Valuing free-choice learning in national parks

Self-directed learning in parks deserves to recognized for its effectiveness

On Changes in Trade-Organisation

n/

Designed Generalization from Qualitative Research

In our earlier work on generalizing from qualitative research (GQR) we identified our two-decade struggle to have qualitative research outcomes formally “listened to” by policy personnel and bureaucratic systems in general, with mixed success. The policy sector often seems reluctant to acknowledge that qualitative research findings can be generalized, so impacts tend to be informal or simply ignored. The “official” methodological literature on generalizing from qualitative research is epitomized by Lincoln and Guba’s (1985) still oft quoted, “The only generalization is: there is no generalization” (p. 110). We now understand there are many alternative possibilities for generalizing. In this paper we hope to provide a platform for discussion on GQR. We suggest Normative Truth Statements (NTS) as a foundation. NTSs, used in our proposed generalizability cycle, are a potential key to ensuring designated qualitative research methodology provides a capacity for generalization—and therefore be considered as a valid form of evidence in policy decisions. In other words, we need a platform to articulate how to design qualitative research to maximize the type and scope of generalizability outcomes, referred to here as Designed Generalization from Qualitative Research (DGQR). Five steps of DGQR, using progressive NTSs in the generalizability cycle, are proposed as a way forward in understanding how generalizing from qualitative research may be made more transparent, accountable, and useful. The five steps are illustrated by reference to two example studies

The effect of wave breaking on surf-zone turbulence and alongshore currents : a modeling study

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2005. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Physical Oceanography 35 (2005): 2187–2203, doi:10.1175/JPO2800.1.The effect of breaking-wave-generated turbulence on the mean circulation, turbulence, and bottom stress in the surf zone is poorly understood. A one-dimensional vertical coupled turbulence (k–ε) and mean-flow model is developed that incorporates the effect of wave breaking with a time-dependent surface turbulence flux and uses existing (published) model closures. No model parameters are tuned to optimize model–data agreement. The model qualitatively reproduces the mean dissipation and production during the most energetic breaking-wave conditions in 4.5-m water depth off of a sandy beach and slightly underpredicts the mean alongshore current. By modeling a cross-shore transect case example from the Duck94 field experiment, the observed surf-zone dissipation depth scaling and the observed mean alongshore current (although slightly underpredicted) are generally reproduced. Wave breaking significantly reduces the modeled vertical shear, suggesting that surf-zone bottom stress cannot be estimated by fitting a logarithmic current profile to alongshore current observations. Model-inferred drag coefficients follow parameterizations (Manning–Strickler) that depend on the bed roughness and inversely on the water depth, although the inverse depth dependence is likely a proxy for some other effect such as wave breaking. Variations in the bed roughness and the percentage of breaking-wave energy entering the water column have a comparable effect on the mean alongshore current and drag coefficient. However, covarying the wave height, forcing, and dissipation and bed roughness separately results in an alongshore current (drag coefficient) only weakly (strongly) dependent on the bed roughness because of the competing effects of increased turbulence, wave forcing, and orbital wave velocities.This work was funded by NSF, ONR, and NOPP

Personal Meaning Mapping as a Tool to Uncover Learning from an Out-of-doors Free-choice Learning Garden

Garden-based learning (GBL), a form of outdoor education contextualized and framed within unpredictable and real-world learning environments, is ideally suited to the teaching of science. However, the vast majority of GBL educational research has utilized a cognitive and positivist research paradigm, one that artificially restricts the investigative lens. The goal of the larger project from which this paper was drawn was to develop a better understanding of how youth perceived a garden experience. This paper shares the affordances and constraints of the constructivist framework utilized and the primary measurement tool, Person Meaning Mapping (PMM). Despite some inherent limitations, the PMM methodology enabled important insights that enhanced understandings of the effects of GBL

Expérience de visite, identités et self-aspects

À partir d’une critique des concepts et des méthodes habituellement utilisés pour conduire des études de publics, l’auteur propose une nouvelle approche qui, au-delà des dé- coupages en catégories socio-professionnelles hérités de la tradition néo-marxiste, prend davantage en compte les différentes facettes de l’identité du visiteur : la conscience réflexive de la diversité des rôles que celui-ci assume selon la situation ou le contexte fait qu’il ne visite pas toujours de la même façon un musée ou une exposition.Stemming from a review analysis of concepts and methods usually used to lead public stu- dies, the author puts forward a new approach which, beyond the partitioning into socio-professional categories inherited from the neo-Marxist tradition, takes into account the different facets of the visitor’s identity in a wider manner: the reflexive consciousness of the diversity of roles that the visitor assumes, means that he or she does not always visit a museum or an exhibition in the same way depending on the situation or the context

Historical Observations and Identifications of Plants and Animals in the Vicinity of Engineer Cantonment in 1819-1820

Historical observations and identifications of plants and animals in the vicinity of Engineer Cantonment in 1819–1820 (James 1822) are shown below in Roman and Roman italic print. Specimens identified through phytoarcheological and zooarcheological analysis of materials and believed to be reasonably associated or contemporaneous with the Long Expedition use of the site (AU4) are shown in boldface. Species present in both the historical and archeological data are marked by an asterisk (*). References used in this compilation include Benedict (1996), Brewer (1970 [1840]), Conant and Collins (1991), Ducey (2000), Evans (1997), Falk et al. (this volume), Genoways et al. (2008), Goodman and Lawson (1995), Jones (1964), Kaul et al. (2011), Lynch (1985), Nepstad-Thornberry and Bozell (this volume), Ord (1815), Page et al. (2013), Peyton (2000), Picha (this volume), Rhoads (1894), Sharpe et al. (2001), Turgeon et al. (1998), and Wilson and Reeder (2005). Modifi ed and revised from Genoways and Ratcliffe (2008). Includes scientific names, common names, comments, and references cited