Identifies significant limitations found in research on smoking behavior including the lack of common definitions of various behaviors, honesty of subject response, the lack of prospective studies, and the preponderance of univariate types of analyses. Presented at the 10th International Conference on Health Education in London, September 1979.…

Discusses advantages, limitations, and techniques of oral history and suggests the method's usefulness for educational research. Provides a brief bibliography of works dealing with oral history and of books that have employed the method to the study of the early Afro-American experience. (GC)

A careful review of methodological principles provides a reasonable framework for beginning to sort out the apparently contradictory studies of the psychological consequences of natural disasters. (Author)

An extensive review of the literature on Mexican-American elderly reveals more argument than consensus in interpretation of available data and a tendency for researchers to treat this population as if it were homogeneous. To improve this situation, specific recommendations for future research are offered. (Author)

Concludes that there is no evidence for differential validity in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) between racial subgroups and that black norms for the MMPI are premature. Criticism of these findings is also presented. (Author/BEF)

Examines Burt's contributions to typographical research on spacing words and texts; use of serifs, and the effects of typefaces, typesizes, and line-length on reading comprehension. In spite of Hearnshaw's (1979) favorable assessment and the wisdom of Burt's sentiments, many of his conclusions were not supported by data. (JAC)

Presents several multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) test procedures. Discusses guidelines for choosing an overall MANOVA test statistic and post hoc tests that determine the dependent variable or variables responsible for any significant effects. Concludes that guidelines based on recent comparisons of the various test statistics be used.…

Presents a speculative model for predicting differential rates of therapeutic change. From a review of 52 comparative psychotherapy studies, certain hypothesized relationships between the characteristics constituting the model and a variety of psychological treatment procedures were assessed. Use of the model for generating and guiding research is…

Robert L. Stevenson recently described the problems facing international communications researchers: the field has no common focal variable, no common method, and no common literature--despite this, he professed pleasure at the state of the field. This paper takes Stevenson as a starting point to analyze international communications through a case…

The dominant view of inquiry reflected in graduate educational research courses has been labelled as positivistic or quantitative. Instructional strategies have been designed to train students to become more skilled in the use of complex statistical procedures, more efficient in the development of preordinate designs permitting increasingly higher…

The group interview, or focused interview, was initially developed in the 1940's to meet certain problems growing out of communications research and propaganda analysis. Designed to determine the response of persons exposed to a situation previously analyzed by the investigator, it was discussed and exemplified as an applied social research…

Provides an annotated bibliography of 14 recent ERIC documents on focus group applications in higher education. Includes documents describing colleges that have used focus groups to assess employer and public attitudes toward the college, assess institutional effectiveness, develop programs and curricula, and learn about student experiences. Lists…

Focuses on weaknesses in behavioral science articles dealing with Mexican-Americans, including: (1) overgeneralization; (2) misinterpretation of data; (3) adherence to cultural blame syndrome; and (4) inappropriate treatment suggestions. Although research is needed to understand the educational problems of Mexican-Americans, a more thoughtful…

A method of examining individual variation in responses to Inhelder-Piaget formal reasoning tasks is proposed as a means of identifying cognitive style components of formal reason and as a means of generating more complete descriptions of observable manifestations of formal reasoning. The method is one used by human ethologists and consists of…