Universities increasingly expect students to publish during a PhD candidature because it benefits the candidate, supervisor, institution, and wider community. Here, we describe a method successfully used by early-career researchers including PhD candidates to undertake and publish literature reviews--a challenge for researchers new to a field. Our…

The concepts and paradigms "development", "evolution", and "developmental behavior genetics" target, in their statements, populations. The laws of genetics and evolution are supposed to apply to every single case in a population. It can be counted among the major contributions of Gottlieb (1992, 1995) to have pointed…

When truly spectacular events occur in the performing arts or in team sports, when the sets of artists or athletes respectively creating these events are discussed, a common phrase used in America to explain the "good fortune" that was involved in such unique occurrences is that "the stars aligned." In this commentary on:…

The main theme of this paper concerns the persistent critique of Gilbert Gottlieb on developmental behavior genetics and my reactions to this critique, the latter changing from rejection to complete acceptation. Concise characterizations of developmental behavior genetics, developmental systems theory (to which Gottlieb made essential…

Although systems science has emerged as a set of innovative approaches to study complex phenomena, many topically focused researchers including clinicians and scientists working in public health are somewhat befuddled by this methodology that at times appears to be radically different from analytic methods, such as statistical modeling, to which…

The McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Assistance Improvements Act of 2001 (MCKV), which provides funds to local educational agencies (LEAs), is almost a decade old, yet no evaluations of its academic effectiveness have been reported. Using a systems theory framework, the authors answer the question of whether homeless students in grade 6 from LEAs…

It is now widely accepted that qualitative and quantitative research traditions, rather than being seen as opposed to or in competition with each other (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995; Furlong, 2004 ) should be used, where appropriate, in some kind of combination (Bryman & Cramer, 1999; Moore et al., 2003 ). How this combining is to be understood…

This paper reports on a project which investigates the impact of systemic environmental education (EE) programs on student achievement on EE-based integrated tests and standardized tests in math, language arts, and listening. Systemic environmental education programs are defined by curriculum designed to align and integrate subjects around real…

Positive behavioral supports (PBS) have been receiving increased visibility and use in schools nationally. In the state of Washington, schoolwide and individualized positive behavioral supports were recommended as a model for schools by the state agencies of education and human service in 1999. Since then, four demonstration schools have been…