Engagement is one of the most widely misused and overgeneralized constructs found in the educational, learning, instructional, and psychological sciences. The articles in this special issue represent a wide range of traditions and highlight several key conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and analytical issues related to defining and measuring…

The prevailing assumption by some that deep processing promotes stronger learning outcomes while surface processing promotes weaker learning outcomes has been called into question by the inconsistency and ambiguity of results in investigations of the relation between levels of processing and performance. The purpose of this literature review is to…

Buchmann, Condron and Roscigno argue in their article, "Shadow Education, American Style: Test Preparation, the SAT and College Enrollment," that the activities in which students engage to prepare for college entrance exams are forms of shadow education, a means by which more advantaged parents seek to pass their privileged status along…

United States Department of Agriculture defines food insecure as answering affirmatively to three or more food insecurity questions describing a household's ability to acquire enough food. Households indicating low levels of food insecurity (one or two affirmative responses) are considered food secure. This paper compares the characteristics of…

This special series focused on treatment integrity in the child mental health and education field is timely. The articles do a laudable job of reviewing (a) the current status of treatment integrity research and measurement, (b) existing conceptual models of treatment integrity, and (c) the limitations of prior research. Overall, this thoughtful…

Draws on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health to illustrate the complexities of using large-scale surveys to measure adoption status. Discusses conceptual and methodological issues in measuring adoption status. Presents decision rules for determining adoption status across three sources of data: school self-administered…

The 1992 American Association on Mental Retardation definition of mental retardation is critiqued. The definition is seen as lacking precision and necessitating identification dependent upon assessment of behavioral dimensions for which there are no reliable measurement instruments. These problems, which are attributed to advocacy concerns, are…

Reviews the alternative meanings of the term "poverty" implied in the various ways in which it has been measured. Conclusion is drawn that it is not safe to assume different indicators of poverty are more or less equivalent. (Author/AM)

This paper provides a conceptual analysis of ethnicity in terms of methods used to measure ethnic persistence and intensity. (Author/AM)

Documenting treatment integrity is an important issue in research and practice in any discipline concerned with prevention and intervention. However, consensus concerning the dimensions of treatment integrity and how they should be measured has yet to emerge. Advances from three areas in which significant treatment integrity work has taken…

The concept of treatment integrity cuts across a diversity of fields involved with providing treatments or interventions to individuals. In medical treatments, the concept of "treatment compliance" or "treatment adherence" is an important and problematic issue. In the field of nutrition, the concept of "dietary adherence" is important for…

Eleven indexes of rurality and their effect on the classification of Michigan's 83 counties were investigated. The indexes were based on different concepts of rurality: (1) percent of employment in agriculture, fishing, and forestry; (2) population density and distance to urban centers; and (3) economic conditions. Index rankings were compared to…

This paper argues that using intelligence as an aptitude benchmark in defining reading disability conceals unsupported assumptions about educational potential and makes it difficult to differentiate the cognitive characteristics of dyslexic children from those of other poor readers. The use of a more educationally relevant aptitude measure such as…

A model for research and evaluation in outdoor education is presented in this paper which includes a bibliography of representative research in outdoor, experiential education. The model stresses close interaction between program designers and evaluators and rests on the premise that the strength of outdoor education--interaction between people,…