Critique Of Research Research Articles

The substantiveness of socioeconomic school compositional effects in Australia: measurement error and the relationship with academic composition

This study examines the effect of school socioeconomic composition on student achievement growth in Australian schooling, and its relationship with academic composition utilising the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) dataset. Previous research has found that school composition predicts a range of schooling outcomes. A critique of school compositional research has been that measurement error may have biased findings of compositional effects. Prior studies have found that socioeconomic compositional effect sizes are small when models include academic composition. The relationship between socioeconomic and academic compositions has yet to be fully determined. Multi-level regressions and structural equation models were compared to estimate the degree of bias in socioeconomic compositional effects due to measurement error. Multi-level path models were used to test if academic composition mediated the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. The results showed that measurement error did not bias compositional effects in the dataset, and academic composition mediates the relationship between socioeconomic composition and achievement growth. We argue that school value-add research should include academic composition to account for contextual effects. The socioeconomic compositional effect is of practical significance to policy makers and educational researchers due to its relative size compared to average student achievement growth. Potential reforms include ensuring public subsidies to private schools in Australia do not increase school segregation and the amelioration of the effects of residential segregation through school funding reforms.

Russian Engraving of the 17th Century in the Studies of Dmitry Rovinsky

The article is devoted to the works of Dmitry Aleksandrovich Rovinsky (1824—1895), a famous Russian scientist and collector, the founder of Russian engraving studies. There are special articles devoted to him in modern literature, but mostly of a biographical nature. This article explores his methods for studying early Russian engraving of the 17th century. The author shows the directions and approaches to the topic identified and developed by D.A. Rovinsky. Exploring the scientist’s work in the context of the development of art criticism of the 19th century, the article reveals methodological errors in the attribution and identification of iconographic sources of Russian engraving of the 17th century. The article shows the features of D.A. Rovinsky’s approach to specific works, which determined his conclusions and observations in the assessment of Russian engraving of the 17th century, some of them remain relevant today. There are demonstrated the material research characteristics associated with socio-political reasons that determined the direction of censorship in relation to the study of plots and iconographic issues of early Russian engraving. The article shows for the first time the features of studying early Russian engraving of the 17th century as an independent phenomenon, reveals the origins of the formation of modern trends in art criticism (engraving) research, and demonstrates the processes of formation of our ideas about the initial stage of the development of the art of engraving in Russia as a special kind of art and a phenomenon of artistic culture.

Just Research: Advancing Antiracist and Antioppressive Social Work Research.

The Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) created its Research Capacity and Development Committee in 2017 to build research capacity across the careers of social work scholars. The committee has initiated multiple conferences and webinar sessions that have increasingly focused on antiracist and antioppressive (ARAO) research, including "Mentorship for Antiracist and Inclusive Research" and "Strategies for Supporting Antiracist Pedagogy & Scholarship: Reimagining Institutional Systems & Structures." This commentary integrates themes from these sessions and other discussions among committee members about strategies to advance ARAO research. Although SSWR board members reviewed and approved this submission, it is not an official statement of SSWR or its board of directors.

Scaffolding as active learning in nursing education

Recent changes, such as COVID-19 restrictions and advances in technology, have led to unique effects on nursing education, requiring new pedagogical thinking and strategies. Studies have shown that a more active approach to learning leads to positive gains for students. In this conceptual paper, we argue that scaffolding specifically allows instructors to break down assignments into meaningful chunks with instructional support that fall within reach of a student's ability, making the assignment both more manageable and actively engaging. This paper outlines six principles (Van Lier, 1996) to the scaffolding approach and discusses two example assignments that utilize scaffolding in nursing education to increase active engagement and improve learning outcomes. Examples include a research critique paper and an unfolding case study.

"Cinderella effects" in lethal child abuse are genuine and large: A comment on Nobes et al. (2019).

Nobes et al. (2019) combined novel analyses of homicide victimization of British preschool children with a critique of previous research reporting large Cinderella effects (excess risk to stepchildren) in this domain. Whereas Nobes and colleagues' empirical contribution is useful, the critique contains factual errors and misrepresentations of the literature in support of their conclusion that the magnitude of such effects has been greatly exaggerated. It has not, as I show by addressing Nobes et al.'s many misstatements and reviewing relevant literature that they ignored. Fatal baby batterings, in particular, have been found to exhibit Cinderella effects on the order of 100-fold or more in many studies in several countries, including Britain. Nobes et al.'s efforts to deny this reality are misguided. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Features of Solving Plots in Temple Painting by the Founders of the Religious-national Trend and Artists of the Circle of M. M. Vasiliev

The subject of the study is to identify the peculiarities in solving the plots of church painting of individual representatives of the religious-national trend of the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. The purpose is to show the development of national trends of Russian monumental church art by the founders of the religious-national trend on the examples of the work of V. M.Vasnetsov, M. V. Nesterov, M.A. Vrubel and artists M. M. Vasiliev, A. P. Blaznov, L. A. Pyanovsky, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin, F. R. Raylian, to identify similarities and differences in the manner and in the transmission of images and compositions, as well as to substantiate the significance of these differences for art history. The basis of art criticism research is the formal stylistic method of G. Velflin, the iconographic method of N. P. Kondakov, the iconological method of E. Panofsky; the method of phenomenological analysis of the aesthetic perception of the artistic work of V. V. Bychkov and G. K. Wagner. Comparative analysis of murals by artists M. M. Vasiliev, A. P. Blaznov, L. A. Pyanovsky, F. R. Raylian, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin in comparison with the work of representatives of the "Vasnetsov school" allowed us to see the development of the national style in art, from an abstract-figurative understanding to a conscious spiritual-symbolic interpretation of church painting of the Middle Ages and pre-Petrine Russia as an integral artistic phenomenon of the religious-national trend. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the example of the artists of the "Vasiliev circle" revealed a kind of overcoming of one of the main problems of the iconographic image, which consists in maintaining a delicate balance of life-likeness and ideality. In their works, in the context of interpretation, the measure of realism of the image is traced, in which the spiritual content can be embodied in a material form without losing its sacred content, which is a valuable example for modern artists who set themselves the task of creating images without copying, but remaining in the canon.

Neurofeminism: Feminist critiques of research on sex/gender differences in the neurosciences.

Over the last three decades, the human brain and its role in determining behavior have been receiving a growing amount of attention in academia as well as in society more generally. Neuroscientific explanations of human behavior or other phenomena are often especially appealing to lay people. Therefore, neuroscientific explanations that can affect individuals, groups, or social relations in general should be formulated in a careful and responsible way. One field in which especially feminist scholars request more caution is the neuroscientific examination of sex/gender differences. Feminist scholars have described various ways in which sexist bias might be present in neuroscientific research on sex/gender differences. In this context, they coined the term "neurosexism" to describe the entanglement between neuroscientific work and sexist ideology, and "neurofeminism" as a response to that. Here, we aim to give an overview over the contemporary neurofeminist literature. In the first part, common levels of analysis in the neurofeminist literature are presented and the research level is explored in more detail. In the second part, some common developments in more recent neurofeminist scholarship are discussed. For this, we review recent publications with the aim to provide neuroscientists with a solid understanding of neurofeminist criticism so that they may evaluate neuroscientific claims about on sex/gender differences from this critical perspective.

Emergency Department Use of the HINTS Exam.

The Research to Practice column is designed to improve translational research critique skills of advanced practice nurses (APNs). In this issue, the article "Diagnostic Accuracy of the HINTS Exam in an Emergency Department: A Retrospective Chart Review" is discussed in the context of a patient presenting to the emergency department (ED) with acute dizziness. The study was designed to assess the efficacy and appropriate use of the HINTS exam in the ED. Assessing and evaluating dizziness is complex, and with the growing cost associated with the ED assessment of dizziness, appropriate use of the HINTS exam could reduce cost. APNs need to be aware of the appropriateness of use when administering the HINTS exam and how to interpret the findings from the assessment. Improved awareness and education regarding the HINTS exam could streamline the workup of vertigo and dizziness in the ED.

Proposed Changes to Nutrition Curricula in Higher Education

Although the field of nutrition has shifted to holistic approaches to dietary health, introductory nutrition courses have primarily focused on a reductionist approach. From my perspective, there is a need for radical changes in nutrition curricula to emphasize the importance of whole foods, complex dietary behavior, and food systems that align with the progress made within the field of nutrition. This holistic perspective of food and dietary patterns can help future dietitians and those not pursuing dietetics to understand the complex realities of nutrition while also learning transferable skills, such as systems-thinking, communication, and evaluation and critique of current research.

A Perspective: Challenges in Dementia Research.

Although dementia is a common and devastating disease that has been studied intensely for more than 100 years, no effective disease modifying treatment has been found. At this impasse, new approaches are important. The purpose of this paper is to provide, in the context of current research, one clinician’s perspective regarding important challenges in the field in the form of specific challenges. These challenges not only illustrate the scope of the problems inherent in finding treatments for dementia, but can also be specific targets to foster discussion, criticism and new research. One common theme is the need to transform research activities from small projects in individual laboratories/clinics to larger multinational projects, in which each clinician and researcher works as an integral part. This transformation will require collaboration between researchers, large corporations, regulatory/governmental authorities and the general population, as well as significant financial investments. However, the costs of transforming the approach are small in comparison with the cost of dementia.

Need for robust critique of arts and health research: An examination of the Goldbeck and Ellerkamp (2012) randomised controlled trial of music therapy for anxiety in children, and its treatment in four systematic reviews

We describe work-in-progress to conduct a systematic review of research on the effects of arts-based programmes for mental health in young people. We have searched for relevant studies through major databases and screened extant systematic reviews for additional research which meets our inclusion criteria. We have reservations, however, regarding both the quality of existing primary studies and of recently published systematic reviews in this area of arts and health. In a previous paper (Grebosz-Haring et al., 2022), we focused on a randomised controlled trial (RCT) on art therapy for adolescent girls with ‘internalising’ and ‘externalising’ problems, and its inclusion in three systematic reviews, and expressed concerns. In this paper, we extend the scope of our critical scrutiny to a research paper on music therapy with children described as having anxiety disorders (Goldbeck & Ellerkamp, 2012), and its treatment in four recent systematic reviews / meta-analyses (Ponomarenko et al., 2017; Cohen-Yatziv & Regev, 2019; Bosgraf et al., 2020). We demonstrate limitations in the Goldbeck and Ellerkamp study which undermine the conclusion they reach on the effectiveness of music therapy in the remission of anxiety disorders. We also show that the reviews are not sufficiently critical and make errors in the treatment of Goldbeck and Ellerkamp’s research, which cast doubts on their dependability. Finally, we reflect on the lessons learned from our critique and draw some positive recommendations for future research and the conduct of reviews.

Behind the Scenes at ApertureScience.com: Portal and Its Paratexts.

Portal (2007) presents an unusually complex example for the study of video game paratexts. This article uses the case of the game's promotional website ApertureScience.com to consider how paratextuality and the associated concepts of ephemerality and materiality may be further refined to open up new dimensions of video games as objects of interpretation and play. The article draws from the field of textual studies, which specializes in the particularities of media, and in the entanglement of technical detail with interpretation and meaning. The first part re-evaluates the nature of the book as an analogy for the materiality of video games, and critiques Gérard Genette's conception of bookish paratexts and its applicability to video games. The article then offers a detailed analysis of ApertureScience.com as a paratext, including its satirical critiques of positivism and corporate research, and concludes with a discussion of the materiality of digital paratexts.

Evolution of Sustainability Reporting Research: Evidence from Indonesia (A Systematic Literature Review)

This paper aims to systematize the research field of sustainability reporting (SR) in Indonesia. The paper reviews the development of research at SR, provides a critique of past research, and outlines future research opportunities. The paper provides a systematic review of existing studies and analyses SR in Indonesia using a qualitative approach. This review analyzed 36 studies on SR in Indonesia published between 2016 and 2020. Most published SR studies take a quantitative approach and focus on the private sector, with very little attention paid to SR implementation in the public sector or SMEs. Therefore, this study provides a comprehensive account of the development of sustainability reporting research in Indonesia over the past five years. The analysis undertaken in this paper addresses the gaps in the literature on SR research in Indonesia and serves as a guide for researchers, academics, and interested researchers. The study is limited to peer-reviewed papers, so research published at conferences or seminars is not addressed. However, further studies can be conducted by expanding the keyword and search database or using working papers from conferences or workshops to cover what this review may not have uncovered.

Critical research and entrepreneurship: A cross‐disciplinary conceptual typology

AbstractCritical perspectives of entrepreneurship have gained increasing traction over the last two decades. The transformative potential of critical research resides in challenging some of entrepreneurship research's epistemological, ontological and theoretical assumptions, with a view to offering a range of alternatives. Critical research in entrepreneurship has remained fragmented, however, due to its heterogeneous theoretical lineages and compartmentalized and niche interests. Addressing this situation, our objective is to intensify the space of critique in entrepreneurship research by offering a theoretically informed typology that delineates different manifestations of ‘criticalness’. Our overarching contribution is to advance a typology distinguishing four ideal types of critical entrepreneurship research based on evaluative emphases (referred to as ‘valence’) and the meta‐theoretical assumptions informing its critical operation (called ‘paradigmatic orientation’). By demonstrating the variegated political, ethical and ideological interests and preoccupations that critical studies serve within different management sub‐disciplines, the typology provides a conceptual vocabulary for making sense of and synthesizing critical perspectives across scholarly boundaries. Also, it helps to reposition understandings of critique as gestures of negativity by stimulating a greater appreciation of the generative potential of critique and the theoretical and philosophical possibilities that this can bring to our scholarly community.

SATs, sets and allegations of bias: The allocation of 11‐year‐old students to mathematics sets in some English schools in 2015. A response to Connolly et al., 2019

AbstractThis is a methodological critique of research by the Best Practice in Grouping Students (BPGS) project claiming teacher bias in allocating students to first‐year secondary school mathematics teaching sets (British Educational Research Journal, 45(4), 873–879). The research assumes that bias could be shown by non‐random relationships between ‘misallocations’ to sets and memberships of gender, ethnic and/or socio‐economic subgroups. This paper questions the authors’ prescriptions for correct set placements and demonstrates two ways in which non‐random relationships between subgroup memberships and (alleged) misplacements could be generated despite all students with similar scores within a school being given the same chance of a set position deemed correct by the researchers. It suggests that the BPGS project results are largely artefacts of their evaluation approach. No claim is made herein that teacher bias plays no part in set allocation, merely that, if it does, the approach by Connolly et al. could not evidence it. A lesson from the critique is that, before drawing inferences from data aggregated from diverse clusters, it is wise for researchers to investigate the way the data are generated at source and patterned by aggregation.

The Science (or Nonscience) of Research Into Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

This Viewpoint paper presents a timely and constructive critique of mainstream SIDS research. It is concerning that twenty-first century medical science has not provided an answer to the tragic enigma of SIDS. The paper helps explain why this is so and illustrates possible shortcomings in the investigation of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome/Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SIDS/SUID) by mainstream researchers. Mainstream findings are often based on questionable and dogmatic assumptions that return to founding notions such as the Triple Risk Hypothesis and the contention that the mechanisms underlying SIDS/SUID are heterogeneous in nature. The paper illustrates how the pathological findings in SIDS have been under-investigated (or ignored) and that key epidemiological risk factors have slipped from memory. This apparent amnesia has resulted in failure to use these established SIDS facts to substantiate the significance of various neuropathological, neurochemical, or other research findings. These unsupported findings and their derivative hypotheses are therefore ill-founded and lack scientific rigor.ConclusionThe deficits of SIDS “science” revealed in this paper explain why the SIDS enigma has not yet been solved. To make progress in understanding SIDS, it is important that researchers, as scientists, uphold standards of research. Encouragement for new directions of research is offered.

Strategies to Integrate the Practice of Social Emergency Medicine Into Routine Patient Care.

The Research to Practice column focuses on improving the research critique skills of advanced practice providers and to assist with the translation of research into practice. In this issue, we discuss the findings of a 2-phase, mixed-methods feasibility investigation conducted by A. S. Wallace et al. (2020) that developed and evaluated a screening process to identify social needs/risks for emergency department (ED) patients and connect them to community-based resources upon discharge. The results revealed that patients with identified social needs and referred to community resources tended to utilize the ED more than those without needs. This suggests the need for EDs to implement a standardized screening tool for social determinants of health (SDOH) on all ED patients for improved patient outcomes. Findings also highlighted a need for EDs to provide staff training and competence in the areas of patient communication and SDOH.

A geographical retheorization of the tourism value chain

Based on a sympathetic critique of the current research on the tourism value chain, this paper finds certain ambiguities in the understanding of the theoretical context of the value chain literature, and there is inadequate attention towards the role of geography. This paper reveals how the ambiguities are created and why geography is important. In order to reduce the ambiguities of the tourism value chain, the spatiality of tourism value chain is theorized concerning spatial stickiness and experiential value of tourism resources. This paper thus argues that the tourism value chain is subject to a carrier-driven pattern of governance rather than producer or buyer-driven. This endeavour helps us better understand the general mechanism of value creation and distribution in the tourism industry rather than taking it for granted that it is the same as in the manufacturing industries.

Color application in vernacular architecture in Southern India: An Intangible cultural phenomenon?

The study of color aesthetics should always consider color interactions. This study aimed to understand the color application in southern India by identifying it in the cityscapes and analyzing its characteristics. Field observations, a survey, and interviews were undertaken. An online questionnaire was administered to 39 undergraduate and master’s degree students in Industrial Design courses at VIT University Vellore. The article discusses the appropriate methodology for color criticism research and its multidisciplinary field. The study concludes that color in Southern India has a complex and elaborated application. Color contrast and saturation can be used not merely to enhance and distinguish shapes and forms creating the visual effect of detachment between its elements but as a paradoxical economic status indicator. Keywords: Architecture; Color; Criticism; Design; India; Visual Culture.

The Need for Robust Critique of Arts and Health Research: Young People, Art Therapy and Mental Health.

We describe work in progress to conduct a systematic review of research on effects of arts-based programs for mental health in young people. We are at the stage of searching for relevant studies through major databases and screening extant systematic reviews for additional research which meet our inclusion criteria. At this stage, however, concerns have arisen regarding both the quality of existing primary studies and of recently published systematic reviews in this area of arts and health. As a case in point, in this paper we focus on one research report on art therapy with adolescent girls and its inclusion in three systematic reviews. We demonstrate that the reviews fail to undertake a robust critique of the Bazargan and Pakdaman paper and that the paper and reviews are flawed. Drawing on recent criticisms of systematic reviewing, we consider the value of proceeding with our systematic review as initially planned.