William Nathan Schoenfeld (1915-1996): innovative scientist, inspiring teacher, relentless questioner, complicated man.

The scientific and academic contributions of the late William N. Schoenfeld (1915–1996) are large and, together with his personal qualities as a researcher, thinker, and teacher, supply the themes for this memorial essay on his work and life.     

Pragmatism, Pluralism, and Psychotherapy Relationships: An Interview with John C. Norcross, Ph.D.

John C. Norcross has made significant contributions in the areas of the transtheoretical model of change, psychotherapy integration, and empirically supported psychotherapy relationships. This interview explores the contributions of pragmatic philosophy and his personal upbringing to his work as a psychotherapy researcher and practitioner. Dr. Norcross discusses the status of the psychotherapy integration movement, the work of the Task Force on Empirically Supported Psychotherapy Relationships, and future trends in psychotherapy over the next 25 years. He emphasizes the importance of a methodological rigor that recognizes the unique characteristics of the psychotherapy relationship. He describes his current interest in the psychotherapy of psychotherapists, illustrating it with his personal challenges in balancing work and home.     

The role of a nonparticipant observer in drug abuse field research

The development of a "nonparticipant observer" role in research on youthful drug use is described. The role proved valuable in gathering the kinds of information considered necessary by Becker (1955) and others for building theories of deviant behavior. The researcher had some access to the group prior to the project, and various interventionist actions on behalf of the youth helped increase the level of acceptance. The resulting rapport and confidence enhanced the research role, making possible penetration of the protective "fronts" of the deviant subjects. While dual functions of researcher and interventionist complemented each other, they presented personal role conflicts that had to be resolved. By assuming the role of nonparticipant in the deviant behavior itself, the researcher could avoid many moral, legal and ethical dilemmas without betraying either his own values or his objectivity. The author believes it is incumbent upon such a researcher to describe the uniqueness of his role so that his objective findings may be properly appraised in light of his subjective involvement.     

JAPANESE AMERICAN WARTIME EXPERIENCE,TAMOTSU SHIBUTANI AND METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATION, 1942–1978

A case study of how wartime internment reverberated in the life and work of Japanese American intellectuals, this essay discusses the career and interests of Tamotsu Shibutani, a sociologist who began his training as part of Dorothy Swaine Thomas’ Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study (JERS). Though recent scholarship has noted some of the ethical problems that attended the use of Japanese American participant observers during the war, this essay concentrates instead on how interned intellectuals responded to their double role of both researcher (and intellectual) and object of study. I argue that in the case of Shibutani, his circumstances and identity shaped his scholarship, both as an academic endeavor and a political project. By tracking Shibutani's postwar scholarly activities, I show that his wartime experiences—as an internee, military officer, and participant‐observer—reverberated in his sociological publications long after the war's end.     

Reflections on Religion and Health Research: An Interview with Dr. Harold G. Koenig

In this interview renowned researcher Harold G. Koenig, MD, MHSc shares his perspective on religion and health research, drawing from his experiences as a researcher, educator and practitioner. Throughout the interview, he highlights significant advances and discusses the gaps and potential weaknesses in the current body of religion and health literature. He also outlines recommendations for the continued advancement of religion and health research. Guidelines are given to guide new investigators interested in becoming religion and health researchers.     

We are one: Grief,weeping, and other deep emotions in response to nature as a path toward wholeness

Abstract

Using his own experience of grief in nature as a starting point, the researcher conducted an intuitive inquiry (Anderson, 2004) into experiences of grief, weeping, and other deep emotions in response to the natural world. Written stories of 40 people, told in the style of embodied writing (Anderson, 2001), were gathered and studied. The primary interpretation framed by the researcher was that experiences of grief, weeping, and other deep emotions in response to nature represent moments in a process of psycho‐spiritual transformation capable of healing the splits between mind and body, and between humanity and nature, that are prevalent in contemporary industrial and post‐industrial societies. Additional interpretations, focusing on the role of the body and embodiment, grief and weeping, and nature and spirituality, are offered. Interpretations are fleshed out with excerpts from participants’ stories.     

Alexander W. Astin: Higher Education's Relentless Reformer

Alexander “Sandy” W. Astin of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), probably the most prolific and influential researcher in American (U.S.) higher education today, talks about his development as a professional in the field, his mentors, his professional contributions, his personal development, his family, dual career issues, and his hopes for the future of the field.     

Harvey Cushing,M.D., in His World

Harvey Cushing, M.D. (1869–1939), is the acknowledged father of the discipline of neurosurgery who inspired others to join him in this new field. He was a prolific researcher in the area of human growth disturbances. And he was among the most literary of doctors having won the Pulitzer Prize for his two-volume biography of his mentor and teacher William Osler, M.D. A driven man, he both inspired and intimidated others. This essay explores Cushing’s character and background along with his relationship to Osler. It seeks to understand why and how he may be considered a great figure in spite and because of his demanding and often problematic character. It further seeks to place Cushing in the context of the transition of American society and American medicine in the latter decades of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth century. Portions of this essay were originally delivered as part of a Grand Rounds presentation for the Department of Neurosurgery at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Center.     

Use of a reference group in researching children’s views of psychotherapy in Malta

This paper explores the process and outcomes of a children’s reference group within the context of child psychotherapy research in residential care. The reference group was set up to consult children about the design of a research project which seeks to evoke, represent and understand children’s views of psychotherapy. No work to date has explored the experience of reference groups in the context of child psychotherapy in residential care in Malta. The paper contextualises the research within the literature on reference groups in child research, which identifies the potential of reference groups as a participative and co-reflexive activity which can inform research design. The paper critically examines the nature and conduct of the reference group by acknowledging the specific context of this work rather than assuming this is necessarily positive. It does so by specifying and evaluating the outcomes of the reference group in line with its aims. The paper draws on the recordings of the reference group meetings and reference group field notes taken by the researcher as key data which were thematically analysed. The main outcomes of the reference group include children’s contribution to the design of data collection methods especially in terms of not relying only on words during data collection. Children also identified key ethical issues from the point of view of young psychotherapy service users, especially in relation to issues of trust within a residential care context. Children also reviewed and appraised research information material. The reference group process drew from the researcher’s and participants’ contexts and contributed significantly to the researcher’s reflexive process especially in terms of acknowledging his power and positioning as an adult and his dual role as a practitioner/researcher.     

The Paradox of Howard Becker’s Intellectual Identity

Howard S. Becker, best known as a sociologist of deviance, claims that he “never really did work on deviance as such.” Why does he say this? The fortuitous nature of his entry into the field, his belief that deviance is not an analytic category, and the amount of time, energy, and commitment he has invested in this as opposed to other fields, play a role in this stance. In all likelihood, contrary to his wish, Howard Becker will always be regarded as a deviance researcher.     

Booming clangs and whispering ghosts: Attending to the reflexive echoes in IPA research

ABSTRACT

In this article, we propose reflexivity can be revealed through a deliberate adjunct to the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) process. This adjunct, which we refer to as “echoes,” is a mixture of the participant’s and researcher’s words and experiences resonating with each other during the research process. We argue that explicitly recognising echoes gives a heightened sensitivity to both the researcher’s own place and being in the research, and to the other in relation to the researcher. Exploring the echoes enables the researcher to work with, rather than dismiss, his or her own presuppositions and exposes greater phenomenological sensibility toward the research subject and is-ness of that phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to outline how attending to echoes is a strategy for IPA researchers to promote and overtly journal reflexivity as central within their research practices. To exemplify how echoes can be used, practical examples from a doctoral research project are given to demonstrate how resonance can explicate reflexivity in the IPA process.     

W. H. R. Rivers and the war neuroses.

W. H. R. Rivers was the most famous member of the Cambridge Expedition to the Torres Strait. At the time, he was a physician and had an international reputation as a researcher in physiological psychology. The expedition signaled the beginning of his career in social anthropology, but also a long hiatus in his activities in medicine. His clinical interests revived during World War I. As an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), Rivers became a leading proponent of "psychological medicine." Today, his war-time psychiatry is remembered mainly in association with his patient, Siegfried Sassoon. This article focuses on his wartime activities, his clinical practices, and his theories concerning the war neuroses and the unconscious. The currently popular view of Rivers as a quasi-Freudian humanist is challenged.     

THE EFFECT OF FACTOR SCORES,GUTTMAN SCORES,AND SIMPLE SUM SCORES ON THE SIZE OF F RATIOS IN AN ANALYSIS O F VARIANCE DESIGN

Many questions in the social sciences reduce to a comparison of mean values across groups in a classical analysis of variance F test. Often the original data my come from a set of items in a questionnaire or personality inventory. When this occurs, some sort of data reduction, combining of items, or scaling procedure is first performed before the hypothesis of no difference in mean values across groups can be made. In many cases, this problem causes undue concern t0 a researcher because the effect of the scoring procedure on the distribution of F is not clear. To help solve this problem, this study was undertaken to investigate whether the method used to calculate scores has any effect on the magnitude of the F ratio in an analysis of variance, for, if it were shown that no statistical difference existd, then a researcher would have some justification for showing the procedure having minimal messes. On the other hand, if statistical differences were b arise because of the kind d scaling procedure employed, then a researcher would have to be more cautious in his choice. For this empirical investigation, Guttman, Saaotor, and simple sum scores were generated using item responses from a large pool of high school seniors. No difference in scoring method was detected when the F ratios resulting from each of the three scoring methods were analyzed. This suggests that, for chin analyses, a simple sum score may be as effective as mres derived by more complicated methods.     

The role of JOOP (and other scientific journals) in bridging the practitioner‐researcher divide in industrial,work and organizational (IWO) psychology

Reflecting upon recent debates concerning the practitioner‐researcher divide in the field of industrial, work and organizational (IWO) psychology, Garry Gelade advocates a series of changes to the publication policy of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP), in an attempt to increase its appeal to HR practitioners. While his overall intention ‐ the increased application of psychological knowledge, tools and techniques to the enhancement of productivity and well‐being in workplace settings ‐ is to be welcomed, unfortunately, several of his recommendations are misplaced, reflecting a number of misconceptions concerning the nature and role of scientific journals in the science and practice of IWO psychology. Taken as a whole, the package of policy changes he advocates is likely to prove counterproductive. Accordingly, modifications to his recommendations are offered, with a view to ensuring that JOOP continues to meet the needs of its prime constituents.     

Well Trained Users in a Small Theological Library?

Abstract

Few published studies report on user training in theological libraries, despite the growing complexity in the task of finding theological information. This paper is a case study of the evaluation of user training in one small theological library. Using information literacy as a framework, the researcher describes his qualitative research design, then interprets the results. He found little formal evaluation. Additionally, library staff did not put together various pieces of information about the quality of user training available to them. Based on this case, the researcher proposes five lessons for other small theological libraries.     

Quantitative order in B. F. Skinner's early research program, 1928-1931

The purpose of this article is to provide a coherent story of Skinner's graduate-school (1928-1931) research projects, adding to Skinner's own accounts a different emphasis and a number of interesting details. The story is guided by the proposal that a search for quantitative order was the "unifying force" amid the variety of apparatus changes and shifts of research topic in Skinner's early development as a researcher. Archival laboratory-research records from several apparatuses which Skinner constructed between 1928 and 1931 (1) indicate that his research program was more complicated than he has implied; (2) show that he worked on three interdependent lines of investigation simultaneously; (3) suggest that change or abandonment of an apparatus or a project was markedly affected by his success (and failure) in his primary objective, which was to find quantitative orderliness in measured behavior. Frequent apparatus change in the period of 1928 to 1930 ceased when he obtained quantitative orderliness in the panel-press and lever-box preparations. In the examination of archival records, questions about the enterprise of biographical understanding are considered.     

Process, Content, and Feminist Reflexivity: One Researcher's Exploration

This article explores the unraveling of the relationship between research methodology, process, and content as revealed through my own feminist research project. I examine the evolution of my research process with one participant from a larger study, as I sought to better understand a story she told about racism. First, I address the theoretical underpinnings of feminist reflexivity and research, which challenge traditional paradigms. Next, I present the participant's (a white family day care provider's) story about racism in her practice which was revealed during an interview process. Subsequently, I present a second dialogue around the story in which we (researcher and participant) later engaged. In the process, I analyze my struggles, as a researcher trained in positivist methods, to engage in reflexive research methods. Finally, I evaluate the gains made for me as a researcher in the process and content of research conducted with a feminist reflexive frame and suggest their utility in deconstructing White racism.     

A reflection: Howard Scott Liddell, 1895-1962

Howard S. Liddell, Professor of Psychobiology in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University, was one of the earliest American students and developers of I.P. Pavlov's theory of the conditioned reflex and an early researcher on stress. The significance of Liddell's work on stress was fully recognized when he was sent, as a member of a commission, to the battlefront at the height of the Korean War to study stress and self-control in the soldiers. This profound experience convinced Liddell that behavioral research must ultimately be made relevant to the understanding and elevation of human behavior. He spent the remaining ten years of his life in efforts to implement this conviction through research, writing, and lectures before scientific and lay groups.     

Fact and fiction in the discovery of Sir Cyril Burt's flaws

Although there is still controversy over whether British educational psychologist Sir Cyril Hurt committed fraud in his famous studies of the intelligence of separated twins, most agree that his data have no scientific merit. The flaws which produced this judgment were first noted by Leon Kamin, an animal researcher. Evidence suggests that this revelation by an “outsider” was embarrassing to some psychometric specialists who had revered Burl's work as the best of its kind, so they attempted to deprive Kamin of credit for the discovery. This episode raises a disturbing question–whether research results which agree with established beliefs of professionals in a field are held to the usual standards of science.