Formulae and graphs are presented allowing computation of the variances of three prototypical distributions over a finite number of categories. The uses of the variances of the maximum variance distribution, the uniform distribution and a unimodal triangular distribution to make inferences about distribution shapes are shown in several examples.…

Even the application of such mainstays of the institutional researcher's statistical tool kit as the t test and ANOVA is not always as straightforward as it seems. The researcher must first check to see that the underlying methodological and statistical assumptions are being met. (Author)

This monograph contains the second section, operations at the variable level, of a report of studies done in Helsinki, Finland, describing school achievement in terms of ability, trait, situational, and background variables. The report (1) investigates the structure of school achievement, (2) describes school achievement in terms of selected…

The results of an investigation into some special cases of the general "orthomax" formulation are presented. In particular, the effects of manipulating a parameter in this formulation on various aspects of factor solutions are identified through the use of four sets of data, varying considerably in size, and reliability and factorial complexity of…

Points out that 108 studies in the first 25 volumes of AV Communication Review used univariate analysis of variance to test experimental hypotheses, and suggests that researchers include omega-squared values in their reports to permit estimation of the relationship between x and y variables, and correlation data for comparing studies. (MER)

This paper is an ardent plea for simplifying experimental design and the associated statistics. The emphasis is on design itself. Traditional designs from simple to complex and reviewed and the simplest, most basic ways of handling the data are presented. Design is stressed in such a way that simple statistics follow. The intactness of…

This paper discusses the problems of gathering and analyzing data on classroom behaviors. The difficulties involved in using the common pretest-posttest experimental design are described. To grapple with these problems, a study was conducted on the effect of environmental changes on student behavior, employing a time-series design and time-series…

A summary and comparison of the statistical analysis and results of the first three GUME research projects investigating foreign language teaching methods are presented in this report. The methods investigated are the habit-formation or implicit theory and the cognitive-code learning or explicit theory with either source-language or…

This monograph covers the theory, application, and interpretation of both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques in institutional research. Each chapter opens with a hypothetical case study, which is used to illustrate the application of one or more statistical procedures to typical research questions. Chapter 2 covers the comparison…