National Institute of Mental Health Roundtable Discussion: Promissory Notes and Prevailing Norms in Social and Behavioral Sciences Research

Most workshops convened by the National Institute's of Health are devoted to the puzzle-solving activities of normal science, where the puzzles themselves and the strategies available for solving them are determined largely in advance by the shared paradigmatic assumptions, frameworks, and priorities of the scientific community's research paradigm. They are designed to facilitate what Thomas Kuhn referred to as elucidating topological detail within a map whose main outlines are available in advance. And apparently for good reason. Historical studies by Kuhn and others reveal that science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply when its practitioners work within well-defined and deeply ingrained traditions and employ the concepts, theories, methods, and tools of a shared paradigm. No paradigm is perfect and none is capable of identifying, let alone solving, all of the problems relevant to a given domain of inquiry. Thus, the essential day-to-day business of normal science is not to question the limits or adequacy of a given paradigm, but rather to exploit the presumed virtues for which it was adopted. As Kuhn cautioned in his discussion of paradigms, re-tooling, in science as in manufacture, as an extravagance to be reserved for the occasion that demands it. Well, as the marketing people say --- this is not your father's Oldsmobile. We are breaking with tradition today by stepping outside the map to initiate and pursue a long-overdue dialogue about paradigm reform and scientific retooling. Our warrant for prosecuting this agenda is a Kuhnian occasion that demands it--- is a protracted paradigm crisis, the neglect of which has hurt us terribly and the resolution of which will determine the viability and fate of the social and behavioral sciences in the 21st century. Since the details of the crisis are well know within and outside our ranks, a brief sketch of its main outlines will suffice as a framework for our dialogue today. They include, (a) widespread dissatisfaction with the meager theoretical progress and practical yield of more than a century of social and behavioral sciences research in many substantive domains, (b) long-neglected yet widely recognized deficiencies in the epistemological assumptions, discovery practices and justification standards of the dominant paradigm on which the social and behavioral sciences have relied --- and rely--- to conceptualize, interpret, and guide their empirical research, (c) a broadly based consensus among leading scholars and scientists about the need for fundamental paradigm reforms, and (d) institutional incentive structures that not only encourage and reinforce the status quo but discourage constructive reform efforts. Our objective for the next eight hours is to formulate strategies and recommendations for leveraging the resources and influence of the National Institute of Mental Health to foster a climate of constructive reforms where they are needed by freeing investigators in from the oppressive constraints of existing paradigms and facilitating, encouraging, and funding their retooling their effort

A production of Eugene O'Neill's Long day's journey into night

The thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One deals with an analysis of Long Day's Journey Into Night in the light of historical and stylistic considerations, an analysis of the characters according to their functions in the play and in relation to their real-life counterparts, an analysis of the function and mood of the setting, a justification of this director's choice of the script, and his interpretation of it. Chapter Two contains the prompt book for the production, performed January 6, 7, 8, and 9. 1972, in Taylor Theatre at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Notations included are: (l) movement, composition, and picturization, (2) details of characterization, (3) stage business, (4) rhythm and tempo, (5) sound cues, (6) lighting cues, and (7) curtain cues. Four production photographs and four diagrams showing movement patterns are Included. Chapter Three contains the director's introspective criticism of the production through the discussions of four areas; they are: (l) achievement of the interpretation for the production, (2) actor-director relationships, (3) audience reaction, and (*+) personal observations

Destination Zero: A Play in One Act

While there have been a few creative theses written in the English department, those written up till now have consisted of collections of short stories and poetry. This is the first play to have been conceived and written for a Master\u27s Thesis at Eastern Illinois University. The Thesis is comprised of two major parts: an introduction and the play, itself. The introduction deals with what the goals of writing the Thesis were, what research went into reaching these goals, what the characters in the play were attempting to communicate to the reader/audience, and whether the resulting play deviated from the original proposal, and if so, how it differed and to what degree the end results could be justified in terms of the original quest. The original goal was to write a play based upon an in-depth study of suicides among college students. The subsequent play, Destination Zero, left facts and statistics far behind as it delved instead into the emotions inherent in such situations. Destination Zero touches on truth, loyalty, and disillusionment. A synopsis of the play follows: Characters: Rick Helmsley. Neil Ashton, Rick\u27s friend. Mitch, Jerry, and Pete, students. Lori Scott, Neil’s fiancée. The play takes place in Neil\u27s apartment. Mitch, Jerry, and Pete enter and a barrage of good-natured banter takes place. As it is the eve of Neil\u27s marriage to Lori, he is the butt of many sexually oriented jokes. The purpose of their visit is to let Neil know that he should be on stand-by for a bachelor party to take place later in the course of the evening. At this point, Rick, Neil\u27s friend since childhood, arrives unexpectedly. Rick is in the midst of a private dilemma. He is trying to decide between pleasing his father and his girlfriend by going back to college or continuing a budding career as a mechanic. Little does he know that his girlfriend and Neil\u27s fiancée are one and the same. When Rick decides to sacrifice his goals to please his father and girlfriend, he is crushed to find that neither his father nor Lori is worthy of the sacrifice. Through the course of the evening, Rick will be made aware of this and other unpleasant facts about himself and the people to whom he is closest. Later on, when Neil leans on Rick for reassurance and support, initially, Rick will shield Neil from the hard edge of truth, only to totally expose him to the cruel realities of the situation. Faced with the dilemma of telling Neil about Lori and risking the loss of his friendship, or letting Neil be all the more hurt by allowing him to marry someone who does not love him at all, he tells Neil all about Lori. He does this knowing it will cost him his friendship to Neil--knowing that Neil is his last connection--his last friend

Breaking the rules: Teaching and learning writing in the high school

This dissertation explores the development of student- and process-centered writing classrooms within the context of a traditionally structured, curriculum-centered high school. The focus of the study is on how teachers and students experience and address contradictions between assumptions implicit in writing process pedagogy and assumptions implicit in the structure and organization of the high school. An eight-month ethnography of two high school English classrooms, the study is a descriptive narrative of the classroom and school events punctuated by the reflective comments of teachers and students in intensive and extensive interviews. The classrooms are placed within the school, the teachers within their lives, the school within the community. The research findings suggest that teachers interested in teaching processes and in developing student-centered classrooms in the high school may be frustrated by institutional factors. These include time structures and curriculum fragmentation, authoritarian administrative models, attitudes toward work, and accountability and comparative evaluation measures, all of which assume transmission pedagogies. Students who have learned school appear not only to understand how school works, but also to be critically articulate about school success strategies and procedures that trivialize learning. Teachers and students address these frustrations by bringing their own lives into the classroom, by talking about their intentions for their classrooms, by negotiating curriculum and evaluation. Thus they begin to change the institution. Finally, change itself--personal, professional, and organizational--is explored as an organic process, taking place from the inside out