This study objects to the "very specious statistical arguments" of Ernest Sternglass and Steven Bell in the April issue of this magazine, in which illogical and inconsistent statistical evidence suggested cognitive damage during infancy may be linked to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons from 1954 to 1963. (PB)

Origins and problems of classroom-centered research on language learning and teaching are surveyed, tracing the development of both the concerns and the research tools used. The development of a productive controversy over objective versus subjective methods is described. (MSE)

Outlines four limitations inherent in using a minimum competency test to determine eligibility for a high school diploma and, in some jurisdictions, to determine advance to the next grade. Discusses the appropriate uses of testing in an overall program.(MP)

Critically reviews literature on school effectiveness challenging the assumption that school differences have little effect on student achievement, presents a speculative portrait of an effective school, and proposes directions for future research. (MP)

The social sciences tend to address easily quantifiable aspects of human life and produce statistical findings of value only to scholars and scientists. The Hite studies, which address ordinary human concerns and present their findings in a form easily understood by the general public, represent a model for the future. (Author/RM)

This exploratory paper analyzes the federal policy for an impact study of research and development projects in vocational education. Positive effects were found on student outcomes, project personnel, and on occupational education practices. (Author)

Discusses legal, ethical, and pragmatic issues concerning psychologists' willingness or unwillingness to share data from Federally sponsored research projects with other researchers and the public. Presents a proposal to mandate data sharing, and discusses technical and ethical costs and benefits of such a proposal. (Author/MJL)

Evaluates a correctional treatment program to demonstrate how the research design and not the treatment intervention may be responsible for outcomes. The program, Project Papillon, used group counseling and rational emotive therapy to treat drug abuse. Suggestions are offered for designing future evaluations more accurately. (Author/JAC)

Charges that social scientists have generally failed to integrate the results of their research into a coherent body of knowledge becasue traditional methods of research integration are inadequate for the task. Suggests that meta-analysis provides a greatly improved approach for integrating accumulations of research findings. (Author/JAC)

Examines the differences between writing research conducted in England and that conducted in Canada and North America. Discusses how educators and researchers have used their observations to derive a pedagogy and have done so much too rapidly. (HTH)

Learning disability researchers often misconstrue their object of study, unexplained underachievement, by interpreting it neurologically and ignoring the classroom environment and the social forces shaping it. It is important to recognize that academic performance is shaped by larger extra-educational and political forces in society. (Author/KC)

In answer to criticism of the dissimilarity index in measuring the amount of segregation (occupational and racial) in communities, the author has developed an index which reflects differences between cities possessing concentrated ghettos and those with multiple residential clusters. The proximity measure incorporates spatial qualities directly…

Tests the hypothesis that listener's proximity in the standard referential communication situation might prevent subjects from realizing that only verbal information is useful in this situation by comparing the standard situation to one in which messages are conveyed over citizen's band radio. Twenty-four first-grade students served as speakers in…

School research should be more social in nature, i.e., contextualized, interactive/dynamic, and sensitive to participant conceptions. To explore the possibilities and limitations of the social study of social studies, a conception of social research is delineated, using recent social studies classroom research as illustration. Research utilization…

An evaluation of a school-based drug education program was employed to examine the effect of administration of a preteaching questionnaire on responses. Found pretesting increased the amounts of alcohol reported consumed and reports of drunkenness and marijuana use. (Author)