Proceedings of the 1974 Second Annual Conference of the Sociology of Education Association are presented. The conference, which focused upon the sociology of the school and schooling at the elementary and secondary levels, was structured around three objectives: (1) provide sociologists of education an opportunity to review past work in their…

Critically evaluates the methodologies used in three recent studies on poverty in Latin America. Maintains that some studies measure the relative nature of nutritional poverty while others record the absolute nature of nutritional poverty (physical survival). Includes a comparative analysis of the studies' results. (MJP)

Recounts an incident where a sociologist heard stories challenging violations concerning toxic chemicals. Lawyers advised that corroborating these stories would obligate the sociologist to inform the authorities, thereby jeopardizing his sources. Discusses the ineffectuality of the American Sociological Associations' code of ethics and legal…

Research on facilitated communication (FC) is discussed, along with flaws in previous validation studies and suggestions for improving validation studies, including: testing first whether the person can do the task required under quiet, relaxed conditions; allowing the person to practice the skill until it can be used during the validation test;…

Statistical significance tests (SSTs) have been the object of much controversy among social scientists. Proponents have hailed SSTs as an objective means for minimizing the likelihood that chance factors have contributed to research results. Critics have both questioned the logic underlying SSTs and bemoaned the widespread misapplication and…

Researchers persist in using stepwise regression in spite of problems with this approach. As noted by B. Thompson (1995), three problems accompany the use of stepwise applications. The first is that computer packages may use incorrect degrees of freedom in their computations, resulting in a greater likelihood of obtaining a spurious statistical…

In educational effectiveness research, multilevel models are increasingly used because these models take the multilevel structure of the data into account. In this paper, the effect of ignoring one or more levels of variation in hierarchical linear regression is explored, using a model with four hierarchical levels (individual pupil, class group,…

The hypothesis is the device scientists use to translate questions, theories, or proposed explanations into a form amenable to empirical research. This edition of W. W. Charter's treatise on clear, conceptual definitions and precise operational hypotheses, which was originally developed to assist students in educational policy and management…

For research to be considered "valid," the research must be originally based upon a known theory. The result of research should be the expansion of known theory or the development of new theory. An examination was made of marketing (distributive) education research to determine if that research is based upon a theoretical framework and results in…

Postmodern, multicultural, and feminist critiques of psychology have changed how longitudinal researchers construct their inquiries and frame their data. Also the new scholarship brings to the longitudinal investigation perspectives from other disciplines including sociology, anthropology, and history, among others. The book used as a framework…

Researchers and educators sometimes need to be reminded of the broad range of factors which have a crucial impact on how writers write. This paper offers a personal checklist of six factors which have been shown to be important, yet which are easy to forget in in heat of research because of the tendency to become immersed in a particular agenda…

The paper is a critique of the traditional mode of interpreting factor analyses; it is not a criticism of factor analysis per se. Instead, the author proposes a statistical procedure based upon stepwise regression (SRP). The traditional mode focuses on the largest factor loadings (FL). A factor is both described and named by these heavily weighted…

Results suggested that socioeconomic factors were not major determinants of differences in infant mortality in Texas in the 1970's. Data on live births and infant deaths for 254 Texas counties were obtained from the Texas Department of Health for each of the 11 years from 1970 to 1980. Infant, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality rates were…

Research with older persons suffering from physical illness presents numerous challenges to gerontologists. Issues of conceptualization pertaining to the definition of illness, its location in the research paradigm, and the context in which illness occurs must be addressed prior to dealing with methodological problems. Access to physically ill…

The 29 titles are arranged under seven issue areas presented in Budd Hall's article (CONVERGENCE v8 n2 p82-7) regarding: (1) alternative research strategies; (2) need for beneficial research processes; (3) and (4) aspects of research population involvement; (5) community motivation; (6) research as a dilectic process; and (7) research process…