Replications and robustness checks are key elements of the scientific method and a staple in many disciplines. However, leading journals in developmental psychology rarely include explicit replications of prior research conducted by different investigators, and few require authors to establish in their articles or online appendices that their key…

Although behavior analysis relies primarily on visual inspection for interpreting data, previous research shows that the method of display can influence the judgments. In the current study, 26 Board-Certified Behavior Analysts reviewed two data sets displayed on each of three methods--equal-interval graphs, tables, and Standard Celeration…

Study reported to the Western Psychological Association (Long Beach, California, April 1966).

This review of studies comparing early childhood education models focuses on the trends and problems of this kind of research. The 8 "qualitative" studies reviewed, all pertain to aspects of instructional theory centering around teacher-child interaction. In the 19 empirical studies discussed, a dichotomy between "structured and unstructured…

Speech and communication departments at several universities currently offer behavioral training programs aimed at reducing communication-related anxiety. Traditionally, these programs involve the use of a "systematic desensitization" training method. An alternative behavioral training method is found in "conditioned…

This paper provides information about the nature of fieldwork and fieldwork research training. Fieldwork methods are best at answering the following five questions: (1) What's happening in this field setting? (2) What do the happenings mean to the people involved in them? (3) What do people have to know in order to be able to do what they do in a…

While considerable research has been reported on cognitive outcomes of Personalized Student Instruction (PSI) courses, little information about affective outcomes of the PSI is available. In this study three methods of instruction including an introductory psychology PSI with no formal classes, an educational psychology with some formal classes,…

Assesses student belief and involvement in 10 paranormal phenomena. Findings show 99 percent of the sample expressed belief in at least one. Students expressing these beliefs achieved significantly lower course grades. Discusses instructor's role in combating unfounded beliefs and fostering critical thinking. (NL)

This study explored competition and styles of research in the fields of education, political science, sociology, and psychology. The paper is based on a theory which considers science as a competitive activity. Basic, non-applied, experimental, and "high qualitative" research styles are considered more advantageous to competition because (1) they…

By means of more than a dozen user friendly packages, structural equation models (SEMs) are widely used in behavioral, education, social, and psychological research. As the underlying theory and methods in these packages are vulnerable to outliers and distributions with longer-than-normal tails, a fundamental problem in the field is the…

This paper demonstrates how Q-methodology combines artistic and scientific procedures to allow social science researchers to develop and test theories about differences in persons. Q-methodology is based on factor analysis. In R-technique factor analysis, the most commonly used technique, variables define the columns and persons define the rows of…

A study sought to determine (1) whether a television program designed to enhance personal, social, and emotional development can have positive effects on children's behavior and, (2) what elements in a child's environment produce the greatest positive effects. Two components of the environment were studied: (1) training of the adult care-givers to…

The issue of what educational research has illuminated to date about the universally accepted practice of student teaching is discussed in this paper. A critical review is provided of selected literature on student teaching within the context of two contrasting paradigms for conducting educational research: psychometric and social-anthropological.…

A study was conducted to ascertain which dimensions of children's classroom behavior are seen to be important by teachers and how accurate teachers' perceptions are of children's behavior in terms of such dimensions. Teachers in six suburban fourth-grade classrooms rated classroom behavior of each of their students (105 boys and 78 girls) using…