With the proliferation of new health programs, such as Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO's) and Professional Service Review Organizations (PSRO's), the task of evaluating the impact of such programs on the health delivery systems and on the health of the American people becomes more urgent. Thus far no experimental or quasi-experimental…

Presented is a programatic organization model which is applied to research needs in special education. Major advantages of the model are given to be that of providing for several research activities which focus on one common problem, reducing the duplication of research effort, providing greater efficiency in use of research personnel and…

In this brief discussion of the evaluation of compensatory education, the author analyzes why it has been difficult to discover whether compensatory education has succeeded; in addition, why the causes of success or failure are difficult to assess. In particular, the author points out that the political and economic circumstances of programs make…

A number of recommendations are set forth with the purpose of moving toward greater comparability of research results and more efficient accumulation of knowledge. These recommendations include more precise definitions of variables and samples, the inclusion of marker variables, and a review of the literature to plan alignment of new studies with…

This is one of a series of eight short monographs intended to aid practicing educators in planning and conducting accountability programs in schools. This booklet discusses how to construct and utilize a mail questionnaire that is appropriate to the objectives of a particular research or evaluation effort. Short sections focus in turn on the…

Difficulties often encountered in conducting surveys in educational technology are described, and some guidelines are suggested for the design and implementation of a survey instrument. (RAO)

A status report on research in outdoor education needs to be written, including the establishment of research priorities, strategies to upgrade both research quality and researcher skills, and strategies for using research to improve outdoor education programs. (MJB)

The relationship between variables in applied and experimental research is often investigated by the use of extreme groups. Recent analytical work has provided an extreme group procedure that is more powerful than the standard correlational approach. The present article provides procedures to optimize power and thusly resources in such studies.…

This study examines the randomization process in twelve different social reform projects in the fields of health, education, and law. The implementation of the evaluation plan is discussed for each project. Recommendations are made for consideration by program administrators and researchers before planning and implementing true experimental…

Statistical analysis must be approached rationally and with intent. The application of statistical analysis under the guise of the classical experimental paradigm when the underlying statistical assumptions are not met, as is often the case in institutional research, is neither efficient nor likely to produce useful results. (Author/MSE)

Discusses "state of the art" of research in experiential education, gap between researchers and practitioners, and current practices and problems. Suggests refocusing attention in interpretive phase of research and evaluation and use of multimethod, multivariate approach. (NEC)

Discusses the problem of assigning subjects to one of several treatments based on their test scores. The success of each treatment is measured by different criterion. (RB)

Examines the role of importance, novelty, and plausibility of message information in producing belief change. Demonstrates that significant belief changes only occurred when message information was high in importance, novelty, and plausibility. (NKA)

Addresses intensive study of individual subject, emphasizing development of appropriate designs and analytical procedures for single-subject research. Treatment times should be randomly assigned to treatments, creating randomization. The assumption of random sampling is not met in single-subject experiments, however, data from a randomized…