Conducting and Evaluating Multilevel Studies: Recommendations, Resources, and a Checklist

Multilevel methods allow researchers to investigate relationships that expand across levels (e.g., individuals, teams, and organizations). The popularity of these methods for studying organizational phenomena has increased in recent decades. Methodologists have examined how these methods work under different conditions, providing an empirical base for making sound decisions when using these methods. In this article, we provide recommendations, tools, resources, and a checklist that can be useful for scholars involved in conducting or assessing multilevel studies. The focus of our article is on two-level designs, in which Level-1 entities are neatly nested within Level-2 entities, and top-down effects are estimated. However, some of our recommendations are also applicable to more complex multilevel designs.

Traditional Culture: “Small” Wooden Temples of the Russian North

Wooden chapels are a bright and typical phenomenon of the traditional culture. The chapels were non-altar temples of a small peasant parish, which retained their independence, providing a special atmosphere for performing rituals. The work examines the reasons for setting chapels according to historical and typological characteristics and the specifics of the formation of their architectural and structural features. The empirical base of the research was the material of 36 architectural and ethnographic expeditions, archival and museum sources of the Arkhangelsk and Vologda regions, Karelia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, NAO.

IMAGE OF THE CITY: STALINGRAD IN MODERN VOLGOGRAD (BASED ON APPLIED SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH)

The article based on the analysis of applied research materials gives an idea of the image of the city of Volgograd in the representations of the indigenous Stalingrad people. The empirical base of the study was the materials of interviews conducted in the spring and autumn of 2021 in Volgograd. It was concluded that the image of modern Volgograd is outwardly and internally different from Stalingrad, from Volgograd of the Soviet period, as belonging to different eras, while the memory of Stalingrad, about the Battle of Stalingrad, of course, is present and forms the image of the city.

NETWORK DISCOURSE AND THE RUSSIAN MAYOR: SHAPING A DIGITAL SOCIO-POLITICAL AGENDA IN SOCIAL NETWORKS (NETWORK AND LINGUISTIC DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS)

В эпоху социальных сетей и сетевого общества социально-политические акторы, в том числе и главы муниципальных образований (мэры городов), являются основными субъектами (по сравнению с традиционными СМИ) формирования цифровой социально-политической повестки дня в онлайн-пространстве. Современная цифровая социально-политическая повестка дня формируется двумя одновременными процессами в социальных сетях: во-первых, глава города создает социально-политический контент в ведущих социальных сетях; во-вторых, граждане дают обратную связь в виде ветки комментариев на данный контент. Как результат - происходит формирование связки цифровой социально-политической повестки дня (как сегмента онлайн-дискурса) и офлайн-реакции на данный дискурс (определенной и позиционированной социально-политической части) в виде конкретных конструктивных либо деструктивных реакций жителей городов современной России (не / поддерживающих власть на локальном уровне). Эмпирической базой данного исследования стал контент официальных аккаунтов (метод сплошной выборки постов, хештегов, фотографий и видео, а также всех комментариев) мэров российских городов в Instagram, ВКонтакте, Facebook, Twitter и Одноклассники согласно рейтингу Медиалогии за период 1 октября 2020 - 31 декабря 2020 г.: Анатолий Локоть, мэр г. Новосибирск, 4 место; Наталья Котова, мэр г. Челябинск, 5-е место; Иса Хаджимурадов, мэр г. Грозный, 79-е место; Юлия Рокотянская, мэр г. Рязань, 96-е место. В результате авторы статьи делают основные выводы, полученные в ходе исследования сетевого и лингводискурсивного анализа сетевых тематик данных аккаунтов, визуальной составляющей, а также комментариев как реакции пользователей на цифровую социально-политическую повестку дня и официальный дискурс в онлайн- и офлайн-пространствах. In the era of social networks and network society, socio-political actors, including heads of municipalities, are the main subjects in shaping digital socio-political agenda in the online space. The modern digital socio-political agenda is formed by two simultaneous processes in social networks: firstly, the head of the city creates socio-political content in leading social networks; secondly, citizens give feedback in the form of a comment thread on this content. As a result, a digital agenda is formed and an offline reaction to this discourse in the form of specific constructive or destructive reactions of residents of cities in modern Russia. The empirical base of this study was the content of official accounts (a method of continuous sampling of posts, hashtags, photos and videos, as well as all comments) of the mayors of Russian cities on Instagram, VKontakte, Facebook, Twitter and Odnoklassniki, according to the Medialogia rating for the period October 1, 2020 - December 31, 2020. As a result, the authors draw the conclusions obtained during the study of network and linguistic discursive analysis of network topics of the analyzed accounts, the visual component as well as comments as user reactions to this agenda and official discourse in online and offline spaces.

Peculiarities of the “I-image” formation of the State Traffic Inspectorate employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia under the influence of public opinion

The socio-psychological mechanisms of the influence of public opinion on the formation of the “I-image” of the State Traffic Inspectorate employee as a factor of regulation of official behavior have been investigated. The article considers the problem of forming a positive “I-image” of the State Traffic Inspectorate employee and the search for the optimal psychotechnology for its successful manifestation in the regulation of official behavior in relation to the fact that the decline in the authority of the above-mentioned service in the eyes of the public does not allow us to fully form a positive “I-image”. The psychodiagnostic methods used in the study and the empirical base have been described. The results of the study have been processed and interpreted using descriptive statistics, correlation and factor analysis. Purposeful psychological influence contributes to the formation of a positive “I-image” of the State Traffic Inspectorate employee, which has been proved by an empirical study.

Teaching the Science in Neuroscience to Protect From Neuromyths: From Courses to Fieldwork

In recent decades, Cognitive Neuroscience has evolved from a rather arcane field trying to understand how the brain supports mental activities, to one that contributes to public policies. In this article, we focus on the contributions from Cognitive Neuroscience to Education. This line of research has produced a great deal of information that can potentially help in the transformation of Education, promoting interventions that help in several domains including literacy and math learning, social skills and science. The growth of the Neurosciences has also created a public demand for knowledge and a market for neuro-products to fulfill these demands, through books, booklets, courses, apps and websites. These products are not always based on scientific findings and coupled to the complexities of the scientific theories and evidence, have led to the propagation of misconceptions and the perpetuation of neuromyths. This is particularly harmful for educators because these misconceptions might make them abandon useful practices in favor of others not sustained by evidence. In order to bridge the gap between Education and Neuroscience, we have been conducting, since 2013, a set of activities that put educators and scientists to work together in research projects. The participation goes from discussing the research results of our projects to being part and deciding aspects of the field interventions. Another strategy consists of a course centered around the applications of Neuroscience to Education and their empirical and theoretical bases. These two strategies have to be compared to popularization efforts that just present Neuroscientific results. We show that the more the educators are involved in the discussion of the methodological bases of Neuroscientific knowledge, be it in the course or as part of a stay, the better they manage the underlying concepts. We argue that this is due to the understanding of scientific principles, which leads to a more profound comprehension of what the evidence can and cannot support, thus shielding teachers from the false allure of some commercial neuro-products. We discuss the three approaches and present our efforts to determine whether they lead to a strong understanding of the conceptual and empirical base of Neuroscience.

Media education facets within writings of A. V. Fedorov’s scholarly group: Political dimension

Empirical base of this article is comprised of five monographs by A.V. Fedorov and his colleagues published from 2013 to 2015. The author highlights several, from his point of view, the most urgent and important issues touched on in the writings considered. An idea is substantiated that necessity to develop social and political model of media education is becoming patently obvious nowadays.

Differentiating spiritual experiences from mental disorders

It is not uncommon for patients with mental disorders to have symptoms with religious or spiritual (R/S) contents, and, on the other hand, spiritual experiences often involve psychotic-like phenomena. This frequently creates difficulties in differentiating between a non-pathological R/S experience and a mental disorder. Clinical differentiation between a non-pathological R/S experience and a mental disorder with R/S content brings risks in both extremes: to pathologize normal R/S experience (promoting iatrogenic suffering) or neglecting pathological symptoms (delaying proper treatment). In order to mitigate these risks, this chapter will gather the best current scientific evidence and propose clinical guidelines to help the distinction between R/S experiences and mental disorders with R/S content. Scientific studies in people who have spiritual experiences should be encouraged, especially investigations of the phenomenology, neurobiology, precipitants, and outcomes in order to enlarge the empirical base needed to advance the criteria for this differential diagnosis.

Definitions and Paradigms of European Security

Modern political activity develops on the basis of disclosure and partial correction of previously developed algorithms and approaches, which significantly increases the practical significance of the historical and political science methodology, with the help of which it is possible to identify the content, directions of evolution, the prospects for changing traditional models and phenomena. The article attempts to study the essence of the security phenomenon in the context of currently emerging paradigms. The working hypothesis was the assumption that the transformational processes of the 1970’s, which subsequently experienced a «security swing», their elements, system hierarchy and logic of representation continue to persist in the current Western model, since multi-factor and successful transformations slow down change. As a result of the study, disparities in the substantive definition of security goals, contradictions between political goals and processes were revealed, a working hypothesis was confirmed, and problems that require further study, including through the expansion of the empirical base, were outlined. The article is written mainly on the materials of the three «White Papers» of the Bundeswehr. It is controversial in nature, but already at this stage of the study has a practical value, reflected in four recommendation-prognostic conclusions.

To the Question of Determining the Budget-Forming Industry

The article is devoted to the identification of the criterion, that allows to determine which industry can be referred to as a budget-forming one at the regional level. The empirical base of the study was formed by the data of Russian Federal State Statistics Service about the structure of gross regional product and by the data from the Federal Tax Service about the structure of tax revenues of the regional consolidated budgets by the type of the economic activity in 2017. The grouping of regions by the types of the economic activity is carried out using the standard method of multifactorial ranking. The structure of the gross regional product is revealed to be significantly different from the structure of the tax revenues of the regional budgets. It is proposed to define an industry as the budget-forming one if tax revenues from it form at least 15 % of the consolidated budget of the region. The application of this criterion shows that «Manufacturing» is the budget-forming industry in most of the regions. The offered criterion can be used to adjust the tax control directions and analyze the indicators of tax crime, it can help assess the consequences of tax legislation changes for the regional budgets.