Social Research Studies Research Articles

Supporting traceability and biosecurity in the sheep and goat industries in NSW: understanding barriers to implementing electronic identification.

Efficient traceability is paramount for Australia's biosecurity system and market access. Electronic identification (eID) offers higher traceability performance than that achieved with visual and mob-based identification used for the sheep and goats National Livestock Identification System (NLIS). The current study aims to gain an understanding of the barriers and motivations of using eID for NLIS sheep and goats in New South Wales (NSW) and to provide recommendations to support the transition to eID. A social research study using a mixed-methods approach was used through semi-structured interviews and a cross-sectional epidemiological and behavioural study among sheep and goat producers. The COM-B behaviour change model based on capabilities, opportunities and motivations was used as a framework for the study. A total of 269 participants informed this study: 25 interviews were conducted with government, industry and private stakeholders, and 184 and 58 sheep and goat producers participated in the cross-sectional study, respectively. The study identified poor understanding of the purpose and importance of NLIS among producers, with over two-thirds not supporting eID implementation. The main barriers identified to the eID implementation were practical, including costs, technology quality and increased workload. Attitudinal, behavioural and knowledge barriers, such as the perception of the current system providing efficient traceability and the perceived lack of benefits of eID were also identified. This study provides an in-depth analysis of practices and perceptions of stakeholders and producers on sheep and goat traceability and recommendations to address barriers identified, based on education and appropriate behavioural and technical support.

Marriage migration, intimacy and genre in Helen Hoang’s The Bride Test (2019) and Brigitte Bautista’s You, Me, U.S. (2019)

A significant strand of cultural and social studies research on late modernity has focused on intimacies; in particular, ‘mediated intimacies’ (Attwood et al., 2017; Barker et al., 2018; Gill, 2009), exploring how the media, in its various forms, represents and affects intimate relationships. Romance fiction, the most popular global genre, offers a key source text for exploring intimate and romantic relationships and the ways culturally and politically specific forms of intimacy are shared transnationally. Of particular interest is the increase in the twenty-first century of romantic stories that deal with the intersection of intimacy and migration. This article brings together critical work on intimacy and affect, scholarship on popular romance, and research on migration and transcultural exchange to explore how contemporary Anglophone popular romance fiction mediates intimate relationships in the context of migration. Focusing on two romance novels featuring South East Asian migration to the USA — Brigitte Bautista’s You, Me, U.S. (2019) and Helen Hoang’s The Bride Test (2019) — I explore how these novels represent marriage migration and its relationship to and impact on intimacy. Both novels are aware of existing stigmas around marriage migration (the risk of abuse or fraudulent marriage), but the association of marriage with ‘authentic’ romantic love in the romance genre ultimately serves to uphold such stigmas, rather than challenge them. The texts pay equally close attention to the performativity of romantic love, noting how heteronormative, western norms of romance are required for migrants but, in the case of You, Me, U.S., can also be queered. These texts are concerned with the movement of people and cultures while themselves travelling across borders as products of a transnational, global publishing market. These fictions, then, showcase how their particular articulations of intimacy offer new insights for scholars interested in marriage migration.

Data integrity in an online world: Demonstration of multimodal bot screening tools and considerations for preserving data integrity in two online social and behavioral research studies with marginalized populations.

Internet-based studies are widely used in social and behavioral health research, yet bots and fraud from "survey farming" bring significant threats to data integrity. For research centering marginalized communities, data integrity is an ethical imperative, as fraudulent data at a minimum poses a threat to scientific integrity, and worse could even promulgate false, negative stereotypes about the population of interest. Using data from two online surveys of sexual and gender minority populations (young men who have sex with men and transgender women of color), we (a) demonstrate the use of online survey techniques to identify and mitigate internet-based fraud, (b) differentiate techniques for and identify two different types of "survey farming" (i.e., bots and false responders), and (c) demonstrate the consequences of those distinct types of fraud on sample characteristics and statistical inferences, if fraud goes unaddressed. We provide practical recommendations for internet-based studies in psychological, social, and behavioral health research to ensure data integrity and discuss implications for future research testing data integrity techniques. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

“Discussions on another spectrum”: Q pedagogy and high-quality discussions

ABSTRACT This study examines Q pedagogy—an innovative approach to discussion-based teaching—to promote discussion in a graduate-level social studies research course. The study explores how graduate-level teacher education students experienced Q pedagogy discussions about research in social studies teaching and learning. The work offers an elaborated conception of high-quality discussion in the enacted teacher education space of a graduate-level research in social studies course. Findings suggest that students believed the Q pedagogy discussion seminars were more powerful than non-Q pedagogy discussions on every one of six discussion aims articulated in the concept of high-quality discussion at the center of the instructor’s pedagogical decision-making. Findings also address numerous strengths of the approach toward furthering the aim of a highly participatory, informed discussion grounded in the arguments of the texts featured in each class session. This research highlights the intersection of student experiences and instructor aims to advance scholarship on teaching through and learning from discussion.

Capturing the unobservable in AI development: proposal to account for AI developer practices with ethnographic audit trails (EATs)

AbstractThe prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has inspired social studies researchers, ethicists, and policymakers to seriously examine AI’s sociopolitical and ethical impacts. AI ethics literature provides guidance on which ethical principles to implement via AI governance; AI auditing literature, especially ethics-based auditing (EBA), suggests methods to verify if such principles are respected in AI model development and deployment. As much as EBA methods are abundant, I argue that most currently take a top-down and post-hoc approach to AI model development: Existing EBA methods mostly assume a preset of high-level, abstract principles that can be applied universally across contexts; meanwhile, current EBA is only conducted after the development or deployment of AI models. Taken together, these methods do not sufficiently capture the very developmental practices surrounding the constitution of AI models on a day-to-day basis. What goes on in an AI development space and the very developers whose hands write codes, assemble datasets, and design model architectures remain unobserved and, therefore, uncontested. I attempt to address this lack of documentation on AI developers’ day-to-day practices by conducting an ethnographic “AI lab study” (termed by Florian Jaton), demonstrating just how much context and empirical data can be excavated to support a whole-picture evaluation of AI models’ sociopolitical and ethical impacts. I then propose a new method to be added to the arsenal of EBA: Ethnographic audit trails (EATs), which take a bottom-up and in-progress approach to AI model development, capturing the previously unobservable developer practices.

Themed editorial: Social studies research and practice special issue: effective use of films in the social studies classroom

Themed editorial: Social studies research and practice special issue: effective use of films in the social studies classroom

Winter Storm Severity Index in Alaska: Understanding the Usefulness for Impact-Based Winter Weather Severity Forecast Information

Abstract There is growing interest in impact-based decision support services to address complex decision-making, especially for winter storm forecasting. Understanding users’ needs for winter storm forecast information is necessary to make such impact-based winter forecasts relevant and useful to the diverse regions affected. A mixed-method social science research study investigated extending the winter storm severity index (WSSI) [operational for the contiguous United States (CONUS)] to Alaska, with consideration of the distinct needs of Alaskan stakeholders and the Alaskan climate. Data availability differences suggest the need for an Alaska-specific WSSI, calling for user feedback to inform the direction of product modifications. Focus groups and surveys in six regions of Alaska provided information on how the WSSI components, definitions, and categorization of impacts could align with stakeholder expectations and led to recommendations for the Weather Prediction Center to consider in developing the WSSI Alaska product. Overall, wind (strength and direction) and precipitation are key components to include. Air travel is a critical concern requiring wind and visibility information, while road travel is less emphasized (contrasting with CONUS needs). Special Weather Statements and Winter Storm Warnings are highly valued, and storm trajectory and transition (between precipitation types) information are the important contexts for decision-makers. Alaska is accustomed to and prepared for winter impacts but being able to understand how components (wind, snow, and ice) contribute to overall impact enhances the ability to respond and mitigate damage effectively. The WSSI adapted for Alaska can help address regional forecast needs, particularly valuable as the climate changes and typical winter conditions become more variable. Significance Statement Impact-based support services can assist decision-makers in prioritizing preparedness and mitigation actions related to winter storm events. The winter storm severity index adapted for specific considerations in Alaska (such as including wind and visibility components) can extend winter weather impact-based forecasting’s utility. Additionally, lessons learned from the process of adapting a national product to specific regional needs may inform best practices for gathering stakeholder input and feedback.

Roles and Regulations for Conducting a Surveys Research in Social Studies

The quality of a survey is of prime importance for accurate, reliable and valid results, Survey teams should implement systematic quality assurance procedures to prevent unacceptable practices and to minimize errors in data collection This paper provides a checklist of good practice in the conduct and reporting of survey research, many researchers seek to publish work that uses questionnaires and surveys. Complexities in the use of surveys and questionnaires and the legal and ethical principles that frame their use are often overlooked, resulting in disappointment for authors who seem unaware of the responsibilities editors and reviewers have in relation to these data collection instruments. meaning a standard at which the results will be regarded as credible. Survey research is sometimes regarded as an easy research approach. However as with any other research approach and method, it is easy to conduct a survey of poor quality rather than one of high quality and real value, its purpose is to assist the novice researcher to produce survey work to a high standard, meaning a standard at which the results will be regarded as credible, and how to calculate sample size and how to select sample. It is not intended to provide a manual of how to conduct a survey, but rather to identify common pitfalls and oversights to be avoided by researchers if their work is to be valid and credible.

Technical Perspective: Synthetic Data Needs a Reproducibility Benchmark

Synthetic data is a vital substitute for real sensitive personal data in supporting social science research and policy studies. Extensive prior research has delved into various models for generating synthetic data, from traditional statistical approaches to cutting-edge deep-learning methods. However, selecting the most suitable one for unforeseen applications poses a significant challenge due to the varying strengths and weaknesses, dependent on factors such as the application domain, data distribution, analytical requirements, and privacy considerations.

Plowing New Fields of Scholarship in Social Studies: Planting New Seeds With Civic, Economic, and Geographic Thinking

This manuscript is the introductory article for the special issue of the Journal of Social Studies Research titled Teaching Disciplinary Thinking, Literacy, and Argumentation Skills. In it, the authors provide an historical overview of disciplinary thinking as outlined by Edwin Fenton and Sam Wineburg. They talk about how the C3 Framework is a melding of a focus on disciplinary thinking outlined by Fenton and Wineburg with the emphasis on preparing K-12 students for their future roles as democratic citizens as stressed by scholars like Shirley Engle. Then, the focus of the manuscript shifts to highlight the underdeveloped areas of disciplinary thinking in civics, geography, and economics. The authors define economic, civic, and geographic thinking and provide habits of mind for each of these disciplines along with classroom activities for each. They close with arguments for why K-12 social studies teachers and social studies education scholars should focus on developing K-12 students’ civic, economic, and geographic thinking skills.

Using digital tools in clinical, health and social care research: a mixed-methods study of UK stakeholders

ObjectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic accelerated changes to clinical research methodology, with clinical studies being carried out via online/remote means. This mixed-methods study aimed to identify which digital tools are currently used...

AI in management control: Emergent forms, practices, and infrastructures

This paper discusses the significance of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Machine Learning (ML) and Large Language Processing (LLP), in the context of management control. The key concern is the epistemological shift from traditional deductive approaches to an inductive approach brought about by AI technologies. The paper elaborates on shifts related to the forms, practices, and infrastructures of management control, discussing new avenues for research in social studies of accounting. The discussion outlines how the integration of AI in accounting not only changes accounting practice but also fuels the relevance of some of the prior insights about social aspects of calculative practices. On a final note, the paper also suggests that, given the speed and scope at which new calculative technology is being introduced in virtually all parts of society, accounting scholars may draw upon prior insights and contribute to wider debates about the social impact of AI in society.

Strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research in social science studies

Strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research in social science studies

Civic education in informal settings: Black voluntary associations as schools for democracy, 1898-1959

ABSTRACT Historians of social studies and race have focused overwhelmingly on formal educational settings, textbooks, and curriculum, thereby overlooking the informal educational spaces valued by African Americans. This study examines civic education in informal settings by considering the educational programs of Black voluntary organizations. Hundreds of civic voluntary associations were formed after the Civil War, and they gave African Americans a counterpublic space to undertake racial uplift, promote education, and learn how to be a citizen. In this article, I focus on the activities of one organization, the Improved, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the World, or Black Elks, to reveal how African American communities valued education for democratic participation and taught civics to youth and adults through their educational programming. I argue that the civic education supported and taught by voluntary associations was perceived by African American communities as just as important as the lessons taught in school. This study holds implications for contemporary social studies researchers by revealing the fluidity of learning sites among home, school, and communities for African Americans.

Research Ethics in Social Studies: Indonesian Perspectives

The necessary standards for conducting and disseminating research rely on research ethics. Research ethics determine whether research is integrity-based and adequately completed. Given the significant role of ethics in research, much of the research in Indonesia does not fall under the remit of research ethics committees (REC), especially research in studies, such as in education. This condition might happen because of the lack of knowledge about ethics in research and their significance. Thus, this case study aims to observe whether or not Indonesian researchers have enough knowledge about research ethics and their perception of the essential roles of ethics in research. We collected the data through a written interview with 20 participants selected purposely. The results of this study provided an extended discussion of knowledge and understanding of research ethics among Indonesian researchers in the educational field. We concluded that social researchers’ knowledge, support, and access to gain ethical clearance for the research should receive particular attention so that research in social studies could be ethically conducted and presented with qualified and validated results.

An In-depth Examination of Validity Assessment: Exploring Diverse Methodologies and Dimensions of Validity in Social Research Studies

Validity refers to the extent to which a test accurately measures what it claims to measure. Validity is a matter of degree. The study is done to know the various methods of validity. Validity is a fundamental aspect of research quality, which is why it is important to assess the various methods of validity. Descriptive research was used for the study. It was examined that face validity refers to an indicator that seems to measure its construct “on its face”. Content validity is a form of judgmental validity, that involves determining if a test adequately represents the content domain. Criterion-related validity methods include concurrent and predictive approaches. Construct validity assesses how well theoretical ideas are translated into measurable variables. Face validity involves examining whether a measurement appears suitable based on its operationalization on the face of it. Lawshe's content validity ratio quantifies expert agreement on the essentiality of individual items in a test or scale. In contrast, the content validity index considers overall expert agreement on the representativeness of items collectively within a test or scale. It considers the agreement among experts regarding the content validity of the entire set of items. Cohen’s Kappa is used to assess the level of agreement between two or more raters or observers when coding or categorizing data. The kappa coefficient is particularly useful when chance agreement among raters is possible. Item Objective Congruence evaluates the efficacy of items in measuring one or more objectives, accomplished by an unbiased expert panel provides evidence of content validity. The most significant assessment at this stage is determining if items and objectives are congruent. Concurrent and predictive validity are assessed using Pearson's correlation and Spearman rank correlation coefficients respectively. The Multi-trait Multimethod Matrix (MTMM), evaluates the construct validity of measures. Validity is essential for ensuring credible and meaningful research findings by enhancing the trustworthiness of the measuring instruments.

Moral in relation to culture and Social Status

This study is on sociolinguistic field, in which deals with moral language phenomenon and using moral expressions in social communications and Kurdish discourse. It tries to find the answer to the following questions such as (What is moral? What is the relation between morality and culture? Does morality have universal-based or culturally based? Generally, morality covers a wide area in social research studies. Concerning Kurdish, as it is known, there is no independent work about morality. So as researchers, we intend to fill this gap in Kurdish language and our aim is to find precise answers to this problem in Kurdish. In conclusion one point is focused in which really morality is an important field covers all institutions of individual and community life, to value the morality human beings depends on language. The study is done according to analytical method. It consists of an introduction, conclusions, references list and three chapters.

Interplay between Lipid Profile and Weight-Related Outcomes in Healthy Overweight Adults: In-sights from Comprehensive Analyses

Background: The escalating prevalence of overweight and obesity has heightened concerns about cardiovascular health. The intricate interplay between lipid profile variables and weight-related outcomes plays a pivotal role in shaping cardiovascular risks among individuals with excess body weight. This study investigates the associations between lipid profile variables and weight-related indicators in a cohort of healthy, overweight adults, shedding light on potential implications for cardiovascular risk management. Methods: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome, risk factors, and related lifestyle in adult Myanmar citizens were examined in the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research Study (ICPSR146521) using prospective data. The patient’s lipid profiles and demographic data were statistically analyzed using the statistical MedCalc tool. Statistical significance was determined using a 0.05 p-value. Results: Results demonstrate that while BMI is influenced by multiple factors beyond lipid profile variables, waist circumference exhibits moderate association with these variables. Notably, triglycerides significantly correlated with waist circumference, suggesting a potential role in visceral fat accumulation. Additionally, the study highlights the impact of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels on body weight, indicating that higher HDL levels are associated with lower body weights among healthy overweight adults. Conclusion: This study provides comprehensive insights into the complex relationship between lipid profile variables and weight-related outcomes among healthy, overweight adults. These findings underscore the importance of weight management strategies for cardiovascular health and suggest potential avenues for targeted interventions. By understanding the interplay between lipid profiles and obesity, clinicians and public health professionals can develop more effective strategies to mitigate cardiovascular risks in this demographic

Association between blood pressure, body mass index, and age: A data analytic approach

Objectives: Increase in body mass index (BMI) increases the risk of developing high blood pressure (BP). Several studies also indicate that high BP is associated with age. Controversies have been found regarding the association of BMI with high BP and age. Hence, this study was conducted to investigate the association between BP, BMI, and age. Material and Methods: Using the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR 131103) Study on the Effects of Mindfulness on Lifestyle Behavior and BP, prospectively gathered data were retrospectively analyzed. A randomized controlled study was conducted. Using the statistical MedCalc program, the patient demographic data – including their age, BMI, and BP – were statistically examined. Statistical significance was determined using a 0.05 P-value. Results: Of the 37 participants, 43.3% had a normal BMI. One-fourth (40.5%) of the people were obese. 13.5% and 32.4% of the people had normal systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) BP, respectively. Age, SBP, or DBP did not significantly correlate with BMI. Nevertheless, there was a positive and substantial correlation between BMI, age, SBP, DBP, weight, and height. Conclusion: According to the study’s findings, there are no appreciable positive connections between BMI and either SBP or DBP, or age. However, the weakly positive relationships between SBP and DBP and age suggest that regular BP monitoring is necessary.

The possibilities of teaching the past: fifth grade teachers' instructional choices

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore decision-making of elementary teachers (n = 5) specific to US/American history content and curricular resources. More specifically for this study, the author asks the following broad research question: When presented with a collection of social studies instructional resources, how do elementary teachers describe the choices they do make/may make?Design/methodology/approachIn this comparative case study, fifth-grade teachers were interviewed using verbal protocol methodology, they discussed their curriculum, teaching and instructional decisions as each was presented with history/social studies resources associated with newly adopted state standards.FindingsFindings indicate these elementary teachers have professional freedom to make instructional decisions in the ways they interpreted the standards, design instruction and select materials for social studies.Originality/valueThis study contributes to and extends the research in elementary social studies. Teachers' voices and decisions are presented as intellectual and pedagogical actions associated with teaching elementary school social studies.