The University of North Carolina Mobile Student Health Action Coalition (UNC MSHAC) at Chapel Hill, North Carolina is a voluntary service-learning program in which interdisciplinary teams of graduate level health professional students provide monthly home visits to isolated, community-dwelling elders with complex medical and social issues.…

This study examined outcomes for faculty and community partners of a gerontological curriculum enrichment effort at a midwestern state university. The study was supported by the John A. Hartford Foundation. Faculty from three academic centers around the state were involved in revising the foundation (core) curriculum. Community practitioners from…

In response to recent trends and legislation, the concept of implementing evidence-based practices has become a critical component of contemporary schooling. It is important that teachers and families of students with disabilities understand the role that qualitative research plays in determining whether a practice is in fact evidence based.…

This systematic review of the literature synthesizes research from a number of disciplines and provides a succinct distillation of the methods and measures used to study the impact of creative drama on the language development of young children. An analysis of the merits and limitations of the reviewed studies reveals a number of methodological…

This study combined qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the reasons many women use indirect messages to say "no" to men's attempts to escalate sexual intimacy. Subjects were six female students at a large southwestern university. At one time, one group had four women, at another time the group had two women. All were…

This book for doctoral students is designed to provide direct, in-depth support for learning about qualitative research. The data sources for the book are reflections of research correspondents who describe their experiences with choosing qualitative research methodologies for their thesis research. The book begins with a chapter about "the end,"…

This paper assesses the value of research, not on its methodology type but on its goal and accomplishments. It outlines an idea for developing a knowledge base capable of informing teacher education program planning and other educational policy decisions. Studies are described that advance knowledge about causal relationships between classroom…

Interviewing is one of the most common methods used in small-scale educational research. This book is about semi-structured interviews, in which the interviewer sets up a general structure by deciding in advance the ground to be covered and the main questions to be asked. The detailed structure is left to be worked out during the interview, and…

This book describes several projects addressing experiences as women educators in defining the positional perspectives related to the understanding and reconceptualization of teaching and curriculum. Each project faces the dilemma of imposition in the authors' work with student teachers, teenage mothers, children of color, community members, and…

Parallels in the thinking of Gloria Anzaldua as expressed in her work "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza" (1987) about "mestiza" consciousness and the tasks of critical ethnography are explored. Ethnography, as it shifts toward the new paradigm of critical ethnography, can learn much from the consciousness Anzaldua…

This paper discusses the use of peer debriefing to assist evaluators in their efforts to address project-end dilemmas and presents the implications of findings in this area for program evaluators and qualitative researchers. Peer debriefing has been defined as the process of exposing oneself to a disinterested peer to explore aspects of the…

Qualitative and quantitative social science research methods rather than representing opposing research methods instead are reinforcing research traditions. The ability of either research methodology to make lasting and important contributions requires the ability to synthesize and integrate with the other approach. While the assumptions of each…

The goal of this study was to describe the potential educational opportunities that lie in self-directed age-mixed interactions among children and adolescents. A qualitative analysis was used to generate ideas about goals and benefits of such interactions. The setting for the study was Sudbury Valley School (Massachusetts), a private school with…

Focusing on the teaching of comprehension strategies, this paper describes studies designed to identify settings in which effective strategies instruction was being carried out and details the conclusions that can be drawn from the studies. The paper begins with a description of comprehension strategies instruction in the 1970s and 1980s. The…

Qualitative research is research that attempts not only to understand the world, but also to understand it through the eyes of the participants whose world it is. Consequently, qualitative research must occur in a natural setting. The study begins, not with hypotheses to be proved or disproved, but with a flexible plan to explore a phenomenon.…