Patricia M. Reeves

Perspective Transformation Over Time: A 2-Year Follow-Up Study of HIV-Positive Adults

The purpose of this study was to find out whether HIV-positive adults who had participated in a study of the centrality of meaning-making in transformational learning had maintained 2 years later their perspectives of making meaningful contributions through service to others, or if the advent of protease inhibitors would have resulted in their reverting to previously held, self oriented, and materialistic views of the world. Fourteen of the original 18 participants were interviewed. Two major findings emerged: First, for all 14 participants, the perspective transformations that they had undergone 2 years previously had held. Second, there were changes in meaning schemes that included the adoption of a future-oriented perspective, greater attention to care of the self, and an integration of the HIV-positive status into their self-definition. The life-changing nature of transformational learning, the stability of its outcomes, and ongoing changes in meaning schemes suggest implications for adult educators.

Dating Norms and Dating Violence Among Ninth Graders in Northeast Georgia: Reports From Student Surveys and Focus Groups

This mixed-methods study describes the norms supporting male-to-female and female-to-male dating violence in a diverse sample of ninth graders. The quantitative study, based on student surveys (n = 624), compared norms supporting dating violence by sex, race/ethnicity, and dating status, and it examined the relation between dating violence norms and physical aggression and victimization. The qualitative study, based on 12 focus groups, explored participants’ views of dating aggression. Findings revealed more support for female-to-male aggression, greater acceptance of norms supporting dating violence by non-White students, a strong association between norms and physical aggression but only in males, and a high correlation between victimization and perpetration. Participants rejected male-to-female dating aggression because of peer pressure not to hit girls, parents’ beliefs that denounce dating violence, the superior physical advantage of boys over girls, and legal consequences. Results highlight the importance of culturally sensitive and gender-specific interventions.

Adaptation to HIV Infection: The Development of Coping Strategies Over Time

The purpose of this study was to understand the use of coping strategies in adapting to an HIV-positive diagnosis. Also, the question of whether there was an underlying developmental process, in the sense of movement from less adaptive to more adaptive strategies, was addressed. In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 HIV-positive individuals younger than age 45. Analysis of the qualitative data using the constant comparative method revealed that specific coping strategies were used immediately after diagnosis and differed from those later employed. The developmental process uncovered in this study included a period of transition that served as the testing ground for the following adaptive strategies: humor, faith, altruism, seeking the support of others, and balance.

Resolving Identity Conflict: Gay, Lesbian, and Queer Individuals with a Christian Upbringing

Gay, lesbian, and queer individuals with a Christian upbringing often experience conflict between religion and sexual identity. The purpose of this grounded theory study was to understand how gay, lesbian, and queer-identified individuals with a Christian upbringing resolve conflict between sexual identity and religious beliefs. Analysis of in-depth interviews with 15 participants led to 3 conclusions. First, resolving the discord between sexual identity and religious beliefs is a five-stage process of internal conflict resolution. Second, personal and contextual factors affect every aspect of the resolution process. Finally, faith development and sexual identity development are intertwined and fluid constructions.

Psychological dating violence perpetration and victimization: trajectories from middle to high school.

Despite evidence documenting the negative consequences, psychological dating violence occurs frequently in adolescent dating relationships. No information exists on the trajectories that adolescents follow and their association to nonphysical peer violence. The sample comprised 624 randomly selected 6th graders. In yearly surveys from 6th through 12th grade, 550 of the 624 students reported dating at least twice during the 3 months prior to completing the survey. These students responded to questions about frequency of engagement in psychological dating violence perpetration and victimization. We used Proc TRAJ to identify developmental trajectories of behavior over time and generalized estimating equation models to examine the associations of the trajectories and peer aggression. Adolescents followed three distinct developmental trajectories related to psychological dating violence victimization and perpetration: low, increasing, and high. Based on the joint probabilities of victimization and perpetration, we identified four predominant groups: low victimization/low perpetration (LVLP; 36%), increasing victimization/increasing perpetration (40%), high victimization/high perpetration (HVHP; 15%), and increasing victimization/low perpetration (IVLP; 7%). The LVLP had significantly more boys and White students; the HVHP group had an even gender distribution and more African-American students. For all groups, peer aggression decreased from Grade 6 to 12; students in the HVHP group reported the highest peer aggression, and students in the LVLP reported the lowest peer aggression. Findings suggest a strong, reciprocal relationship in the developmental trajectories of adolescents who experience and perpetrate psychological dating violence. Those highly engaged in these behaviors were also more likely to be violent toward peers.

Ego development in the face of death: How being HIV positive affects movement through Erikson's adult stages of development

Eriksons epigenetic model of psychosocial development posits that each of eight stages unfolds in a particular sequence, and each becomes the primary issue of concern at specified times in the life cycle. Erikson does not address, nor could any empirical studies be located, exploring how the emergence of these eight stages might be affected by a diagnosis of terminal illness. The purpose of this study was to understand how an HIV-positive diagnosis affected movement through Eriksons stages of development. In-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of 18 HIV-positive men and women under 45 years of age. Analysis of the qualitative data revealed three findings regarding Eriksons stages: (1) The fifth stage of idenitity versus role confusion was revisted and the sense of self is redefined; (2) the three adulthood stages of intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and ego integrity versus depair were dealt with simulataneously and, in most cases, resolved favorably; and (3) intimacy and generativity enabled and supported the resolution of the tasks of identity and ego integrity.

Time and Its Relationship to Development in the Life Course: Some Reflections from a Study of HIV-Positive Adults

Although adult development is commonly understood as change over time, the relationship between time and development is rarely highlighted in research in the field. This paper first reviews 3 dimensions of time that interact in the study of developmental processes in the life course. The 3 dimensions are historical time; chronological age or life time; and social time, the culturally-specific, systematic ordering of life events. Second, the paper utilizes data from a follow-up study of HIV-positive men and women to illustrate the importance of time in development. In the original study, an HIV-positive diagnosis was viewed as a death sentence and had the effect of suspending the normal developmental patterns of adult life. Two years later, with the advent of protease inhibitors—an event in historical time—participants had reengaged with life time, once again making social time a relevant factor in their development. These data demonstrate how a better understanding of adult development can be achieved when historical time, life time, and social time are moved center stage in the study of developmental processes.

Faith Development in the Lives of HIV-Positive Adults

Studies of religious faith consistently document the important role of religion in the lives of adults. Investigations of adult religious faith also suggest that a life crisis can stimulate faith development. However, these earlier studies do not explain how a life-threatening crisis changes adult religious faith. This study examines the impact of an HIV-positive diagnosis on adult religious faith development. Interviews were conducted with 18 HIV-positive men and women under 45 years of age. The researchers found that an HIV-positive diagnosis affects faith development in these ways: the perspective of faith shifts from a religious to a spiritual orientation for which the participants feel a stronger sense of ownership; the concept of God changes from an authoritarian to an empowering figure, and views of the self are transformed to include others.

Reorienting educational technology research from things to problems

When we first learned that a new educational journal was being developed titled Learning: Research and Practice, we were sceptical. After all, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of refereed scholarly journals over the past few decades, and a niche journal can be found related to virtually any topic. For example, the SCImago Journal and Country Rank Portal (http://www.scimagojr.com/index.php) lists 619 journals focused on various forms of educational research. We wondered whether another educational research journal is really needed. But then we reflected on the title and description of this new scholarly publication. The words Learning, Research, and Practice have a critically important interrelationship that is all too often overlooked within the educational research community. Learning is the ultimate goal for any type of educational enterprise. Educational Research seeks to understand the nature of learning, and in the process, to derive theory and principles that can improve educational Practice (e.g., instruction) that, in turn, yields enhanced learning. This clearly deserves our attention. The opening line of the journal description states that it “aims to be the journal of choice for empirically supported learning theorisations that challenge the existing view”. This is very appealing because we have long believed that educational technology research for the most part over-emphasizes the rigour of that research without sufficient attention to relevance (Reeves, 2011). Desforges (2001) warned against this problem when he said, “The status of research deemed educational would have to be judged, first in terms of its disciplined quality and secondly in terms of its impact. Poor discipline is no discipline. And excellent research without impact is not educational” (p. 2). No serious educational researcher would engage in methods of inquiry without sufficient discipline to fulfil the goals of a specific study in a valid manner, but we contend that far too much educational research, in educational technology as well as other areas, is conducted and reported in journals with little or no concern for how the findings can be used to improve practice and learning. Hence, we salute the editors of Learning: Research and Practice for focusing on new directions for educational research in a world that may be justifiably sceptical about the value of such research. We also have written this letter to encourage the editors of this new journal to hold fast to their intent to publish studies exemplifying “empirically supported learning theorisations that challenge the existing view”. In the past, educational technology research has all too often yielded findings amounting to “no significant differences” (Hattie, 2009; Russell, 2001). We believe that this problem primarily