ResearchYOU! is a co-curricular research experience designed to improve undergraduate student research skills at a Hispanic-serving institution and provide research mentoring for undergraduate students who may not typically have access to social science research experiences. This multi-faculty capacity-building research experience is composed of…

Recent efforts to identify and promote a distinct science for the discipline of social work have led to an ongoing debate regarding the nature and function of such a science. Central to this debate is a lack of consensus as to how to operationalize a social work science. Drawing from the field of implementation science and its application in…

Advanced Placement (AP), launched in 1955 by the College Board as a program to offer gifted high school students the opportunity to complete entry-level college coursework, has since expanded to encourage a broader array of students to tackle challenging content. This Education Commission of the State's Policy Analysis identifies key components of…

The paper will present findings from a Social Science and Humanities Research (SSHRC) funded participatory evaluation conducted over the past four years in the Cree nation of Wemindji in Quebec, Canada. COOL (Challenging Our Own Limits) or "Nigawchiisuun" in Cree, was launched in 2003 as part of a broader program of governance…

This paper documents the experience and lessons from implementing an e-learning program aimed at creating research capacity for gender, crisis prevention, and recovery. It presents a case study of bringing together a multidisciplinary group of women professionals through both online and face-to-face interactions to learn the skills needed to be a…

The paper describes and analyses the design and implementation of a higher education student placement program in the community services sector. Principally ideas about partnerships and social learning informed the design. The placement program represents a significant innovation in work-integrated learning, achieved through collaboration between…

Despite findings indicating the importance of non-parental adults in the lives of youth, there is little research on these relationships, including those that occur in the context of youth mentoring. Compounding this problem is a positive slant taken towards youth mentoring in the media, often unsubstantiated by empirical evidence. This article…

Laptop learning programs have been developed to create ubiquitous online learning environments. Given the infancy of many programs, there is little understanding of aspects of the program are perceived to provide value to faculty and students. This paper focuses on the value proposition (with respect to perceived benefits versus capital…

Forms of evaluation that involve evaluators working collaboratively with practitioners on applied social research projects are becoming increasingly common, but a body of empirical literature that warrants firm conclusions about collaborative evaluation has not yet been accumulated. This survey studies the views of evaluators and program…

A broad conceptual framework is presented as a tool to guide researchers toward identification and development of variables in policy implementation studies. Concepts for developing variables to measure the "amount" of implementation and variables to identify the aspects of policy that need to be incorporated in a study are discussed.…

This article offers an evaluation of the implementation of the American Sociological Association's Integrating Data Analysis Project in a large introductory sociology course. This project was designed following an examination of the curricula of 13 disciplines that revealed that sociology failed to integrate empirical, quantitative literacy…

This paper presents the results of a formative evaluation of a young faculty development scholarship program conducted in teachers colleges in impoverished areas of China. In the paper we describe the implementation of the program, the utilization of scholarship by recipients, recipients' satisfaction, and outcome data. Based on these data we…

The movement toward integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods within the same study has been most evident in social policy research. Four major approaches to integrating can be identified in recent studies. The sequential, the parallel, and the fused models have been rather widely used. The interactive model, developed during…

During the 2001 summer holidays, the main Social Science classroom at St Ursula's College, a Catholic Secondary Girls' school of 740 pupils in Toowomba, Queensland was renovated. A mini-computer laboratory of four nests of computers was incorporated into the traditional teaching space. (See Diagram 1 and photograph). This room was named the…

The effect of welfare time limits on families in different states was examined in a comprehensive study that involved the following activities: (1) a survey of state welfare administrators regarding states' time-limit policies and experiences to date; (2) site visits to five states; and (3) a synthesis of research on time limits. The following…