scholarly journals The Evaluation of the Religious Commitment Inventory for Bulgarian Pomak Households

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Satsios ◽  
Kostas Karamanis ◽  
Aikaterini Galanou ◽  
Ioannis Sotiropoulos

The aim of the research is to evaluate the Religious Commitment Inventory (RCI-10) on a sample of 400 Bulgarian Pomak households across 5 cities. For this purpose, factor analysis was used in order to confirm the factor structure of the religiosity scale. An interesting aspect assumes that the impact of religiosity on the consumer marketing as well as on the social sciences is especially important. Most significantly, this research demonstrates the universality of the religiosity correlation with socio-demographic factors, such as the place of residence, demonstrating the importance of the religiosity level. The results revealed higher levels of religiosity score in cities populated mainly by Muslims, while lower levels score were observed in cities where a Christian community was also present.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas Bosma ◽  
Arjen van Witteloostuijn

In the social sciences, multi-item scales and factor analyses are standard tools in survey research. In the social sciences, such tools are omnipresent, as are, unavoidably, nonresponses. The question is how to handle missing values when an exploratory factor analysis is intended. Deletion methods will result in — oftentimes substantial and damaging — reduction of power. The seemingly obvious alternative is to keep all respondents and apply imputation to missing values. However, with the true factor structure unknown, theoretically recommendable multiple imputation methods cannot simply be applied. Instead of declaring an entire method unsuitable for exploratory analysis, we propose an approach that keeps the relevant aspects of various methods and combines these by sacrificing less relevant aspects. Doing so, we keep understanding and ease of use in mind, aiming for an approach that is more rigorous and ‘correct’ than what is commonly used in practice, whilst still being straightforward enough to actually be used.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas Bosma ◽  
Arjen van Witteloostuijn

In the social sciences, multi-item scales and factor analyses are standard tools in survey research. In the social sciences, such tools are omnipresent, as are, unavoidably, nonresponses. The question is how to handle missing values when an exploratory factor analysis is intended. Deletion methods will result in — oftentimes substantial and damaging — reduction of power. The seemingly obvious alternative is to keep all respondents and apply imputation to missing values. However, with the true factor structure unknown, theoretically recommendable multiple imputation methods cannot simply be applied. Instead of declaring an entire method unsuitable for exploratory analysis, we propose an approach that keeps the relevant aspects of various methods and combines these by sacrificing less relevant aspects. Doing so, we keep understanding and ease of use in mind, aiming for an approach that is more rigorous and ‘correct’ than what is commonly used in practice, whilst still being straightforward enough to actually be used.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bas Bosma ◽  
Arjen van Witteloostuijn

In the social sciences, multi-item scales and factor analyses are standard tools in survey research. In the social sciences, such tools are omnipresent, as are, unavoidably, nonresponses. The question is how to handle missing values when an exploratory factor analysis is intended. Deletion methods will result in — oftentimes substantial and damaging — reduction of power. The seemingly obvious alternative is to keep all respondents and apply imputation to missing values. However, with the true factor structure unknown, theoretically recommendable multiple imputation methods cannot simply be applied. Instead of declaring an entire method unsuitable for exploratory analysis, we propose an approach that keeps the relevant aspects of various methods and combines these by sacrificing less relevant aspects. Doing so, we keep understanding and ease of use in mind, aiming for an approach that is more rigorous and ‘correct’ than what is commonly used in practice, whilst still being straightforward enough to actually be used.


2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Howe

AbstractThis article by Adrian Howe is based on a presentation given at the ‘Sources and Methods in Criminology and Criminal Justice Conference’ in November 2015, jointly sponsored by the Institute of Advanced Education and the Socio-Legal Studies Association. She begins by querying whether there are indeed distinct feminist methods in the social sciences. She outlines the impact of what she calls the ‘methodical revolution’ on the criminology discipline, Foucault's contribution and Foucauldian methodologies deployed in criminological and criminal justice research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Patricia P. Jiménez ◽  
Jimena Pascual ◽  
Andrés Mejía

Although the need for an engineering education oriented to public welfare and social justice has been acknowledged for many years, the efforts to put it in practice seem insufficient and a culture of disengagement still appears dominant. The aim of this article is twofold: (1) to examine beliefs and motivations of university faculty towards the social responsibility of engineers, and (2) to develop pedagogical principles to deal with the culture of disengagement in engineering. A survey-based quantitative study was conducted among faculty from a university in Chile. A factor analysis revealed two dimensions of social justice in their conceptions, with significantly higher scores for the first one: environmental/ethical versus public/community. Additionally, faculty value less the humanities and social sciences than other non-technical topics in the curriculum. Results, for this university, confirm the prevailing cultural features reported elsewhere. Some guidelines to counteract the cultural pillars of disengagement are based on critical thinking, context-based learning or situated practice, and interdisciplinary learning. These are illustrated in a course on Systems Simulation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Borokhovich ◽  
Allissa Lee ◽  
Betty Simkins

Purpose – Studies of research influence commonly look at the overall field of finance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the sub-field of corporate finance at four different points in time to determine its evolution and range of influence, specifically focussing on the relative influence of seven leading journals. Design/methodology/approach – Not all articles appearing in the set of journals are in corporate finance. The authors examine each article published in the journals for four key periods and identify those that are corporate. The impact factors (IFs) published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) are for all articles appearing in a journal. The authors are interested only in the corporate articles, so the authors calculate separate corporate IFs based on the citations to the corporate articles using the JCR technique. Findings – The authors find a broad corporate research environment with influence that extends well beyond finance. The authors also find differences in the relative influence of the journals not only in their total influence, but in where the influence occurs outside finance and other business journals and even more broadly in the social sciences. Research limitations/implications – The exclusion of journals outside the seven selected may not uncover other areas where corporate finance articles impact research more broadly. Also, classification of articles is inherently subjective. Practical implications – The authors draw comparisons between journals and corporate finance topic areas; indicating the breadth and depth research in these areas attain. These results should prove beneficial to researchers in determining areas of influence for their work, consequently providing opportunities for additional exchanges of ideas resulting in better and more informed research in the overall social sciences. Further, our approach to analyzing journal influence could prove fruitful for additional research. Originality/value – The findings allow for a greater understanding of the influence of individual journals and their subsequent rankings by a number of different means. The authors propose that the means and measures employed here can lead to a greater understanding of how influential a journal really is. Further, the authors contend that the study provides comparisons of the scope and depth of influence for each journal in a way that could lead to new avenues of research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Abdalla Elkheir Elgobshawi

The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of Idiomaticity on language learning and the extent to which it can be a language learning barrier. It contrasts the perspective of language teachers and the attitude of language learners regarding how idioms can influence language learning. The theoretical framework provides a description of the general properties of English idiomatic expressions and shows the relevance of idiomaticity to linguistic theory. The paper is based on an analytical analysis and follows a quantitative approach in which two questionnaires are used to collect the data. The two questionnaires are administered to two independent samples: 20 participants representing ELT teachers at the tertiary level and 80 subjects representing Saudi EFL college students. The data are then analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The study reveals learners’ reasonable consensus on the issues assessed. They generally acknowledge the significance of idioms for language learning but with a general dissatisfaction with their status in learning and teaching contexts. Both teachers and learners view idioms as odd pieces of language that lack a uniform character and do not receive due attention in language syllabi and curricula. Teachers give different ratings on the pedagogical value of idioms, but they generally show low interest in teaching them.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE E. SMITH ◽  
ELLEN STEWART

AbstractOf all the social sciences, social policy is one of the most obviously policy-orientated. One might, therefore, expect a research and funding agenda which prioritises and rewards policy relevance to garner an enthusiastic response among social policy scholars. Yet, the social policy response to the way in which major funders and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) are now prioritising ‘impact’ has been remarkably muted. Elsewhere in the social sciences, ‘research impact’ is being widely debated and a wealth of concerns about the way in which this agenda is being pursued are being articulated. Here, we argue there is an urgent need for social policy academics to join this debate. First, we employ interviews with academics involved in health inequalities research, undertaken between 2004 and 2015, to explore perceptions, and experiences, of the ‘impact agenda’ (an analysis which is informed by a review of guidelines for assessing ‘impact’ and relevant academic literature). Next, we analyse high- and low-scoring REF2014 impact case studies to assess whether these concerns appear justified. We conclude by outlining how social policy expertise might usefully contribute to efforts to encourage, measure and reward research ‘impact’.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document