevant managerial experience is listed for each investigator (includes your experience within the industry you're investigating).

Schedule
(1 point)
Major phases of the research project described above are listed in order of their proposed occurrence.
Facilties/Special Resources
(1 point)
Locations for data collection are listed
Any special equipment needed for data collection is listed

(e.g. if you want your participants to watch a special video message, so that you can measure their reactions, then you need to list the location for showing the video, the video machine, and possibly, a portable screen as "special resources.").

Bibliography
(2 points)
A full reference for every citation appearing in the proposal is provided, following guidelines of the American Psychological Association manual (5th ed.).
Appendices
(3 points)
(4 points) An appendix is provided, showing the indicators used to create a measurement scale for the IV
(4 points) An appendix is provided, showing the indicators used to create a measurement scale for the DV

(2 point) An appendix is provided, showing the "Informed Consent" form, solicitation letter, etc.

Technical Accuracy
(5 points)

(2 points) Follows standard English grammar, punctuation, and spelling
(1 point) The outline is divided into sections identified by a major heading, following the format suggested in the BRM text.

(1 point) The outline is double spaced, with 1" margins on every side.

(1 point) Any claims of "fact" are backed with a citation as proof, following APA guidelines

Important: Your outline must not exceed 10 pages, but this does not include appendixes, references, tables, title page, etc. For more on this, please see the APA guidelines.


Total Points Available = 100


Conceptualizing the BRP

I'd rather you not perceive this is a monster task. Rather, think of it as an "open book final exam." Basically, the BRP shows me whether you have learned the steps in the research process we've discussed in class: How to write a research question, choose a sample, and test a hypothesis using an appropriate set of statistics.

Notice that this list of tasks roughly follows our course schedule. As we attack each new topic in class, you can use what you've learned to write each new section of your BRP, step by step. Don't panic because you don't yet know which statistics to use! By the time you write the statistical section of the BRP, we will have learned several statistical tests. You will know exactly what test to put in your proposal and exactly how to describe your procedures, based on what we've accomplished in class.


Believe me, it will all fall into place if you'll allow yourself to gradually absorb the new topics we discuss each week.





This is a proposal. As such, it requires that you suggest a viable research plan related to your topic.

Note: You are not required to execute the proposed plan. Rather, you will be graded on the level of detail and accuracy demonstrated in imagining a plan, then putting your plan on paper.

Your proposal should include the elements of an "External, Large-Scale Contract" proposal outlined in Cooper and Schindler (2006) on pp 94 - 102 (this is one of your reserved readings in the classroom). However, you are not required to include a "Budget" or "Project Management" section.

Note: Rather than submit two documents, your proposal and an Excel attachment, you should cut and paste any Excel output into an appendix at the end of your proposal, so that you submit a single, Microsoft Word document in your assignment folder.

***************************************************************************

I suggest the outline format rather than a narrative paper for three reasons:

1) The outline serves as a "checklist." It allows you to easily see where you have addressed each required section of a business research proposal.

It serves the same function when I grade your work: I can easily see whether you have included each piece of required information. During grading, there is no danger of me "missing" key pieces of information in your narrative.

2) The outline saves time and energy. You don't have to expend creative effort on literary flow, fresh phrasing, or smooth transitions. Instead, you can focus your efforts where they're needed -- creating solid research procedures and measurement scales.

However, even if you follow the outline format, you should still write in full sentences, following standard English grammar and spelling.

Note: Rather than submit two documents, your proposal and an Excel attachment, you should cut and paste any Excel output into an appendix at the end of to your proposal, so that you submit a single Microsoft Word document.

Instructions for the Writer: Below is a two page instruction from the professor on two assignments please write to me if you have any questions.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: Chapter 15 - Psychological Disorders (Respond to all questions of Options 1, & 2. Your Responses should be at least 12 sentences long for each of the options.)
UPON READING CHAPTER 15 YOU MAY RESPOND TO ALL THE QUESTIONS OF OPTIONS 1 & 2. MAKE SURE YOU RESPOND TO ALL SECTIONS OF THE QUESTIONS. MAKE SURE YOU WRITE THE OPTION IN YOUR SUBJECT HEADING. BASICALLY IN YOUR HEADING TYPE OPTION 1 ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS THEN MOVE ON TO OPTION 2 AND ANSWER ALL THE QUESTIONS FOR OPTION 2.


1. Option 1 - Perspectives on Psychological Disorder
Select the two perspectives on psychological disorders that most resonate for you. Do some additional online research on those perspectives and discuss what you have learned about them on the website. Make sure to include the URL for the website you used while conducting research on psychological disorders.

Your response should be at least 12 sentences for Option 1.


2. Option 2 - How do you know you are normal?
Psychologists and sociologists have discussed the concept of abnormal behavior for many years. Questions remain about what abnormal behavior is, and who has the power to label others as abnormal. Conduct online research on the Szasz theory (Thomas Szasz ??" The Myth of Mental Illness) and the Rosenhan research (Rosenhan ??" On Being Sane in Insane Places) and discuss your perspective on their research and findings. Make sure you include the URLs for the websites you used to conduct your research.
Your response should be at least 12 sentences for Option 2.

Remember that you need to write at least 12 sentences using college level English, not online shortcuts. All punctuation and appropriate capitalization is expected. Make sure to use your own words. Please consider your responses carefully. They should be edited and should demonstrate your understanding of the reading




SECOND ASSIGNMENT: Chapter 14 and/or Chapter 15 (need to write about a topic from these chapters)
This is for all students in intro this semester. Do the following online research assignment. Choose two topics, either from chapter 14 or 15 that is confusing for you and do some online research on the topic. Give the actual URL to the website and summarize what you read and also write the page number of the topic you chose whether it is from chapter 14 and/or chapter 15. Please make sure that the paper is written in your own words. One page per topic should be sufficient for this assignment.

Also, remember the following Course Goals when writing your paper.
Course Goals:
1. Using basic terms, facts, principles, and theories from the field of psychology, students will explain behavior and cognitive processes, drawing from historically important cross-cultlural and contemporary perspectives, including biological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, and sociocultural approaches.

2. Using terminology and elements of the scientific method, students will compare and distinguish between scientific and non-scientific approaches to the study of behavior, as well as evaluate the strength of evidence offered in support of a given hypothesis, theory, or conclusion.

3. Given a topic in psychology, students will demonstrate their ability to formulate an approach for investigating that topic, gather information and/or data on that topic, reference pertinent articles from the scientific and popular literature, analyze their findings, and provide a written or oral report summarizing the important points.

4. Drawing on appropriate psychological terms, concepts, and theories, students will make applications that demonstrate personal and social understanding and awareness of behavioral alternatives.

5. Students will demonstrate an understanding of ethical principles in psychology and apply these where appropriate.

6. Students will demonstrate knowledge of career alternatives within the field of psychology, and an awareness of how a background in psychology relates to various careers outside of psychology.

7. Students will adhere to codes of student conduct and academic integrity, and will demonstrate academic responsibility, courtesy, and respect for differences in people and ideas as they participate in class discussions, activities and/or group projects.

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Instructions for the Writer: Below are instructions from the professor on two assignments please send me a message from the writer section if you have any questions or need clarification.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT: Chapter 10 Maslows Hierarchy of Motives ??"
Consider the motivations that people have at each of Maslows levels.

A. Do you believe that people at lower levels aspire to higher levels?

B. Do you believe that Maslow was correct in his assessment of motives?

C. What does the term Self-Actualization mean to you personally?

D. How will you know if you are self-actualized?

E. Do all people have the same goals?

You need to answer all the questions above. Write at least 15 sentences using college level English, not online shortcuts. All punctuation and appropriate capitalization is expected. Make sure to use your own words. Please consider your responses carefully. They should be edited and should demonstrate your understanding of the reading



SECOND ASSIGNMENT: Chapter 14 type A, B & D personalities
Read the section on type A, B & D personalities, and conduct some online research on the topic. Try to categorize yourself, and if you do not like the answer come up with some suggestions to improve your situation.


Your response should be at least 15 full sentences using college level English, not online shortcuts. All punctuation and appropriate capitalization is expected. Make sure to use your own words. Please consider your responses carefully. They should be edited and should demonstrate your understanding of the reading.

Also, remember the following Course Goals when writing your papers.
Course Goals:
1. Using basic terms, facts, principles, and theories from the field of psychology, students will explain behavior and cognitive processes, drawing from historically important cross-cultlural and contemporary perspectives, including biological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, and sociocultural approaches.

2. Using terminology and elements of the scientific method, students will compare and distinguish between scientific and non-scientific approaches to the study of behavior, as well as evaluate the strength of evidence offered in support of a given hypothesis, theory, or conclusion.

3. Given a topic in psychology, students will demonstrate their ability to formulate an approach for investigating that topic, gather information and/or data on that topic, reference pertinent articles from the scientific and popular literature, analyze their findings, and provide a written or oral report summarizing the important points.

4. Drawing on appropriate psychological terms, concepts, and theories, students will make applications that demonstrate personal and social understanding and awareness of behavioral alternatives.

5. Students will demonstrate an understanding of ethical principles in psychology and apply these where appropriate.

6. Students will demonstrate knowledge of career alternatives within the field of psychology, and an awareness of how a background in psychology relates to various careers outside of psychology.

7. Students will adhere to codes of student conduct and academic integrity, and will demonstrate academic responsibility, courtesy, and respect for differences in people and ideas as they participate in class discussions, activities and/or group projects.

There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that (pheelyks) completes this order.

The paper must contain 5 sources from peer reviewed journal articles only. two book sources are also necessary. Thank you for saving my ass!!! This guy grades hard! Must be original--he checks for plagerism. Specifically looking for a very scientific approach and a well written paper.

" Is Spirituality Essential for Recovery?," by Ashcraft, Anthony and Mancuso from Behavioral Healthcare (2010).

" Arizona Medical Center Shows How to Be a 'Healing Hospital'," by Thorne-Eberst from the Health Progress (2008).

"Creating Healing Environments: A Challenge For Nursing" by Dunn, L. (2010) from Online Journal of Rural Nursing & Health Care.

Foundations of Spirituality in Health Care

Introduction

There has been an increased interest in the role spirituality plays in health care, the workplace, and other fields, in general. This interest has elicited a variety of responses, including one that has historical roots::the unease between the world of science, which is based in empiricism with the scientific method, and the world of spirituality or religion, which is based on personal and collective metaphysical experiences. The rediscovery of spirituality and its implications for health care demonstrates that the discomfort between the two worlds has not served patients' best interests. The patient in the examining room, in the hospital bed, or on the operating table is more complex than the symptoms and illness being treated.

The Scientific Approach

Western medicine is rooted in the scientific method, the basis of which is the observation of naturally occurring phenomenon to form theories and test hypotheses. This approach has led to unparalleled advances in human knowledge. For example, through the scientific method, people can quantify the effects of red yeast rice nutritional supplements on a subject's cholesterol levels. By isolating active compounds through theorization and testing, scientists can assess the effects of those compounds directly, and create a new class of drugs (statins) to consistently deliver a uniformly effective compound. This approach is reductionistic (Michael, 2002), which seeks to eliminate extraneous variables, leaving only those compounds, procedures, and interventions that seem to have therapeutic effects based on test results. Such is the nature of the western approach to knowledge. This approach provides the most advanced methods of health care available. There is an unintended consequence, however: The delivery of care, as viewed through the lens of western medicine, may tend to treat individuals in terms of symptoms and diagnoses rather than taking into consideration the whole person.

The Spiritual Approach

Spirituality and religion recognize that a person is more than the physical, cognitive, and emotional self. Judaism and Christianity tend to see the person as a tripartite unity of body, mind, and spirit (Marks, 1999). What is seen as real or true stands the test of time and is embraced by those who share a common spiritual path or religion. Thus, truth is not what is discovered through empirical inquiry, but what is revealed by inspired reality and kept through the generations. Mainstream western religions do not renounce modern medicine and its treatments, but recognize the spiritual components of healing and wholeness. The spiritual approach to health problems utilizes prayer and, in historic Christian traditions, holy oil (James 5:14), as well as related interventions and rituals. Physical, mental, and spiritual health are all interrelated. This perspective is not unique to Judaism and Christianity. All major spiritual, revealed, and indigenous traditions perceive this interrelationship, although it may be described in different ways.

Bifurcation

Separating religion from spirituality has become fashionable in some sectors. The assumption is that religion is man-made and thus distorted, whereas spirituality is somehow pure and unblemished. The problem is that this assumption implies that people do not distort spiritual experience individually, but do so collectively. Students who hold that assumption are asked to set it aside, and are invited to consider spirituality simply as the individual experience of transcendent reality and religion as the collective experience of transcendent reality.

(Dis)Enlightenment

In western society, the compartmentalization of human nature into separate parts began with the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, and his dualistic idea that the mind and body have fundamentally different natures. Ren? Descartes furthered the concept with his philosophical ideas (Robinson, 2003). In the western world , the separation of spirituality from the rest of life probably can be traced to the 18th century's Age of Reason, a time of great discovery and expanded knowledge. Philosophers posited that anything can be +achieved through human reason, and some believed that the growth of human reason and knowledge rendered religion obsolete. There is now a reactionary subculture that shuns all things western (including reason) in favor of more exotic approaches. Popular interest in primitivism has increased,as if the cultures of aboriginal peoples are somehow purer or more meaningful.

Toward Integration

The health care field now finds itself in an era of rediscovery. The human tendency to forget what is past and embrace what is new persists. Aided by easy and rapid exchange of information, however, spirituality, alternative and complementary medicine are merging with traditional medicine to enrich patient care. Health care is expanding to consider how to best care for the whole person while valuing the Judeo-Christian concept of mind, body, and spirit, a tripartite humanity. This concept is no longer a dream; it is a reality.

Healing Hospital

Although the scientific-versus-spiritual argument remains, hospitals and other clinical facilities have made the transition from treatment-only to an overall healing approach. There has been speculation for years that environmental factors impact patient healing, patient emotions, and even patient motivation. A formalized approach to the concept of environments and their impact on healing was employed in 1998 at a Baptist hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, that had experienced a devastating tornado (Chapman, 2007). Traditional methods of treatment were exchanged for "radical loving care." This care transformed hospital workers and cultures, as occupational responsibilities and perspectives were re-examined.

This formalized approach to healing is addressed through three major components: technology, physical design features, and a culture of care.

? Technology: Advances in technology include the installation of separate elevators for patient transportation, enhanced physician access to tests, and superior patient room entertainment systems.

? Physical facility design: Part of the research conducted in this area involves identification of physical enhancements to facilities that impact patient comfort and experience. As students conduct their own research in this area, they will find improvements such as the inclusion of gardens, colors, and obvious floor markings.

? Culture: A loving, compassionate, and holistic approach is utilized when describing how patients are handled in a Healing Hospital versus one that has not yet achieved that level of excellence. Erie Chapman is the pioneer and expert responsible for developing the loving care model that revolutionized the care of patients (Chapman, 2007).

Conclusion

The health care field now finds itself in an era of rediscovery, resulting in the merging of traditional medicine with spirituality, using alternative and complementary medicine. This integration raises new opportunities for the enrichment of patient care. Value is now given to the concept of mind, body, spirit (tripartite humanity), and health care now is expanding to consider how to best care for the whole person.



References

Chapman, E. (2007). Radical loving care: Building the healing hospital in America. Nashville, TN: Vaughn Printing.

Marks, E. (1999, April). The working of the law of the spirit of life to dispense the life of the triune God into the tripartite man [Electronic version]. Affirmation & Critique, 4(2), 14-24. Retrieved February 12, 2006, from http://www.affcrit.com/pdfs/1999/02/99_02_a2.pdf

Michael, R. S. (2002, Fall). Inquiry & scientific method. Indiana University. Retrieved February 11, 2006, from http://www.indiana.edu/~educy520/sec5982/week_1/inquiry_sci_method02.pdf


Describe the components of healing hospitals and their relationship to spirituality.

2. What are the challenges of creating a healing environment in light of the barriers and complexities of the hospital environment?

3. Include at least one biblical passage or parable that you believe supports the concept of a healing hospital and provide rationale for your selection.

Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

Instructions for Pheelyks: Below are instructions from the professor. Please write to me if you have any questions.

ASSIGNMENT:
This is for all students in intro this semester. Do the following online research assignment. Choose two topics from either chapter 10 and/or chapter 12 of the book that is confusing for you and do some online research on the topic. Give the actual URL to the website and summarize what you read and also write the page number of the topic you chose from whether it came from chapter 10 and/or chapter 12. Again specify the page numbers and chapter numbers the topics came from. Please make sure that the paper is written in your own words. One page per topic should be sufficient for this assignment.
Also, remember the following Course Goals when writing your paper.
Course Goals:
1. Using basic terms, facts, principles, and theories from the field of psychology, students will explain behavior and cognitive processes, drawing from historically important cross-cultlural and contemporary perspectives, including biological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, and sociocultural approaches.

2. Using terminology and elements of the scientific method, students will compare and distinguish between scientific and non-scientific approaches to the study of behavior, as well as evaluate the strength of evidence offered in support of a given hypothesis, theory, or conclusion.

3. Given a topic in psychology, students will demonstrate their ability to formulate an approach for investigating that topic, gather information and/or data on that topic, reference pertinent articles from the scientific and popular literature, analyze their findings, and provide a written or oral report summarizing the important points.

4. Drawing on appropriate psychological terms, concepts, and theories, students will make applications that demonstrate personal and social understanding and awareness of behavioral alternatives.

5. Students will demonstrate an understanding of ethical principles in psychology and apply these where appropriate.

6. Students will demonstrate knowledge of career alternatives within the field of psychology, and an awareness of how a background in psychology relates to various careers outside of psychology.

7. Students will adhere to codes of student conduct and academic integrity, and will demonstrate academic responsibility, courtesy, and respect for differences in people and ideas as they participate in class discussions, activities and/or group projects.

There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that
There are faxes for this order.

Customer is requesting that (Pheelyks) completes this order.

Instructions for the Writer: Below are instructions from the professor on three assignments please write to me if you have any questions.

FIRST ASSIGNMENT:
Chapter 7 is about memory processes. After reading chapter 7 try to recall your earliest memory.

Using the information in chapter 7, tell us about the memory, what type of memory it is and why you feel that you remember that one incident before all others. Also, tell us how old you were at that first memory incident.

You need to write at least 15 sentences using college level English, not online shortcuts. All punctuation and appropriate capitalization is expected. Make sure to use your own words. Please consider your responses carefully. They should be edited and should demonstrate your understanding of the reading

SECOND ASSIGNMENT:
This is for all students in intro this semester. Do the following online research assignment. Choose a topic from the chapter that is confusing for you and do some online research on the topic. Give the acutal URL to the website and summarize what you read and also write the page number of the topic you chose to begin with from the book whether it came from chapter 7, 8 or 9. Please make sure that the paper is written in your own words. One page should be sufficient for this assignment.
Also, remember the following Course Goals when writing your paper.
Course Goals:
1. Using basic terms, facts, principles, and theories from the field of psychology, students will explain behavior and cognitive processes, drawing from historically important cross-cultlural and contemporary perspectives, including biological, cognitive, behavioral, psychodynamic, and sociocultural approaches.

2. Using terminology and elements of the scientific method, students will compare and distinguish between scientific and non-scientific approaches to the study of behavior, as well as evaluate the strength of evidence offered in support of a given hypothesis, theory, or conclusion.

3. Given a topic in psychology, students will demonstrate their ability to formulate an approach for investigating that topic, gather information and/or data on that topic, reference pertinent articles from the scientific and popular literature, analyze their findings, and provide a written or oral report summarizing the important points.

4. Drawing on appropriate psychological terms, concepts, and theories, students will make applications that demonstrate personal and social understanding and awareness of behavioral alternatives.

5. Students will demonstrate an understanding of ethical principles in psychology and apply these where appropriate.

6. Students will demonstrate knowledge of career alternatives within the field of psychology, and an awareness of how a background in psychology relates to various careers outside of psychology.

7. Students will adhere to codes of student conduct and academic integrity, and will demonstrate academic responsibility, courtesy, and respect for differences in people and ideas as they participate in class discussions, activities and/or group projects.

THIRD ASSIGNMENT:
Chapter 9 is about intelligence. Please take an intelligence test online. You can find one at www.askjeeves.com and when you get to the site, please type in intelligence test. It will give you several options for online tests. Do not take any that you pay for. Most of them are free. Do not post your score. I would like you to discuss what it felt like to take the test. What did it feel like to get the results? I am interested in your feeling for the accuracy of the test. Do you feel like it correctly assessed your intelligence? Do you feel that questions like these can tell you how intelligent you are?

Your response should be at least 10 full sentences. using college level English, not online shortcuts. All punctuation and appropriate capitalization is expected. Make sure to use your own words. Please consider your responses carefully. They should be edited and should demonstrate your understanding of the reading.

EXAMPLES OF YOUR CLASSMATES POSTINGS: (Do not copy their work)
Example1:
If I were to take a intelligence test in 1869 with Francis Galton I believe that my scores would be completely different that what I received today since he would take into consideration my hereditary heavily. With that being said I have taken several IQ tests most of which pretty much were so ridiculously easy that I had to laugh at them. With this assignment I searched until I found one that seemed legitimate this test had a wide range of general intelligence tests that seemed to relate with Robert Sternberg and Gardners theory. I was quite pleased with the test and the results. I feel that at this time of my life that this test correctly assessed my intelligence. I felt a little sad with the results because they were a little lower than what I was tested as a child (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) that was probably due to what Alfred Binet had achieved in 1905 introducing the concept of mental age, albeit this test was quite accurate. It also shared what my strengths and weaknesses are and the certain jobs that would better suite my overall knowledge. I feel that questions like the ones posted on this site have a broad enough range to assess my intelligence. Yet if I was to take one of the many other hundreds of tests that are on the internet than I would be seen as a Genius, this test answered most of the questions that circulate amongst scientist about intelligence which is, general adaptability to new problems in life, the ability to engage in abstract thinking, capacity for knowledge and knowledge possessed, the ability to judge, understand and reason.

Example2:
In taking the intelligence test I was not so worried about the results. I think the reason why I wasn't so concerned about my results was because I knew I wasn't getting a grade or penalized for it if I didn't do so well. Knowing this I felt more relaxed so it actually allowed me to focus more. The one factor that did affect me was for my own personal reasons I hate taking timed tests because it adds so much more pressure that I am thinking about the time rather than what is actually being asked of me. I usually tend to do bad if I don't study for a test because I am not a naturally smart individual even though I think many wish they could be. When I got the results from the intelligence test I actually felt kind of anxious and nervous even though I knew I wasn't getting a grade for it. In seeing the results I was actually surprised because I actually scored really good compared to how I thought I would score. I am not bias and only because I got a good score I don't think it assessed my intelligence correctly because I think it was by chance that the certain questions that they asked me I was able to answer. I don't think that these questions tested correctly more my intelligence I don't think any test actually does. Everyone is different and we all react to tests very differently and I think that certain factors play a big role in how people react to tests under certain circumstances. I feel like at times tests under estimate my intelligence so when I score bad I feel down because tests always make me feel like they are testing my intelligence and if I fail to meet a certain sore I do feel much more less competent like others around

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Customer is requesting that
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Customer is requesting that (pheelyks) completes this order.

You are to write a 2-page paper. Read the article below and answer the discussion question. State the question first and then continue to answer. Do Not Use Outside Sources.

McIntyre discusses various paradigms of research

Question
1.What are the different rules and assumptions of these paradigms?

In this view, research is mechanical, male and rather melancholic. The problem is like a key that unlocks a particular rational process, one which is abstract and impersonal. The researcher struggles in isolation to state the problem, and there is little sense of him engaging much with other people. With precision and control in mind, the researcher acts from outside on the educational field. He alone appears to have the power to bring a problem into being. This model for research has been called the positivist, empirical-analytic or natural science model, and has, through its grip on education and the social sciences, dominated adult education and training. It continues to be recommended to students as the most respectable approach to research, at least in the US. However, it has been vigorously criticized as being based on limited assumptions about science, persons and society that deny the Powell of human beings to make meanings and create a social world or to imagine human inquiry as a collaborative activity of research participants. Thus, for several decades there has been a challenge to the domination of empirical-analytic science and a search for alternative programs. In the liberation from the strait-jacket of a natural science model, there is room for more choice but also great potential for confusion. If now there are different frames of reference for inquiry, it is even more necessary to make explicit the underlying assumptions of our work. In fact, if research includes inquiring into our practice as adult educators and trainers, we could avoid examining our deeply held beliefs about our practice and its contexts? And perhaps also what we believe about inquiry? This chapter aims to explore some of these questions by: briefly clarifying some meanings of the concept paradigm; exploring some dynamics of research in the field of adult education and training; and exploring selected examples of research drawn from different context of adult education and training.

Paradigms
The term paradigm is used in multiple senses in both educational research and the wider literature. Through there are no definite schools of thought about paradigm, three main meanings can be identified: the social organization of science. In this view, the paradigm is the key concept in a complex sociological account of the way science is institutionalized. It refers to typical methodologies their associated disciplines, and the social relationships and the worldview that underlie, for example, Western behavioral science. This is the rich meaning of paradigm that emerged from the work of Kuhn. A broad philosophy of science. Here, the paradigm is seen as a set of philosophical beliefs supporting a broad approach to research. It is a way of expressing a philosophical alternative to empiricist science, for example, naturalistic inquiry paradigm for the new paradigm inquiry. Thats, it is argued, there are many methods but two competing paradigms. Another version of this approach understands qualitative research and quantitative research as opposing paradigm with paradigm being represented in many comparable traditions. Types of science. This is a view of paradigms associated with critical theory. There are three forms of human inquiry can take, according to the dominant knowledge-interests. These are empirical-analytic, interpretive, and critical science. This is the view Carr and Kemmis developed when they argued that a critical educational science, going beyond both empiricist and interpretive science, is necessary if practitioners are to achieve a better relationship between theory and their professional practice. The advantage of the above first and third views is that they emphasize that knowledge is always constructed in a social context. They assume there are no absolute answers as to what research is. Activity deemed as research is legitimate when it conforms to the practices, ideals and values shared by a community of researchers. This view is of the great significance to adult educators and trainers. It makes me context of inquiry and the values and interests that make the context what it is fundamentally important. Because there is such a variety of contexts in adult education and training, this view of the research in the field will lead us to relish, rather than regret, the uncontrolled diversity of research practice in adult education and training.
We will, then, be able to identify a range of research traditions perhaps in different kinds of organizations and settings. A given paradigm will be accepted in one place but rejected in others. History, culture and location will affect what paradigm surfaces in an organization. We might ask, for example, how research is seen by computing professional, telecommunication technicians, vocational education planners, community development workers, Greenpeace activists or Catholic missionaries. What complex about inquiry emerged among practitioners with such organizations are challenged or changed?
The concept of paradigm thus provide us with a way of understanding research and inquiry in our field practice. The term inquiry is added here to suggest that a range of investigation activity can count as research. Paradigm leads us to greater awareness of our deeper assumption about such matters as knowledge, human learning, self and society. Thus, there is a connection between the researchers understanding of research and the view of the field. Paradigm points to the difference in the way that people understand adult education and training to the fundamental differences in the worldview, institutional linkages, political and social values that underlie beliefs about what should be researched and why it should be researched and how in fact the field of inquiry is seen. For this reason, a paradigm is something more than the philosophical reference for one research methodology over another. To reiterate an important point, the term paradigm issues in a range of ways at different levels of analysis. Ongoing debates about education research have not really clarified these meanings. Three difficulties are worth noting. First, there is a problem of different levels of analysis of paradigm: scholars are often unclear whether they mean a specific methodology, and institutionalize research edition or a broad worldview. The concept can be used validly in each of these ways, although equally paradigm is best not reduced to any one of them. Second, there is a tendency to refer to qualitative research as a paradigm, to denote its indifference from quantitative methodologies although what is usually meant is there a difference from a scientific approach. This is the problem of equating paradigm to a type of methodology, obscuring the important aspects of research as institutionalized power. It obscures important differences among diverse research traditions that are qualitative. It ignores critique of social critical. We are suggesting in this chapter. Third, the very abstractness of the concept of paradigm can lead to an exaggerated emphasis on philosophical basis of research compared to political, apical and pragmatic considerations. This is precisely what is wrong with the idealized model of scientific research referred to earlier: it neglects the way assumptions actually construct the research process, it is important to ask in what sense or senses it is an author is using this rich but troublesome idea of paradigm.

Adult Education as a Field of Inquiry
That the difference among adult educators and trainers about the nature and the uses of research can be seen in a number of key areas: the influence of school education on thinking about educational research; the conflict between institutional and learner perspecives on adult education and training; the domination of research by the intervention of the state in economic reform and educational restructuring; and the importance of the context of inquiry on what is researched, who does the research, and to what ends. Research on adult education and training has been overshadowed high school education. Education is steel often thought of in terms of schooling, and it is only quite recently that TAFE, workplace training and adult education have become researchable. Academic research in adult education and training is not well developed and perhaps scholars their fortune to exaggerate the special features which separate adult education from education and the social sciences in general. This can cut off inquiry from rich sources of theory to be found beyond the field of practice. Moreover, the schooling influence over it emphasizes institutional or formal adult learning, such as in TAFE systems. This is unfortunate because some of the most interesting research questions in adult education and training are about the informal learning in workplaces, community organizations and other settings. There is a tension between an institution perspective and a learner perspective on adult education and training. tension exists between a perspective which emphasizes formal learning in courses and one which emphasizes the need to understand the experience of adult learners. This tension is seen in different scholarly research traditions. Research is still dominated by participation and course taking: who participates, why they calm, how much they participate, and what they gain. This research is often empirical-analytical, often uses a national sample surveyed approach, and may emphasize the distribution of adult learning opportunities and barriers to participation. Others working in an interpretive tradition have reacted against its focus and explored how adult learning is distinctive, how it can be understood, and how he can be theorized as an aspect of life experience. By neither the participation nor the adult learning research perspective provides a framework that helps us to understand how institutions and learners interact in context. A further tradition can be identified, which engages critically with the social and economic institutions analyzing how they determine radically different opportunities for learners. Research in this tradition is participatory, it goals on as part of social action and it is often critical of the failure of academics to speak of social injustice, power and oppression. We can thus see that I dont education research is not a unified field in which the goals and methods of research are subtle among experts. There are deep ideological differences about but dont education and training that affect what is seen as the meaning and purpose of research. The state is intervening to reform education and training, transform the practice of adult educators and trainers. In the past decade, adult educators and trainers have been affected by continuous restructuring of educational institutions. The contemporary state has taken a much more direct role in shaping educational direction, under the political-economic pressures of the shift to global capitalism. This had several consequences. In particular, the state has employed strategic research to engineer policy changes for example, in making vocational education and training respond to the needs of industry or learner clients through competition policy and drawing private and community providers into a national training system. Educational policy has itself become an important focus of research and critique. Thus, important questions for researchers are: in what directions are the policy interventions of national governments driving both practice and research? How far do researchers respond to policy agendas and to what extent do they challenged and critique those agendas? How they respond will largely depend on how they see themselves as researchers. Are they are objective observers, measuring and communicating information about policy impacts? Are they insightful interpreters of the meaning of change to those it affects? Or are they change managers, dancing with the demons of organizational restructuring? Or do researchers see themselves as representatives of those oppressed by change? The practice of research and inquiry is always situated it always takes place in a particular organization or settings. We have already suggested that it is too limiting for a doubt education and training research to take either an institutional perspective or a learner perspective as an exclusive frame of reference. Research needs to explore how learning occurs in context, because the setting of adult education and learning can differ greatly from each other. Where something is learned in TAFE, community adult education, HRD, through informal learning in an environmental campaign, how it is structured, the relative power of participants, and the kind and degree of coercion all defined the kind of experience to learn a will have. To inquire into practice leads to analysis of context and it structuring of learning. While assumption of the development of professional field of adult education and training is that there might be theories of adult learning, which can apply irrespective of the nature of setting in which learning, occurs. Such research in the field is limited by such frameworks? Or on some of the eminently researchable things in the field to be found in what is distinctive about the context of practice? If so, the researchers framework for understanding the context becomes important. Researchers need to analyze their assumptions about the context that lie perhaps unconsciously in their thinking affecting, for example, what they take to be a problem for research, for whom it is a problem, and how it might be approach to research.

Framework, Problem and Process
Their view of inquiry I am suggesting is that any adult educator or trainer has a framework for understanding research in the field. This is a long way from the textbook approach which equates research with formal inquiry for scientific and scholarly purposes. In this alternative view: research can take quite different forms, in which research method may be less important than in scholarly research; the former research will depend greatly on the context, the researchers framework and the kind of problem that arises; research is seen as a political and practical process in which the researcher pursues inquiries into a problem three range of activities; and there are then a wider range of issues that impinge on the researcher: issues of power and relationship with others, of ethics and negotiation with participants, of naming and theorizing concepts, of design and methods, of project management, writing up and reporting. Interpretive research can take many forms. Among the best known is educational ethnography, which takes a problem how participants make sense of their social world e.g. the classroom, a workshop, a community group, a learning team. Among the best-known research on this kind is Walkers Louts and Legends. Over three years, Walker studied the life of several groups of young men at a Sydney high school. The Asian men are understood as inhabiting worlds constructed by male youth culture and those cultures with which it interacts the culture of the school, of ethnic and language communities, and social class. The identities of young men are shaped by the youth culture and its interactions, but at the same time the boys are shaping the youth culture by imposing themselves on it or resisting is by resisting its value and understandings. In empirical-analytic studies, such voices are heard. Human complexities are purged of their subjective qualities. For the behavioral scientist understanding. It does not isolate and quantify the factors which prompted learning, such as course or teacher qualities, the learners own readiness to change, or the effects of other activities associated with the ceter. The scientist does not deny that the stories are moving, but simply say we do not know what they represent because there has not been controlled analysis of various factors involved. We could leave the issue there but for a crucial point: as the vocational education and training agenda demands more sophisticated analysis of outcomes. The corporatization of public education institutions, the emphasis on outcomes-driven activity, favors highly instrumental research. Empirical-analytic science is attractive to the corporate managerialism of the contemporary state, because it ties down the object of study and restricts the meaning in play when controlling the communication of evidence becomes a priority. The tendency of positive science reduce complex information to simplistic generalizations became a virtue rather than a vice. The new public sector managers are less concerned with the real-life complexities of bowel adult learning than with controlling the policy agenda, assessing policy impact, and limiting demands on the public purse. The policy interest of Government has led to the resurgence of participation studies, but in a very different form from the North American tradition of motivational research which aim to develop theory, not influence social policy. The new wave of policy research demand social and political relevance from researchers and a robust engagement with social policy debates. The social research is not simple surveillance by governments of the educational effort of their populations but is partly shaped by the advocacy of such public-interest organizations as the national institution for adult continuing education in the UK, which through such national survey as the learning divide study has shown the extent of the social inequalities that challenge the rhetoric of lifelong learning for all.

Conclusion
In this chapter little has been said of the significant contemporary impact on educational research of feminist and post-structuralist approaches and postmodernist thought. The theories challenge the notion that there are clearly identifiable research frameworks, and suggests a diversity of theoretical and value assumption and research methods. There has been enough said here about the confusion engendered by paradigm theory to suggest that the term might have outlived its usefulness, particularly when it has been employed in a counter-critical way to reassert the authority of behavioral science position in the guise of such unhelpful terms as post-positivism. Whatever the limitations of some accounts of paradigm, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that research knowledge is perspectival rather than obsolete. Knowledge is always generated within a perspective or research tradition and a project was set of assumptions about what is problematic, what is researchable, what counts as evidence and so on. This chapter has equated understanding research not to knowledge of research method or techniques, but to examining how methods frame or construct knowledge. The argument has emphasized the diversity of research practice in adult education and training, suggesting that is diversity reflects the nature of the field. Researchers different in the perspective they take on the field and its problems, according to their assumptions about such factors as the importance of formal courses provided by institutions, the kinds of policy forces driving research, and the nature of the context in which they work. This chapter has limited discussion of three competing research traditions which exemplify research in the field: empirical-analytic research, in the form of participation studies, will probably continue to dominate policy research, if only because of the demand of the contemporary state for hard evidence of the value of adult education; interpretive research, centered on the exploration of learner perspectives, will also continue to advocate the study of the subjective meanings of adult learning. The challenge for research, however, is to transcend the limitations of this opposition between institution and learner. This chapter also argues that research needs to do more justice to context and it has in the past. Diversity of context makes Adult Education distinctive; therefore, research must develop better ways to understand how learner and setting interact reduce adult learning. Neither an institutional perspective the focus of participation nor a learner perspective the focus on adult learning theory can give an adequate frame of reference for understanding this interaction. New models for research will need to be found for this task, and they will need to engage more with the social and political forces that are determining the agendas for policy and practice in adult education and training.

You are to write 2-page paper. Read the article below and answer the discussion questions. State the question first and then continue to answer. Do Not Use Outside Sources. Quoting from article use APA format.
Friedberg (2001) describes several ways of trying to understand the interactions of organizations and individuals. In one explanation Friedberg suggests that an organization could be understood as an arena, in which individuals are free to choose their behavior, but within limits.
Discussion questions
1.What are some examples of limits to behavioral freedom for an adult educator within an organization?
2.What might be the implications of not recognizing or ignoring these limits?

The social of organizations like its larger sister the theory of organizations, it is not a unified field of research. In its already long history it has been seen many different approaches which have left a more or profound imprint on our way of thinking about organizations. It is beyond the scope of the article to a temp to complete an account to this diversity. However taking a distance view one can distinguish two sociological templates, which structure around two understandings of the word organization. The first sees organization as a structural form, the nature, characteristics, and dynamics of which have to be explained, whereas the second insists on the processes of structuring, i.e. organization collective human action. Within certain limits, the explanandum is of course similar. For both it is the structure and the functioning of organizations but they have different starting points, take different routes, and put the emphasis differently. Thus, the first starts the organization and will focus on the variations of their forms: as a consequence, organizations and its basic unit of analysis and it will analyze the social dynamics on the inter-organizational, sectoral, or societal level in order to explain organizational form. The second, on the other hand, will start with social actions and will consider the sheer existence and maintenance of organizations that the basic problem to be addressed: as a consequence, it will concentrate its analysis on interaction processes within organizations, will take individual (their decisions and their actions) in its basic unit of analysis, and will stress the differences between individual organizations even if they belong to the same organizational field. Both strands have the intellectual roots in the seminal work of Max Weber. Weber develops a theory of the forms of legitimate domination in society (traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal forms of domination) which roughly defines the basis of the legitimacy of power and influence in a given society and condition these types of organizations to be found within each of these regimes of domination. He then argues that bureaucracy is the organizational form developing within the framework of the rational-legal form of domination and proceeds to give an ideal -- typical description of bureaucracy, i.e. a highly formalized and hierarchical form of organization drifter mystics by the predominance of written rules and procedures, formalized past, precise definitions of competence, clear lines of subordination, the explicit separation of ownership and management responsibility, and the mayor principle as the only legitimate route of access to the different functions in the organization. Max Weber sees unifying dynamics at work pushing towards the development and generalization of bureaucratic organizations as they are both legitimate and more efficient. He sees the roots of his greater deficiency essentially and the fact that the arbitrary imposition of power and the resulting interpersonal conflicts are limited by written rules and the procedure which allows for more rational, foreseeable, and standardized execution of task. This analysis include all of the themes which organizational sociology has developed and dwelled on through all the years. It also contains the roots for the divide which still structures two traditions in organizational sociology today one is concerned with the study of organizational forms as they are shaped by the constraints of efficiency (this is the main concern of what has become known as structural contingency theory) or legitimacy (this is the theme of the Neo-institutional school in organizational sociology). The other tradition emphasizes the study of interaction and decision making process which produce as well as reproduce regularities and structures, i.e. organization, and which first developed out of the empirical analysis of public and private bureaucracies.
In the 1940s and 1950s bureaucracy was a central theme of imperial study of organizations especially in the United States. This has certainly to do with the proliferation of huge administrative bureaucracies and the seemingly unlimited growth of the large corporations, which was overlooked upon with both fascination, and fear. Following Max Weber's analysis this movement was interpret as the proof of the greater efficiency made possible by the standardization, formalization, and depersonalization characteristics of this form of organization. However following R. Michels 1914 iron law of oligarchic the secular movement raise fears because the conditioning powers of these huge organizations and the oligarchy and technocratic tendencies inherent in their functioning were seen as a threat to democracy and the ideals of reform: organizations as means of collective action in favor of reform set free forces which were in contradiction with these ideals. The main interests of the early studies of bureaucracy, Gouldner 1954 was to have considered bureaucracies as a complex social system, which had to be studied empirically in order to reconstruct and understand its formal structures and dynamics. Applying the lessons and methods from industrial sociology which developed out of the Hawthorne experiments and the human relations movement sparked by Roethlisbergers and Mayo account of them, these studies produce results which were in contradiction to both the extrapolation and fears mentioned above. They show that bureaucracy is not only were not always efficient, but also produce in formal behavior and dynamics which were often dysfunctional i.e. detrimental to the attainment of their goals and which in any case created a greater diversity in the ways organizations function then would have been expected on theoretical grounds. Thus, Merton shows that the impersonal rules or in which bureaucracies are bilked induced rigid and ritualistic behavior on the part of their members which are dysfunctional for their capacity to respond to the needs of their clients. Blau 1955 demonstrates that the efficiency of bureaucracy is not the product of their formal characteristics but bases his argument on the fact that their members take it upon themselves to break the rules in order to enhance the quality and efficiency of their work. These studies, however, go beyond merely showing be inefficiencies or deviations of bureaucracy. Following Mertons analysis 1936 of the unanticipated consequences of purposive social action and other latent function of social structures there are two of contemporary explanations not only for the functioning but also for the emergence of bureaucracy.
On the other hand, the study showed that bureaucracy is the place and of the product of vicious circles of bureaucratization as the attempt at countering on anticipated and dysfunctional consequences of bureaucratic structures led to an accentuation of the very characteristics, which have generated these dysfunctions. This is, for instance, the mechanism analyzed by Gouldner in his study of gypsum mine Colin the formal rules instituted to strengthen control of workers and to fight against their low work morale instead increases latter apathy, which management ties to counter by strengthening the surveillance of the workers and an increase in the rules on which the surveillance is based. This attempt in turn further increases workers apathy and pasivity and so on. Croziers 1964 of the vicious Circle generated by impersonal rules and the resulting parallel power relations follow a similar pattern. He shows how proliferation of impersonal rules and viewing of elimination the uncertainties, which conditioned the satisfactory functioning of the organization increases the power of those contributions, is needed in order to cope with the remaining sources of uncertainty. The interpersonal Powell and dependence relations, which are generated around these uncertainties, and the unofficial and illegitimate privileges they produced would justify fears of personal power and dependence relations and therefore increase the pressure for future eliminating remains uncertain sees through centralization and new impersonal rules, which in turn will generate new parallel power relations and so forth.
On the other hand, the studies explain the bureaucratization of organizations by the latent function if the fields for their members. Gouldner 1954 distinguishes five latent functions of bureaucracy: impersonal rules allow for distance control, thus creating a filter and a protection by reducing impersonal relations, they legitimate size stations by the also rich trick the freedom of behavior of the members of hierarchy by codifying the possibilities of sanctions, they make possible apathy, i.e. behavior which restricts itself to the strict application of rules, and therefore they are a resource for bargaining with members of the hierarchy if they need some extra commitment, which they always do. Moreover, Gouldner shows that bureaucratization is an answer for the problems of succession in organizations in so far as impersonal rules can at least partially be substituted for the personal legitimacy, which the outgoing manager enjoyed what which the incoming manager lacks. Croziers 1964 balls a similar pattern but completes Gouldner interpretations with a broader theory: the bureaucratic mold of organization based on the perforation of written rules and produces is a way to avoid face-to-face relations and to escape the arbitrariness and uncertainties of direct power and dependence relations its latent function is a general Juan and relates to the necessity of taming and structure when the power and dependence relations which are at the heart of collective action and without which no cooperative endeavor is feasible. The essential merit of the seminal studies is to enable us to go beyond the sterile opposition inherited from the human relations traditions between, on the one hand, formal structure understood to be the incarnation of rationality as well as efficiency and on the other, the actual behavior of its members which result from their your rationality their affectivity and air conditioning by prior process of socialization. In their theorizing the rationality of formal structure is no more opposed to the affectivity of human behavior. On the contrary they interpret the structures as an answer to the cognitive limits and to the constraints stemming from human affectivity. The structures and the goals of organization can thus no more be understood as the expression of a logic with could be independent from and superior to, the relations between the members of an organization. They are created by the relations and draw their significance and their justification from them. In short, they are no longer an exogenous variable. They have been put back into the dealings between the members of an organization and become an endogenous result of them: they cannot be understood independently from the interaction and bargaining process for which they constitute only the framework. They therefore cannot escape the limits of rationality characterizing the human behavior which produces them and have to be analyzed together.
One can clearly see the thrust of this line of reasoning. Drawing on the studies of bureaucracy as well as the similar work of the Carnegie group around H. Simon 1958 on a behavioral theory of decision-making in organizations and on the analysis of collective action and public or private decision-making in the United States and Europe, it points toward a behavioral conceptualization of organization which links organizational behavior to the cognitive and relation capacities of their members. An organization in this view can be understood as an arena Cyert and March 1963 or as game structures Crozier and Friedberg 1977 and 1995 were participants are free to choose their behavior but within limits. The range of their choices is restricted but if they do not want to lose and the transaction with other participants they have to take into account the rules of the game which prevail and which determine the value of the resources of each participant and they are appropriate ways of using them in transaction with other participants. But within these limits which may be variable leave more or less leeway they can and will actually choose their behavior which can thus be understood as the way in which they adjust to the constraints of their situation as they see it while simultaneously trying to further their interests in whatever way they made to find them right using the resources and opportunities they perceive. Their behavior therefore cannot be considered as completely hazardous: it is the expression of a decision, which makes sense to the person who wished choosing and therefore is rational in the sense of H. Simons bounded rationality 1957. It is a reasonable adjustment by any participant to his or her situation; i.e. the network of interdependencies within which each participant is located an adjustment which is reasonable within the limits of his or her perception of the opportunities and constraints contained in this situation and his or her capacity to make use of the opportunities and constraints. Such an approach to organizations which emphasizes the constraints on organizations resulting from the limited but extendable cognitive and relational capacities of human beings naturally transcends the usual distinctions between the difference from organizations ((hospitals, firms, administration, etc.), and its heuristic value clearly is not limited to the analysis of formal organizations. Its target is in fact a much broader issue, which all kinds of organizations and all forms of collective actions have to solve; i.e. the problem of cooperation and coordination between actors Celine and continuing to pursue divergent interests. It is in a way center around a period of organizational phenomenon, which aims to understand how participants who continue to pursue divergent interests can nonetheless organize or accept to be organized in the pursuit of collective goals. Such an approach radically banalizes formal organizations, which in this view are only one of many possible forms of context of action, the characteristics of which constraints of collective action of the various participants. Organizations thus become artificial device, which help analyze and understand the general problem of human cooperation and coordination. Organizations will shown to becomes a way of theorizing about collective social action.
Efficiency and legitimacy as unifying forces shaping organizational forms, the other tradition to which we will now turn, has different starting points. It sees organization as structural forms the nature, characteristics, and dynamics of which have to be explained. Thus it starts with organizations and will focus on the variation of their forms: organizations are its basic unit of analysis and it will try to analyze the social dynamics on the inter-organizational, sectoral, or societal level in order to explain organizational form. These dynamics are traced to two distinct constraints: efficiency and legitimacy each of which distressed by a different standard of analysis. Efficiency is constraints stressed by structural contingency theory. This paradigm emerged in the middle of the 1960s and developed as a critical reaction to the theoretical and methodological perspective characteristics of organizational sociology of the 190s. With regard to methodology, DVD and Dominic qualitative case study method was criticized because it provided merely a thick description but no grounds all generalizations or for the construction of a general theory of organizations. With regard to theory it was argued that the over emphasis on motivation and human relation characteristics of organizational thinking and so far had two consequences detrimental to our understanding of organizations: the role of structure and its influence on these relations had been downplayed, while, and this was seen as even more important, the context of an organization and the way it's characteristics condition and organizations structure will and functioning had been largely ignored. As a consequence structural contingency theory set out on a different program. Its focus was not on action or behavior within organizations but on organizations as structured entities will characteristics and change over time have to be explained using quantitative methods for the statistical study of samples of organizations in order to list, described, and if possible measured the influence which the main dimensions of an organizations context exert on its structures, it's functioning, and its performance. In other words this paradigm was concerned with two main questions: which dimensions of context affect an organizations (mainly structural) characteristics and to what extent? What is the influence of each of these characteristics on the performance of an organization? Structural contingency theory has been the dominant paradigm in the field of organizational studies from the middle of the 1960s up to the first half of the 1980s especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. It has generated and the men's effort to determine and measure the impact of the various dimensions of context. Let us mention in few particularly significant research programs. The influence of technology on the structure of organizations have been explored by J. Woodward (1958, 1965, 1970) and C. Perrow (1967 and 1970); the Aston group around D. Pugh (1963) and D. Hickson et al. (1969), as well as P. Blau in the United States 1971, have explored the link in particular between science among others, bless central variables and organizational structure. The impact of technical, economic, and social characteristics of an organizations environment on is structures and mode of functioning have been independently studied in the seminal work of Burns and Stalker in England 1961 and Lawrence and Lorsch in the United States 1967. Last, but not least, the more conceptual work of J. Thompson 1967, has also been very influential especially in regard to his conceptualization of what he called the task environment of an organization. This approach is developed further by the population ecology of organizations, which builds on the seminal work of Aldrich 1979 as well as Hannan and Freemen 1977 and which aims at studying the contextual conditions which explain the emergence, the diffusion, and the disappearance of populations of organizations which share the same characteristics and which fit certain contextual conditions or ecological niches.
The main contributions of this quantitative and apparently more scientific approach to the study of organizations has been to demonstrate empirically the impossibility to find a single best way for structuring an organization. The good, i.e. the efficient structure, cannot be defined in general and beforehand. It is a function of the context and can only be defined after the different dimensions of this context have been recognized and taken into account in the organizational design. However this is very important contribution should never corrupt the theoretical and empirical shortcomings of the approach. Indeed according to the reasoning on which it is based content becomes a constrained because organizations are viewed as driven by the constraints of efficiency. Indeed so this reasoning goes organizations have to adjust to their contexts because their performance depends on this fit: in order to survive, they have to be efficient and, in order to beat efficient, they have to adjust to the demands of their contexts. Although there is certainly some truth in hypothesis, the empirical diversity of organizations with similar context has shown that structural contingency theory has vastly overestimated the unifying power of the constraint of efficiency. It has enlarged our understanding of the forces, which shaped organizations but in the process has overstated its case and has been proven wrong by imperial analysis.
Against the reductionism which pretends to analyze organizations from a purely technical or economic viewpoint (the pressure of constraint of efficiency), the Neo-institutional school in organizational analysis has promoted a more sociological perspective. It emphasizes the symbolic and normative dimensions of action in and between organizations, and stresses the role of their culture, might be a set of cognitive and normative frames to explain their mode of functioning. In other words, it puts forward a less intentional and rational perspective on organizations. In this view, organizations are neither the simple tools of their masters nor machines to maximize efficiency. They are also institutions, i.e. social worlds of theirs specific identities and culture, which, once created, take on a life of their own and develop their own medians which can never be reduced to mere considerations of efficiency. Sociological Neo-institutionalism builds on and tries to integrate several theoretical perspectives: the works of P. Selznick (1943 and 1949) or an organizations as institutions the work of H. Simon and his group at Carnegie on bounded rationality and cognitive frames, and the work of Berger and Luckmann on the process of institutionalization understood as processes of the social construction of reality.
First an organization is an institution because it structured by a set of cognitive, normative, and symbolic frames which shaped the behavior of its members by providing them with the tools necessary to observe and perceive the world around them to interpret and understand their counterparts behavior, and to construct their own interests as well as possible ways to further them. Through their structures -- formal (organizational forms, procedures, institutional symbols) as well as in formal (myths, rituals, social norms) -- organizational shape perceptions, calculations, reasoning, interpretations, and actions of their members by defining acceptable and legitimate behavior, i.e. behavior which is appropriate in the context of its culture. Second, no organization exists independently of other organizations which share the same characteristics and which together form and organizational field: e.g., the organizational field of universities, hospitals, schools, airlines, museums, etc. Such organizational feels have their producers and consumers, cognitive and normative frames, their power structures, control mechanisms. In short, they have their own institutional structure and their own dynamics, which are brought about the competition as well as interdependence between the constitutive organizations, process of professionalization, i.e. the establishment of cognitive and normative frames for the field, by government intervention and the like. The dynamics of the organizational fields exert unifying pressures on the individual organizations which in order to enhance their legitimacy, tend to adopt similar, if not identical, institutional forms and procedures. Third, while recognizing the importance of the technical and economic environment which was stressed by the structural contingency theory, the Neo -- institutionalists perspective interested mainly in the influence of the societal and institutional environment. The institutional environment concern to characteristics of the organizational field of which an organization is a part, and of the rules it has to follow if it wants to octane resources from the field and strengthen its legitimacy in it The societal environment decimate the norms and values of modern societies which according to DiMaggio and Powell 1983 or Meyer (Meyer and Scott 1994), are characterized by processes of rationalization (to a certain extent this can be understood as the re-edition of Max Weber's process of the disenchantment of the world) and the diffusion of standardized norms as a consequence of increased intervention by states, professions, science, and organizational fields. Both institutional and societal environments constitute a sort of unifying matrix for organizations which have to conform to their pressures if they want to be excepted and thus able to drawl resources for their functioning. In short, Neo -- institutional perspective stresses the constraint of legitimacy, as opposed to the constraint of efficiency. Rational structures (formal organizations) do not dominate the modern world because they are efficient. They adopt rationalized institutional moors because this will enable them to octane the resources necessary for their successes and their survival as they increase their legitimacy in a white of culture environment (rational Western society and culture). Take together, the two strands of reasoning mentioned in the opening remarks provide a complete panorama of the forces shaping organizations: efficiency and legitimacy are the constraints, within which the games being played in and between organizations are embedded, but the games that depend upon the cognitive and relational capacities of individuals playing them are in turn mediating these constraints. The unifying force to stress by contingency theory and be neo-institutionalists perspective should therefore never be overestimated: they are themselves subject to differentiating pressures stemming from the cognitive and relational capacities of the humans who play games in contexts structured by constraints of efficiency and legitimacy. The relational and cognitive capacities are never determined and are never final: they are the motor of the infinite variance, which is observable in organizational life; they are the motor of innovation, which succeeds in destabilizing even the best establishment technical or institutional environments.

Problem-Solution Research Paper on Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It needs to have a A Well-Argued Solution, and an Effective Counterargument. It needs to have 4 work-cited sources and all of them can be from the internet. The paper needs to touch base with both an emotional approach(Christmas season sadness, lack of fun outside activities etc). and a scientific approach(Lack of vitamins from winter sun, lack of oxygen in the air due to seasonal plants/snow, lack of serotonin etc.).

Should not exceed 10 pages including index and references.
Spacings should be one and a half.
Has to include:
- topical applicable title, variables, parameters
- population and sampling
- reliability and validity
- goal/purpose/aim and objectives
- instrumentation & data collection
- pilot study
- ethical consideration
- data analysis and interpretation
- scientific approach
- literature study (relevance)

I request the writer with

This writer provided an outline for a paper in my previous order - now I request a 1500 word/5 page scholarly paper written based upon this outline.

I will email the paper outline to be used.

*MOST Importantly* the vast majority of the sources must be respectable, peer-reviewed journal articles. Critical and innovative thinking, skeptical analysis, and the "scientific approach" to problem-solving is required.
There are faxes for this order.

Scientific Management(1912), Frederick W, Taylor page 43
Understanding Organizational Culture (1989), J. Steven ott. page 487

Reflection guide question
1. what are the basic principles of scientific management? Do you see scientific management at work in your public agency ( my public agency is internship at supervisor's office in city hall ) Expound
2. Apply the analytical framework of "Schein's level of organicational culture" to your public agency.
There are faxes for this order.

Scientific Paper Report

You will choose a peer-reviewed primary literature scientific article that interests you and write a two -three page synopsis explaining the authors hypothesis and how it relates to topics we are covering in BIOL 2108. The paper should be generated in Microsoft Word and will be submitted through www.turnitin.com. The info you need to submit is below:

Class: BIOL 2108
Class ID: 2507187
Enrolment
Assignment: Peer-Reviewed Article Summary


Bibliographic citations should be in AMA format. Galileo is a great source of literature for you to consider. I have include information below on what qualifies as peer-reviewed primary literature. Print your full text article and bring it to me for pre-approval (write your name on the paper). Start now, on average, 40% of the first papers brought to me do not meet the requirements. The timeline is as follows:

Wednesday, 11 February: Pre-approval deadline (miss this and subtract 10%)
Monday 16 February: Final approval deadline (only required for those not pre-approved on 11 February)
Wednesday 11 March : Paper due (miss this and subtract 10% per day)

Peer Reviewed Scientific Literature
Scientific literature comprises scientific publications that report original empirical and theoretical work in the natural and social sciences, and within a scientific field is often abbreviated as the literature. Academic publishing is the process of placing the results of one's research into the literature. Scientific research on original work initially published in scientific journals is called primary literature. Patents and technical reports, for minor research results and engineering and design work (including computer software) can also be considered primary literature. Secondary sources include articles in review journals (which provide a synthesis of research articles on a topic to highlight advances and new lines of research), and books for large projects, broad arguments, or compilations of articles. Tertiary sources might include encyclopedias and similar works intended for broad public consumption. [edit] Types of scientific publications
Peer review :The purpose of peer review of scientific manuscripts submitted for publication in scientific journals is quality control, a term which also encompasses other means towards the same purpose. The "quality" being referred to is the scientific quality, the lack of flaws in the data, and the validity of the conclusions drawn from the data. The lack of peer review is what makes most technical reports and World Wide Web publications unacceptable as contributions to the literature. The relatively weak peer review often applied to books and chapters in edited books means that their status is doubtful, unless an author's personal standing is so high that his or her prior career provides an effective guarantee of quality. Formal peer review is in flux and likely to change fundamentally owing to the emergence of institutional digital repositories where scholars can post their work as it is submitted to a print-based journal. Though this does not prevent peer review, it permits an un-reviewed copy into general circulation.
Bibliography

Scientific literature. (2008, July 23). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:49, September 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scientific_literature&oldid=227437703


i have already picked the peer reviewed article and attached

the text book that we are using is:
Biology, 7/E
Neil A. Campbell
Jane B. Reece
ISBN: 0-8053-7146-X

if you dont have it you can use the older or the newer version
There are faxes for this order.

Approach of combining both the fundamentals of information systems and technology with the essentials of business operation and management.

Business background provide readers with a solid foundation to then understand the need for and structure of information systems.

A broad view of information systems takes a look at individual, interorganizational, and international perspectives.

Discusses the need for improving personal productivity in the workplace, and explains how users use common end-user software to improve productivity and solve business problems.

Electronic commerce integrated throughout?Includes case studies and end-of-chapter projects.
Familiarizes students with its basic concept, information

the use of information; management decision making; and strategic impact and competitive advantage.
Provides students with a foundation for understanding information systems in business.

Encourages the use of such information technology as spreadsheets and databases to solve real-world problems.
Synopsis

Integrates both the fundamentals of information systems and technology with the essentials of business operation and management.

I am requesting "ISAK" to write my paper.

Major: Human Service Professional

1. Write a 900 word paper describing the scientific method and the fundamentals of research.
Address each of the following points in your paper:

A.) Define the scientific method. How does it relate to human services research?
B.) What are the steps in the process of scientific inquiry?
C.) Why must a researcher include each step to support the scientific method?
D.) Provide a human services research example of the scientific method and identify each step
within your example.
E.) Define quantitative research and qualitative research. Explain how they differ and relate
each to the human services field and the scientific method.
F.) Describe how to decide whether to use a quantitative or a qualitative research
methodology. Provide examples of what sort of study is appropriate for each methodology
and explain why.
G.) Define mixed method research and describe its strengths. Provide an example of when it
is appropriate to apply mixed method research within the human services field.

Paper must be written in APA format.
Paper must have at least 2 references.

Again, I am asking for "ISAK" to write the paper.