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(1.1). This is an example of an empirical program evaluation study.

Journal Article 1: Peterson, K., Sharps, P., & Banyard, V. (2018). An evaluation of two dating violence prevention programs on a college campus. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 33, 3630–3655. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260516636069

Abstract: Dating violence is a serious and prevalent public health problem that is associated with numerous negative physical and psychological health outcomes, and yet there has been limited evaluation of prevention programs on college campuses. A recent innovation in campus prevention focuses on mobilizing bystanders to take action. To date, bystander programs have mainly been compared with no treatment control groups raising questions about what value is added to dating violence prevention by focusing on bystanders. This study compared a single 90-min bystander education program for dating violence prevention with a traditional awareness education program, as well as with a no education control group. Using a quasi-experimental pretest/posttest design with follow-up at 2 months, a sample of predominately freshmen college students was randomized to either the bystander (n = 369) or traditional awareness (n = 376) dating violence education program. A non-randomized control group of freshmen students who did not receive any education were also surveyed (n = 224). Students completed measures of attitudes, including rape myth acceptance, bystander efficacy, and intent to help as well as behavioral measures related to bystander action and victimization. Results showed that the bystander education program was more effective at changing attitudes, beliefs, efficacy, intentions, and self-reported behaviors compared with the traditional awareness education program. Both programs were significantly more effective than no education. The findings of this study have important implications for future dating violence prevention educational programming, emphasizing the value of bystander education programs for primary dating violence prevention among college students.

(1.2). This is an example of an orientational research study.

Journal Article 2: DeBlase, G. L. (2003). Missing stories, missing lives: Urban girls (re)constructing race and gender in the literacy classroom. Urban Education, 38, 279–329.

Abstract: In this critical ethnography, interpretivist methods were used to focus on the perspectives of African American, Latina, and Native American girls in an urban middle-school classroom to better understand how they constructed social identities of gender and race through their experiences with literacy. Because the enacted curriculum lacked critical awareness of the sociocultural contexts of gender and race, the perspectives of the girls in this classroom were largely missing from transactions with literacy. Consequently, girls' efforts to make intertextual links to their own lived stories were not taken up in meaningful ways. Transactions with literacy created a felt sense of fractured or compartmentalized social identities, and the girls in this study learned to separate their public, academic lives from their private lives. As a result, the girls did not take up the literature in ways that could potentially enable them to realize social and cognitive transformation in their lives.

(1.3). This is an example of an interesting concrete example of educational research.

Journal Article 3: Renzulli, J. S., & Park, S. (2000). Gifted dropouts: The who and the why. Gifted Child Quarterly, 44, 261–271.

Abstract: Two studies were conducted to obtain comprehensive information about gifted high school dropouts and to examine factors that are related to their dropout behavior using the Dropout and Student questionnaires of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88). The results indicated that many gifted dropouts were from low socioeconomic-status families and racial minority groups; had parents with low levels of education; and participated less in extracurricular activities. Also, reasons for gifted male dropouts were more related to economic issues, while reasons for gifted female dropouts were more related to personal issues, although both males and females were likely to offer school-related reasons. The logistic regression analysis results indicated that dropout behavior for gifted students was significantly related to students' educational aspirations, pregnancy or child-rearing, gender, father's highest level of education, and mother's highest level of education.