Discrete-time survival analysis (DTSA) models are a popular way of modeling events in the social sciences. However, the analysis of discrete-time survival data is challenged by missing data in one or more covariates. Negative consequences of missing covariate data include efficiency losses and possible bias. A popular approach to circumventing…

This article demonstrates how a technique called Agent-Based Modelling can address a significant challenge for effective interdisciplinarity. Different disciplines and research methods make divergent assertions about what a satisfactory explanation requires. However, without a unified framework analysing the implications of these differences…

Utilizing the perspective of finite mixture modeling, this note considers whether a finding of a plausible one-parameter logistic model could be spurious for a population with substantial unobserved heterogeneity. A theoretically and empirically important setting is discussed involving the mixture of two latent classes, with the less restrictive…

Several programs of research have sought to assess the replicability of scientific findings in different fields, including economics and psychology. These programs attempt to replicate several findings and use the results to say something about large-scale patterns of replicability in a field. However, little work has been done to understand the…

The four paradigms are influential philosophical stances applied to advocate social research designs since they have been supported by eight different analytical lenses and had various functions for analysing the research nature as well as social phenomena based on two main analytical approaches, objective and subjective viewpoints. After…

We address the task of determining, from statistical averages alone, whether a population under study consists of several subpopulations, unknown to the investigator, each responding to a given treatment markedly differently. We show that such determination is feasible in three cases: (1) randomized trials with binary treatments, (2) models where…

Measuring values in sociological research sometimes involves the use of ranking data. A disadvantage of a ranking assignment is that the order in which the items are presented might influence the choice preferences of respondents regardless of the content being measured. The standard procedure to rule out such effects is to randomize the order of…

Noise is widely regarded as a residual category--the unexplained variance in a linear model or the random disturbance of a predictable pattern. Accordingly, formal models often impose the simplifying assumption that the world is noise-free and social dynamics are deterministic. Where noise is assigned causal importance, it is often assumed to be a…

Often in sociology, researchers are confronted with nonnormal variables whose joint distribution they wish to explore. Yet, assumptions of common measures of dependence can fail or estimating such dependence is computationally intensive. This article presents the copula method for modeling the joint distribution of two random variables, including…

This response considers together simultaneously occurring discussions about causal inference in social work and allied health and social science disciplines. It places emphasis on scholarship that integrates the potential outcomes model with directed acyclic graphing techniques to extract core steps in causal inference. Although this scholarship…

Popular measurement invariance testing procedures for latent constructs evaluated by multiple indicators in distinct populations are revisited and discussed. A frequently used test of factor loading invariance is shown to possess serious limitations that in general preclude it from accomplishing its goal of ascertaining this invariance. A process…

This article examines several methodological issues associated with combining qualitative and quantitative methods by comparing the increasing interest in this topic with the earlier renewal of interest in qualitative research during the 1980s. The first section argues for the value of Kuhn's concept of paradigm shifts as a tool for examining…

A sequential design utilizing identical samples was used to classify mixed methods studies via a two-dimensional model, wherein sampling designs were grouped according to the time orientation of each study's components and the relationship of the qualitative and quantitative samples. A quantitative analysis of 121 studies representing nine fields…

This article offers a defence of critical realism in the face of objections Nash (2005) makes to it in a recent edition of this journal. It is argued that critical and scientific realisms are closely related and that both are opposed to statistical positivism. However, the suggestion is made that scientific realism retains (from statistical…

It is common in the social sciences to collect data in the form of graded responses and then to combine adjacent categories. The joining assumptions of Jansen and Roskam (1986) and the use of the Rasch model for graded responses are explored. Implications of model choice are discussed. (SLD)