Handbook for Research in Cooperative Education and Internships - Hardcover

This Handbook is designed to help cooperative education and internship professionals and employers design, carry out, and disseminate quality research and evaluation studies of work-based education. It offers examples of current, leading-edge studies about work-based education, but with a practical twist: The chapter authors frame their studies within a specific key research design issue, including finding a starting point and a theoretical framework; fitting research into one's busy practitioner workload; deciding on particular data-gathering methods and an overall methodological approach; integrating qualitative and quantitative methodologies; and disseminating results. Also addressed are questions and concerns that are relevant throughout the course of a research project: the use of theory in research; the role and relationship of program assessment to research; and ethical considerations in research.

By combining descriptions of exemplary research and evaluation studies with practical advice from top researchers in the field, this volume is a useful tool for educators and employers who are designing and carrying out their own studies, as well as a resource for what current research is discovering and affirming about the field itself. Educators from other fields, such as study abroad and service-learning will also find this book an indispensable reference in conducting research on experiential learning and teaching.

Eric Miller is a professor of 18th-century literature at the University of Victoria and a poetry editor at The Malahat Review, having studied at universities in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. He is a polymath, with fluency in a number of languages, a thorough knowledge of Latin and classical history, a detailed knowledge of the biological science of birds, and an astonishing breadth of reading in a variety of literary traditions. He is also a recipient of The Fiddleheads Ralph Gustafson Prize for Poetry and the Academy of American Poets Prize from the University of Virginia.

Nancy L. Johnston is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Licensed Substance Abuse Treatment Practitioner in private practice in Virginia. She has a BS in Psychology from the College of William and Mary and a MS in Counseling Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University.

With thirty two years of clinical experience, she has developed the approach presented in her book, Disentangle, from both her professional and personal experiences. Johnston specializes in treating adolescents and adults. She works with a wide range of emotional and behavioral issues, and has always had a special interest in addiction and its effects on both individuals and family systems.

Johnston lives with her husband and daughter in an old house on a river in the Valley of Virginia.