Social ecological theory, adapted from natural ecology, aims to understand the connections between people, groups, cultures, and the natural environments that they inhabit. Following psychologists ecological adaptations in the 1930s and Kellys (1968) landmark adaptation of ecological processes into community psychology (CP), community researchers have attempted to attain ecological validity without a systematic methodology to guide and test their efforts. This has often resulted in theories and methods that do not fully reflect researchers ecological intentions. This paper explains the scientific evolution of ecological epistemology and creates an evaluative framework to test ecological validity. Then a sample (n = 26) of published research articles in CP is gathered from the 3 major CP journals using ecological search terms and then evaluated within the framework to determine the fidelity of the application of ecological theory. Total adherence to ecological principals by CP is somewhat less than half of potential (43.54%.), although a breakdown of scores reveals a trend toward traditional over action research (68.16% compared to 18.91% of potential) and preference or knowledge of some levels, processes, and methods over others including a high amount of individual level research. New additions to the ecological analogy correlated well with existing concepts, indicating acceptable construct validity for suggested elements of ecological validity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07232009-200020 |
| Date | 28 July 2009 |
| Creators | Voorhees, Courte C. W. |
| Contributors | Douglas D. Perkins, J. R. Newbrough, Paul W. Speer |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07232009-200020/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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