Jennifer E. Cross

Using Mixed-Method Design and Network Analysis to Measure Development of Interagency Collaboration

In recent years, there has been increasing attention to the importance of interagency collaboration for improving community well-being, environmental and public health, and educational outcomes. This article uses a mixed-methods approach including network analysis to examine the changes in interagency collaboration in one site funded by the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative (SS/HS). Results of the evaluation demonstrated that although intraproject collaboration peaked in the middle of the grant and began to decline during the last year, interagency collaborations continued to grow during the last year of the grant. These results illustrate how network data can easily be collected and used to assess the development of interagency relationships.

Reducing Energy Consumption and Creating a Conservation Culture in Organizations: A Case Study of One Public School District.

How can existing schools significantly reduce their energy use? With energy costs rising and school budgets shrinking, energy use is a substantial cost that can be reduced through conservation efforts. Using a case study methodology, the authors compare two public high schools from the same school district, one that has achieved moderate energy savings and another that has reduced its electricity use by 50% over several years. Examining the individual and organizational components of both schools’ efforts, the authors find that the greater success at one school is the result of integrated efforts at all levels within the organization, from district administrators to individual students. Success is based on structural changes, individual behavioral change, and, most important, the weaving of both into a cohesive organizational culture emphasizing conservation. This study demonstrates the potential of behavioral change and organizational culture to foster environmental education, conservation, and fiscal savings for other public schools.

How to Go Green: Creating a Conservation Culture in a Public High School through Education, Modeling, and Communication

This case study examines how energy conservation efforts in one public high school contributed to both sustainability education and the adoption of sustainable behavior within educational and organizational practice. Individual role models, school facilities, school governance and school culture together support both conservation and environmental education, specifically through the application of principles from behavior theory, including modeling commitments, values, expectations, and behaviors. In addition, role models with the traits of charismatic leaders can be especially instrumental. In this school, communication is the thread connecting the multiple aspects of modeling, helping to create the synergistic relationship between conservation efforts and environmental education. This study demonstrates that conservation efforts, when modeled successfully in a public school setting, can simultaneously and synergistically meet the goals of conservation and sustainability education.

Data quality in student risk behavior surveys and administrator training

SUMMARY This study examined the influence of survey validity screening on the results from three group-administered school surveys administered to samples totaling approximately 5500 students in 19 schools. The estimated levels of risk behaviors, antisocial behaviors, and victim experiences were substantially reduced when respondents who gave multiple inconsistent or extreme responses to other survey items were screened out of the data. The researchers also observed that the percentage of students giving inconsistent and illogically extreme responses was greater among those surveys given by an untrained administrator, raising the hypothesis that administrator training could be a critical factor in obtaining more consistent and trustworthy survey data. These results indicate that it may be important to train school staff in survey administration and to screen surveys for validity in order to improve the accuracy of student self-report surveys.

Residence Hall Room Type and Alcohol Use Among College Students Living on Campus

The objectives were to explore the relation between the built environment of residence halls and the alcohol use of college students living on campus from the perspective of the theory of routine activity. This exploratory study examined data from two samples on one college campus. Online surveys assessed alcohol use, attitudes toward alcohol use, perceptions of campus alcohol norms, and individual factors (i.e., gender). Data came from an Alcohol Norms Survey using a random sample (N = 440) and a Resident Assessment Survey using a random sample ( N = 531) in 2006 and 2007. After controlling for other drinking behavior predictors (attitudes, gender, high school drinking, and perceptions of peer drinking), regression analysis showed that students living in suite halls had a higher odds of drinking more frequently, drinking more alcohol when they socialize, heavy episodic drinking, and drinking more often in their residence halls.

Participants’ experiences of the qualitative interview: considering the importance of research paradigms:

We used a multiple-case study to investigate participants’ experiences in interviews from six qualitative studies that differed in interview orientations, designs, methods, participants, and topics. Roulston’s (2010a, 2010b) interview orientation heuristic guided our ‘paradigm-driven’ analysis of participants’ experiences. We found no differences in participants’ articulation of benefits and risks by interview orientation. Participants’ experiences differed based on the opportunity to reflect on their interview experiences, the sensitivity of the topic explored, and the number of interviews conducted. We discuss the implications of our findings for ‘paradigm-driven’ qualitative research and suggest ethical questions qualitative interview researchers can ask to maximize the benefits of their interviews.

The Normative Order of Reporting Police Misconduct: Examining the Roles of Offense Seriousness, Legitimacy, and Fairness

Using anonymous surveys of 3,235 officers in 30 police agencies, we tested hypotheses derived from prior policing research, legitimacy theory, and disciplinary fairness literature on the intentions of police officers to report acts of misconduct perpetrated by fellow officers. We examined features of the normative order involving peer reporting of police misconduct at both the individual agency and aggregate police subculture levels. Consistent with previous research, the perceived seriousness of the offense and legitimacy (endorsement) are consistently strong predictors of officers’ intentions to report misconduct. We also find that perceived fairness of discipline provides significant results, but the direction of the relationship depends on the perceived seriousness of the offense. It is clear that the majority of police officers participate in a shared normative culture of when to and when not to report misconduct. Finally, we note the importance of studying the reporting of police misconduct using a social psychological lens.

Community-Based Participatory Research, Ethics, and Institutional Review Boards: Untying a Gordian Knot

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) poses ethical challenges that are distinct from biomedical research. These arise from the epistemological differences between traditional biomedical research paradigms and CBPR, as the latter entails ongoing engagement of communities in research from development to dissemination. Biomedical research typically poses research questions and obtains ethics review before engaging with the population or community of interest. While institutional review board (IRB) practices seek to minimize harm in research conducted with human subjects, traditional IRB review can introduce new or exacerbate existing ethical challenges when reviewing non-traditional research protocols. In what follows, we seek to: define CBPR; identify unique ethical obligations in CBPR; pose potential solutions for amending the IRB process to support CBPR; and facilitate a research ethics framework that aims to reduce the exploitive and appropriational tendencies in research by inviting researchers, IRBs, and communities into a collaborative effort aimed at best practices.

“There Are No Known Benefits . . .” Considering the Risk/Benefit Ratio of Qualitative Research

Institutional review boards (IRBs) are responsible for weighing the risks and benefits of research participation. Qualitative researchers note numerous instances where IRB ethical frameworks fail to align with the ethics of their research projects and point out that IRB understandings of the benefits and risks of research often differ from those of the participants they seek to protect. This qualitative cross-case research investigates participants’ interview experiences in six qualitative studies that differed in their methods, subject of focus, and populations. Our findings indicate that contemporary IRBs’ use of population “vulnerability” and topic “sensitivity” to assess project risk does not adequately determine the benefits, risks, or ethicality of research. We recommend that IRBs treat as real the evidence for benefits in qualitative research, recognize that sensitivity and vulnerability do not predict risk, and encourage researchers to attend to relationships in their projects.

A Multidisciplinary Research Framework on Green Schools: Infrastructure, Social Environment, Occupant Health, and Performance

BACKGROUND Sustainable school buildings hold much promise to reducing operating costs, improve occupant well-being and, ultimately, teacher and student performance. However, there is a scarcity of evidence on the effects of sustainable school buildings on health and performance indicators. We sought to create a framework for a multidisciplinary research agenda that links school facilities, health, and educational outcomes. METHODS We conducted a nonsystematic review of peer review publications, government documents, organizational documents, and school climate measurement instruments. RESULTS We found that studies on the impact of physical environmental factors (air, lighting, and thermal comfort) on health and occupant performance are largely independent of research on the social climate. The current literature precludes the formation of understanding the causal relation among school facilities, social climate, occupant health, and occupant performance. CONCLUSIONS Given the average age of current school facilities in the United States, construction of new school facilities or retrofits of older facilities will be a major infrastructure investment for many municipalities over the next several decades. Multidisciplinary research that seeks to understand the impact of sustainable design on the health and performance of occupants will need to include both an environmental science and social science perspective to inform best practices and quantification of benefits that go beyond general measures of costs savings from energy efficiencies.