Debate currently exists on the soundness of various research methodologies in the social sciences. In the present paper, this question is addressed in relation to the emerging discipline of occupational science. First, the discipline of occupational science is defined. Next, two competing methodologies--Paradigm 1, Positivistic, and Paradigm 2, Naturalistic--are contrasted. The criteria of genu...

For over a decade, seeking higher test scores has pushed critical thinking in social studies to the background. This quasi-experimental quantitative study demonstrates that critical thinking lessons do not negatively impact test scores for eighth grade social studies students. For ten weeks, 116 students in a multiethnic, suburban school were divided into two groups – one taught using mainly cr...

Collective dynamics on small-world networks emerge in a broad range of systems with their spectra characterizing fundamental asymptotic features. Here we derive analytic mean-field predictions for the spectra of small-world models that systematically interpolate between regular and random topologies by varying their randomness. These theoretical predictions agree well with the actual spectra (o...

We would like to thank John Bound, Kerwin Charles, Stacy Dickert-Conlin, Lance Lochner and numerous seminar participants for very useful comments and suggestions. We are grateful for support from The Mellon Foundation, The University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, The Spencer Foundation, The National Science Foundation, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Berea Co...

Characterizing the influence of network properties on the global emerging behavior of interacting elements constitutes a central question in many areas, from physical to social sciences. In this article we study a primary model of disordered neuronal networks with excitatory-inhibitory structure and balance constraints. We show how the interplay between structure and disorder in the connectivit...

In recent years the topic of entrepreneurship has become a major focus in the social sciences, with renewed interest in the links between personality and entrepreneurship. Taking a socioecological perspective to psychology, which emphasizes the role of social habitats and their interactions with mind and behavior, we investigated regional variation in and correlates of an entrepreneurship-prone...

There is a relationship between the changes in work-related diseases and the following factors: the transformation of the organization of work, organizational development, as well as human and social changes in the work environment. These factors also influence the maintenance of industrial health and safety standards at work. Safety technology will continue to be important, but will be reduced...

While it is heartening to see that more researchers in the field of the social sciences are using some version of the phenomenological method, it is also disappointing to see that very often some of the steps employed do not follow phenomenological logic. In this paper, several dissertations are reviewed in order to point out some of the difficulties that are encountered in attempting to use so...

A new form of knowledge technology is used to diagnose psychology's epistemological woes and provide a solution to the difficulties. The argument presented is that psychology has traditionally spanned two separate but intimately related problems: (a) the problem of animal behavior and (b) the problem of human behavior. Accordingly, the solution offered divides the field into two broad, logicall...