‘Berrypicking’ in the formation of ideas about problem drinking amongst users of alcohol online support groups

Beliefs held by individuals about the illnesses or problems that affect them have been shown to impact upon the health and other outcomes that they achieve. Online support groups (OSGs) are one source of information used by those with health problems which may influence or determine what they think about their particular issue and how to resolve it. Problem drinking remains a major source of significant costs to society. This article explores whether the discussion forums of alcohol OSGs that do not follow the 12-step philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous influence the formation of these beliefs, reporting on the outcome of thematic analysis of interviews with 25 users from five groups. It argues that Bates’ ‘Berrypicking’ model of information searching is helpful in illuminating group members’ information seeking activities. It looks at the four key aspects of berrypicking identified by Bates – the nature of the search query, the information ‘domains’ drawn on, the information retrieved and the search techniques used. The study finds that users are typically berrypickers, selecting information from different sources and forming their own interpretations

Using Interviews in CER Projects: Options, Considerations, and Limitations

Interviews can be a powerful chemistry education research tool. Different from an assessment score or Likert-scale survey number, interviews can provide the researcher with a way to examine and describe what we cannot see, aspects such as feelings, thoughts, or explanations of thinking or behavior. Most people have no doubt seen countless interviews on TV news and talk shows. These sessions might convey interviewing as a spontaneous, easy, and straightforward process. However, using interviews as a meaningful research tool requires considerable thought, preparation, and practice. This chapter provides a general introduction to the use of interviews as a tool within a chemistry education research context. The chapter provides a general introduction to the use of interviews as a research tool including how to plan, conduct, and analyze interviews. It highlights important considerations for designing and conducting fruitful interviews, provides examples of different ways in which interviews have been used effectively in chemistry education research, and supplies additional references for the reader who wants to delve more deeply into particular topics

An economic design change method

New product design as well as design revision to remedy defects is complicated by an inability to precisely predict product performance. Designers often jind that they are conjident about the performance of some design alternatives and uncertain about others. Similarly, alternative design changes may differ substantially in uncertainty, potential impact, and cost. This paper describes a method for including the effects of uncertainty in the evaluation of economic benejits of various design change options. The results indicate that the most projitable change option sequence depends not only on relative costs but also on the relative degree of uncertainty and on the magnitude of the potential design defects. The method demonstrates how design change alternatives can be compared using the engineering design of a beam. Finally, the validity of some common engineering change heuristics are discussed relative to their associated, quantitatively determined limits. [DOI: 10.1115/1.1561040