"The Seven Deadly Sins of Web Survey Design." (October, 2010) This guest post on Annabel Candy's blog Get in the Hot Spot identifies and provides solutions to mistakes that are frequently made when designing survey questions.
Literature Review: Effectiveness of Action Circles in Promoting Community Engagement and Pro-Environmental Behavioural Changes. (May, 2010) This literature review was prepared for the Be The Change Earth Alliance organization (Vancouver) to provide information that substantiates the claims that peer support and making a public commitment to peers in a small group situation both enhances the likelihood of follow-through on pledged actions and facilitates longer term behavioural changes aligned with community engagement and environmental stewardship.
Briefing Paper: The High Cost of High Ash Coal Use in Northern India. (In progress) This briefing paper/literature review collates and summarizes the environmental, agricultural, health and economic impacts of relying on high ash coal for fuel in coal fired thermal power plants in northern India.
*Be The Change Earth Alliance Action Guide (Copyright: Be The Change Earth Alliance, 2009) This project involved assisting with editing the 2nd edition of the Action Guide, and writing concise statements summarizing each of the 60+ major intentions in the Action Guide. The curriculum for a potential Action Circle/reading group based on David Korten's book The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community was also developed but has not yet been launched.
*The BC College and Institute Student Outcomes Survey: Capturing students' assessments of their learning outcomes on essential skills within their programs (2007) This research paper was presented at a conference on Student Success, held in San Jose, California. The paper combines a literature review of the student outcomes literature and considers the benefits and limitations of using standardized testing versus student reported outcomes as the primary means of assessing successful educational outcomes at the institutional and system levels.
*Annual Fall Registration Survey (1999 - 2008) This survey was designed and administered on an annual basis while working as a research analyst at a post secondary institution in the lower mainland. The survey collected data on enrolment patterns, students' feedback on their educational and registration experiences, and demographic information that was not collected through other means. The data were used to identify trends and track changes in both enrolment patterns and demographic characteristics and to inform planning decisions within the institution.
*An Analysis of Trends Concerning Violence Against Women: A Preliminary Case Study of Vancouver. Copyright: (1998) Feminist Research Education, Development and Action (FREDA) Centre, Vancouver, BC This study, funded by the Family Violence Prevention Division of Health Canada (1998) sought to (1) provide a critical analysis of an apparent decrease in reported levels of domestic violence and (2) identify and understand both the factors that may deter women from reporting violence and women's actual help-seeking patterns. The study incorporated both quantitative (an analysis of descriptive statistics) and qualitative (interviews and focus groups) research methodologies to investigate the research questions. The results of the study highlighted a number of issues that would benefit from additional research as well as offering recommendations for practical steps that could be taken within the Vancouver area that would benefit both professionals (health care providers, front-line service workers, criminal justice personnel) and victims of domestic violence.
*Implementing the 1987 Draft Plan to Downsize Riverview Hospital: Expanding the Social Control Network (Master's Thesis). Copyright (1993) Susan Chambers, Simon Fraser University. This study explored the human impacts of psychiatric deinstitutionalization. Using a local initiative and planning document as its starting point, the research documents the relationship between shifts in policies and the emergence of control patterns imposed on chronic psychiatric patients in the City of Vancouver between 1987 and 1991. The study incorporated both quantitative (an analysis of aggregate statistics collected from participating community agencies) and qualitative (40 semi-structured interviews with mental health and criminal justice professionals and ex-psychiatric patients) methodologies. The results of the study provided new information and insights about how the unintended consequences of large-scale deinstitutionalization strategies play out in both the lives of deinstitutionalized psychiatric patients, the practices of mental health and social service workers, and an expanded role of the criminal justice system as a gate-keeper for the mental health and social service systems.
*These projects represent samples of work completed prior to establishing S.D. Chambers' SAGE Editing & Research Services
