The purpose of this study was to explore the response patterns of African American students to the state certification questions. More specifically, the participants' explanations of their responses and their perceptions of the source of knowledge they used to answer the questions were discussed. To achieve this purpose, three research questions…

Twenty-six primary caregivers of children with a disability took part in focus groups or interviews to discuss their perceptions of stress and the coping process. Research was framed within the Process Model of Stress and Coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Findings provided a snapshot of the common stresses encountered by caregivers and indicate…

Focus group research is an effective way for school nurses to gain knowledge about a diverse range of issues that children in schools may face. It is a means to gather information about perceptions, feelings, points of view, and manners of thinking from a group of individuals about a specific topic. This article overviews focus groups as a…

Reflective journals have become an increasingly popular tool used by numerous faculty across many disciplines in higher education. Previous research and narrative reports of journal writing have explored student perceptions of journal writing, but very little is understood about faculty perceptions. In this paper, we report on a study involving…

This paper considers the contemporary use of focus groups as a method of data collection within qualitative research settings. The authors draw upon their own experiences of using focus groups in educational and "community" user-group environments in order to provide an overview of recent issues and debates surrounding the deployment of focus…

Ethnographic research, including interviews, focus groups, and observations were conducted to explore gendered dimensions of smoking among low level smokers, including the acceptability of smoking in different contexts; reasons for smoking; the monitoring of self and friends' smoking; and shared smoking as a means of communicating concern and…

Levels of cultural understanding can be applied to leadership and research. Intracultural understanding is self-contained within one culture. Cross-cultural understanding extends from one culture to another. Intercultural understanding recognizes implications for one's own culture. Metacultural understanding extends beyond one's own and others'…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the context, process and findings of a qualitative review of Walsall Arts into Health Partnership, which is widely acknowledged to be one of the most progressive community-based arts and health programmes in the UK. Design/methodology/approach: The research adopted a multi-method qualitative approach to…

In segregated societies such as Northern Ireland, schools may become sites of risk rather than sites of learning. This is particularly likely to be the case in interface areas, which are demarcated by peace-lines and other symbolic boundaries. Drawing on maps and focus group discussions with teenagers from interface areas in North Belfast, the…

Clinicians, researchers, educators, administrators, and policy makers, who represented stakeholders in the substance abuse treatment field, participated in 5 focus groups. Four general areas regarding integration of research and practice were investigated: definition of research, training/education, current integration, and future integration.…

An exploratory study conducted at George Brown College in Toronto, Canada between 2007 and 2009 investigated language learning with mobile devices as an approach to augmenting ESP learning by taking learning outside the classroom into the real-world context. In common with findings at other community colleges, this study identified inadequate…

This paper examines how emergent technologies could influence the design of learning environments. It will pay particular attention to the roles of educators and learners in creating networked learning experiences on massive open online courses (MOOCs). The research shows that it is possible to move from a pedagogy of abundance to a pedagogy that…

This study began in the Spring of 2003, when the Canterbury Adult Basic Education Research Network (CABERN), an informal cross-sector network of local adult literacy researchers and practitioners, sent out a questionnaire. The questionnaire addressed potential respondents by asking: "Are you a tutor engaged in any aspect of adult…

With goals in mind of engaging children in education and preparing them to address the nation's challenges, this report suggests service-learning could be a potential way to not only stem the tide of dropouts, but create a new generation of youth who are academically prepared for success in college and who possess a strong sense of civic…

Parent involvement is recognized as an important factor in encouraging student achievement. However, a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that in public schools with 25 percent or more American Indian students, teachers identified lack of parent involvement as one of their schools' three most serious problems. At an…