Story telling: is it really research?

In this paper I will suggest ways in which you may consider a story as a legitimate research product. I view the story as interpreted work communicated through writing as the research product. 'Doing' interpretive research is not an easy option in research. In this paper I will focus upon some of the complexities in creating an acceptable and accessible research product. I will cover five interrelated areas: journaling, observing, listening, writing and rigour. The term 'research product' refers to the outcome of the research process. By that I mean the dissertation, the research report or the published article. The notion of legitimacy is informed by Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics which does not show us what to do, but asks us to question what is 'going on' while researching. In this paper I ask you to consider the entire research process as a reflexive exercise which provides answers to the question: 'What is going on in methods?'. I claim that if the research product is well sign-posted, the readers will be able to travel easily through the worlds of the participants and makers of the story and decide for themselves whether the story is a legitimate research endeavour.     

Review of Assessing dangerousness: Violence by sexual offenders, batterers and child abusers.

Reviews the book, Assessing dangerousness: Violence by sexual offenders, batterers and child abusers by Jacqueline C. Campbell (see record 1995-98215-000). This is a valuable volume of consistently well written chapters by authors of diverse backgrounds. The book's chapters identify research on clusters of risk factors for child abuse, wife assault, homicide by battered women and sexual offending. The identification of risk factors is the prevalent concept in contemporary violence prediction research. Risk factors are determined by researching actual circumstances of violence and statistically identifying antecedent events that appear to be pertinent. The current text is a readable and well referenced overview of the contemporary state of research efforts to address the notion of dangerousness potential. Dangerousness is reviewed in several key interpersonal areas. We anticipate that the text will be attractive to many average readers who unfortunately may be mislead not only by the series editor's stated aspiration, but also by the misguided illusion that the field is slowly progressing towards actual empirical prediction of dangerousness. For the professional reader who has practical experience with violent behavior, we anticipate that the text will be a valuable concise resource for at least the next several years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fatigue in cancer patients: a review of the literature

This paper reviews the research literature concerning fatigue in cancer patients, evaluating the quality of the evidence, thus helping to focus the direction and methodological rigour required in future investigations. Since fatigue in this population has been attributed to several mechanisms these will be discussed. The prevalence of fatigue in cancer patients will then be documented. An overview of what is currently understood about fatigue in cancer will follow. Based on the literature, conceptual and methodological difficulties will be described. Finally, gaps in understanding will be identified. Suggestions for future research will be formulated and potential interventions to decrease feelings of fatigue explored.     

Review of Minding minds: Evolving a reflexive mind by interpreting others.

Reviews the book, Minding minds: Evolving a reflexive mind by interpreting others by Radu J. Bogdan (see record 2000-07328-000). Drawing on philosophical, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, Bogdan analyzes the main phylogenetic and ontogenetic stages through which primates’ abilities to interpret other minds evolved and gradually created the opportunities and resources for mental reflexivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of The psychology of reading.

Reviews the book, The psychology of reading by Insup Taylor and M. Martin Taylor (1983). This book is organized in three parts. The first, on writing systems, is an extremely comprehensive review of a number of Oriental writing systems in addition to the English system. The second part presents the basic experimental literature and outlines the authors' theory (the bilateral cooperative model). In the third section, on learning to read, there are chapters on early reading, reading instruction and reading disabilities. My overall impression is that the book makes a positive contribution to the literature on reading. An enormous amount of literature is reviewed, making the book valuable from that standpoint alone. Many readers won't agree with all of the authors' conclusions regarding this literature; however, they do make for interesting reading. In addition, I welcome the attempt the authors have made to tie together research on reading and research on brain functioning. Work of this sort can only benefit researchers in both areas. All and all, while the book is probably not a good selection for an undergraduate text, its breadth should make it appealing to a wide selection of individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Pain in children and adolescents.

Reviews the book, Pain in children and adolescents by P. J. McGrath and A. M. Unruh (1987). This book is an extremely comprehensive work, dealing not only with specific clinical problems but also with such broader and complex issues as ethics and service delivery in pediatric pain. McGrath and Unruh go a long way to unravel the 'mystery' of pain in children by discussing clearly and concisely the literature on the assessment and measurement of pain in children. Clinical problems such as post-operative pain, abdominal pain, headache, muskuloskeletal pain, colic, injuries, psychogenic pain, and chronic intractable pain are all dealt with in individual chapters divided into clearly labelled sections, making it very easy for busy clinicians to locate their particular area of interest. One of the strengths of this book is the methodological expertise of the authors, which is evident in their evaluations of the research cited in the text. Novice researchers reading this book will be reminded of the many pitfalls to be avoided in research design, and postgraduate students seeking topics for research will find numerous suggestions in the 'future directions' sections of the book. The publishers are to be congratulated on their attractive presentation of the book. The type is large and very easy to read, the text is well spaced, and considering the amount of material in the book, it is remarkably compact in size and very reasonably priced. Providing as it does a comprehensive summary and analysis of the literature to date on pain in children, it is essential reading for all clinicians, paramedics, and researchers concerned with this important and long neglected area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facilitating text memory with additional processing opportunities in rapid sequential reading.

Previous research indicates that during conventional reading, readers pause at particular loci within a text, presumably for the purpose of higher level processing and integration. If such pausing is necessary for efficient text comprehension and memory, then providing readers with equivalent processing opportunities with strategically placed pauses in rapid sequential visual presentation (RSVP) text displays should facilitate comprehension and memory. Three experiments are reported in which various time parameters of RSVP displays are manipulated. The results indicate that memory for specific text is facilitated when additional processing time is provided. However, how and where the additional time is distributed within a text, over broad limits, is not important. We use a method of text memory assessment that is not typically used in RSVP research and that is more sensitive to text presentation manipulations than the commonly used multiple-choice questions. The fill-in-the-blank technique also provides evidence that memory representations for texts are structured as meaningful subsentence units. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye movements in reading: Perceptual and cognitive processes.

This article discusses the variability of eye movement behavior. The variability exists between readers, so that the average fixation duration for sonic readers my be around 200 ms and for other readers it may be closer to 300 ms; the average saccade length for some readers may be 6 letter spaces, while for others it may be closer lo 10 letter spaces; and some readers rarely regress while others regress quite frequently. These eye movement characteristics can also be influenced by text difficulty; more difficult text leads to longer fixation durations, shorter saccades, and more regressions. More important than the between reader variability is the within reader variability that exists with each of these measures. The article also discusses research on eye movement during reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Article on breast cancer risk and induced abortion concerns readers

Inappropriate and inaccurate counseling with regard to abortion and the risk of breast cancer may result if readers accept without critical review Lucille Canty's biased article on the association between induced abortion and breast cancer printed in Oncology Nursing Forum (ONF). The potential resulting psychological harm could be considerable. The current debate over whether women have increased risk of developing breast cancer after an induced abortion continues, and the findings produced thus far have been inconclusive. Many scientists, including researchers at the National Cancer Institute, do not agree that any connection exists between induced abortion and breast cancer. Considering the complexity of assessing risk, a more thorough discussion of methodologic issues when assessing risk would have better served ONF readers. Furthermore, a less biased approach would have presented each of the studies more objectively. Finally, the conclusions which Canty drew in her abstract and article did not reflect the relative risks and conclusions drawn in the current literature she cited on the subject in her text.     

Review of The authoritative guide to self-help books.

Reviews the book, The authoritative guide to self-help books by J. W. Santrock, A. M. Minnett, and B. C. Campbell (see record 1994-98055-000). This text is the result of an extensive survey of psychologists regarding the self-help literature. It is directed both to lay and professional audiences. The guide is a relatively concise, well-written text that has been very thoroughly and painstakingly constructed. It contains individual reviews of every text listed in the original survey, under criteria set by the authors with respect to frequency of ratings. The guide also is distinctive in that it not only appraises books that the survey indicated were valuable resources, but it also identifies texts that were panned in the original survey material. On the negative side, as far as treatment is concerned, readers will probably note a relatively strong cognitive bias in such topical areas as Depression and Anxiety. This may be a result of the population of psychologists who comprised the original survey. For an audience of therapists, however, the principle difficulty with the guide is the lack of a self-help text on the therapy process itself. However, the reviewer found the book to be a very useful and stimulating resource, and suggests it to any therapist who values self-help books as an adjunct to treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of interest in learning from scientific text and illustrations: On the distinction between emotional interest and cognitive interest.

A textbook lesson may be made more interesting by promoting emotional interest through adding entertaining text and illustrations or by promoting cognitive interest through adding signals for structural understanding such as summary illustrations with captions. In Experiment 1, skilled readers who read summary text and illustrations about the process of lightning performed worse on retention of important information and on transfer when entertaining text, illustrations, or both were added. In Experiment 2, skilled readers rated entertaining text and illustrations relatively high in emotional interest and low in cognitive interest and rated summary illustrations and text relatively low in emotional interest and high in cognitive interest. The results suggest benefits of cognitive interest over emotional interest for helping students learn scientific explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of life research in patients with rectal cancer: traditional approaches versus a problem-solving oriented perspective

The present paper critically appraises two recent overviews of the literature on rectal cancer and quality of life (QL). These reviews focus on the Anglo-American literature, largely neglect research from other countries, and provide little stimulus regarding future research directions. As an alternative perspective we propose the concept of problem-solving oriented QL research. The major theme is that the QL concept must be integrated into the clinical arena. To begin with, QL researchers must make themselves understandable. We outline several ways in which this can be achieved: (a) placing QL in a broader concept together with outcomes that are more familiar to clinicians; (b) depicting individual patients in the form of QL profiles; (c) clarifying the psychosocial/clinical correlates of particular QL scores of interest; and (d) conducting studies with a definitive practical goal in mind and integrating practitioners and patients into the study group. We illustrate the feasibility of such a research program by performance data from our Marburg-Biedenkopf field trial. Pursuing an ambitious research strategy that integrates experimental and applied research, the QL movement will have the chance to show that it is not merely l'art pour l'art, but indeed is beneficial to society.     

Resilient readers? University students who are poor recoders but sometimes good text comprehenders.

The authors screened 194 university students to determine whether some could comprehend text well despite very poor recoding skills, measured by pseudoword reading. Most of the 17 poorest recoders had never been identified as reading disabled. We classified 6 poor recoders as "resilient readers" because their text comprehension scores were average or above, relative to the sample as a whole. They were indistinguishable from 6 matched typical readers on measures of text comprehension derived from oral-reading think-aloud protocols. There was no evidence that the resilient readers relied on superior verbal ability or working memory to compensate for poor recoding. The resilient readers were poor at spelling, reading isolated words, and reading text rapidly, but they showed adequate phonemic awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical Handbook of Psychotropic Drugs (13th ed.).

This annual publication (2003) updates readers about the major classes of psychotropic medications. It reviews some 14 groups of interventions: antidepressants, electroconvulsive therapy, antipsychotics (neuroleptics), antiparkinsonian agents, anxiolytic agents, hypnotics/sedatives, mood stabilizers, psychostimulants, cognition enhancers, sex-drive depressants, drugs of abuse, treatment of substance use disorders, new unapproved treatment of psychiatric disorders, and herbal and natural products. Following the body of the text, there appears a Glossary, Suggested Readings, an Index of Drugs, and some helpful Patient Information Sheets. Psychotherapists will find this a useful, and state-of-the-art text. Although the information provided can be obtained through a wide range of competing sources, it is the organization, formulation, and patient information features that make this text relatively unique. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Self-disclosure in psychotherapy.

Reviews the book, Self-disclosure in psychotherapy by Barry A. Farber (see record 2006-11792-000). At one point or another, most therapists have wondered how much their patients are telling them and wrestled with how much they should reveal themselves to their patients. This book aims to provide an integrative and up-to-date review of the literature that has addressed these kinds of questions. By looking at patient, therapist, supervisee, and supervisor self-disclosure, Farber attempts to show both common and unique aspects of self-disclosure across the different parties involved in psychotherapy. Work from historical, clinical, research, and cultural perspectives comes together to provide readers with a multifaceted view of self-disclosure in psychotherapy. This book will be of interest to therapists, researchers, psychotherapy supervisors, and therapists-in-training. Farber's discussion of self-disclosure offers a nuanced perspective on the dilemmas involved in the psychotherapy process. By highlighting the features of self-disclosure across patients, therapists, supervisees, and supervisors, Farber enriches understanding of the phenomenon and encourages empathy for the perspectives of those in other psychotherapy roles. We believe that Farber has successfully synthesized work from various perspectives to create an illuminating review of self-disclosure in psychotherapy. The book condenses a broad range of literature into clearly organized and digestible chapters. The integration of research and theory with clinical vignettes, quotations from books and movies, and popular song lyrics make this work an unusually engaging and accessible read. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Implicit measures of attitudes.

Reviews the book, Implicit measures of attitudes edited by Bernd Wittenbrink and Norbert Schwarz (see record 2007-01388-000). The editors have produced a very timely volume. The stated goals of Wittenbrink and Schwarz's book are to educate the reader about the value of implicit measures of attitudes, as well as to provide a handbook of sorts for the neophyte wanting to learn how to use the variety of implicit attitude measures available. In addition, the editors want to provide a critical assessment of the state of implicit attitude measurement in terms of the very definition of an implicit measure, as well as the general reliability and validity of these measures. Finally, the editors want to provide directions for future research in the area of implicit attitude measurement. As such, Wittenbrink and Schwarz hope that this text will be a resource book for both new graduate students and established researchers in the field. In general, I believe the editors have accomplished their goals. After the editors' introductory chapter, which gives an overview of the development of implicit attitude measurement as well as an overview of the rest of the volume, the book is broken down into two sections: "Procedures and Their Implementation" and "Critical Perspectives". Overall, I believe this is a very well written book, and that even readers familiar with implicit attitude measurement will learn a great deal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Updating a situation model: a memory-based text processing view

Previous research (J. E. Albrecht & E. J. O'Brien, 1993) demonstrated that readers were aware of an inconsistency between an earlier described characteristic of a protagonist and a subsequent target action carried out by the protagonist. In a series of 5 experiments, a qualification was added to the described characteristic that restricted the conditions under which the characteristic was operative. According to the here-and-now view of mapping, readers should use this qualification to maintain a fully updated model of the protagonist in active memory and should not experience comprehension difficulty when reading the target action. In contrast, according to the memory-based text processing view, the qualification would not be part of the active discourse model. Instead, it would be reactivated when the target action was read. Thus, readers should still experience comprehension difficulty. Results of all 5 experiments were consistent with the memory-based text processing view.     

Review of Self-help approaches for obesity and eating disorders: Research and practice.

Reviews the book, Self-help approaches for obesity and eating disorders: Research and practice edited by Janet D. Latner and G. Terence Wilson (see record 2007-11980-000). This book is an edited text that provides a review of research findings in this area and a discussion of practical strategies related to implementing self-help. The intended audience is researchers and clinicians, and the book provides a good balance of literature review and consideration of practical issues that should meet the needs of both. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Textbook of psychology (fourth edition).

Reviews the book, Textbook of psychology (fourth edition) by Donald O. Hebb and Don Donderi (see record 1987-97530-000). Before his death in August 1985, Hebb presided over a new revision of his classic introductory psychology text. The third edition of Hebb's book was published by W. B. Saunders in 1972, and more than one attempt had since been made to get a fourth edition published. With the help of D. C. Donderi, this new edition is now in print. This edition is largely an expansion and updating of the 1972 edition. The same topics are treated in the same order as before, but with frequent editing and with more recent material now included. For readers unfamiliar with Hebb's textbooks, they define psychology as the study of behaviour, and behaviour is seen as the product of brain activity. Brain activity in turn is understood by reference to Hebb's concept of the cell assembly. This Hebb and Donderi text is one of the few introductory psychology textbooks that employs a personal perspective on Psychology, and unifies the teaching of that topic by continued reference to one major theoretical concept. There is nowhere in their text any discussion of existing data or theory which might be thought to be incompatible with cell assembly theory. Nor is there any discussion of possible limits to the generalization or the operationalization of the cell assembly idea. Their text does tell students that theories do not last, and that enduring truths are not to be expected in science. Yet students are left with the strong impression that it is very unlikely the basic premises of cell assembly thinking will ever in the future be changed more than slightly. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)