Stepwise regression is not an adequate technique to provide the best set of variables with which to predict the dependent variable. By using the stepwise regression method, one who attempts to select the best set of predictors of a given dependent variable will face more problems than he or she attempted to resolve. This is illustrated with an…

A study worked toward designing a small set of phonological, letter, and memory tasks that would allow teachers and other school personnel concerned with early intervention in reading to reliably identify children likely to develop reading disabilities (RD). A total of 446 kindergarten children from diverse geographic (west and east coasts),…

Many studies of family relationships in later adulthood fail to take into account earlier experiences. This study investigated predictors of family contact and closeness. Data were provided by 500 adult children (aged 22 to 72) and 190 adult siblings (aged 45 to 96) of elderly participants in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. Subjects rated the…

With few exceptions, virtually all research on the etiology of adolescent substance abuse has focused entirely on identifying risk factors while ignoring protective factors that insulate teenagers from drug involvement. This perspective fails to consider that protective forces may operate in both direct and interactive ways. This longitudinal…

Older persons (55 years and older) with cardiovascular disease are at increased risk for hospital readmission when compared to other subgroups of our population. This issue presents an economic problem, a concern for the quality and type of care provided, and an urgent need to implement innovative strategies designed to reduce the rising cost of…

Until recently the literature on the impact of child sexual abuse has consisted disproportionately of retrospective studies of adults. Research on children allows for a developmental perspective and includes the first efforts at longitudinal studies of sexual abuse victims. This literature also has important relevance to other theory and research…

In the first part of this paper, the current status of criterion-related validity research in the field of career development assessment is analyzed. It is shown that the results of intermediate and long-term follow-up studies--in contrast to studies in the same educational setting--provide only little evidence for the assumption that career…

A study investigated the relationships between social desirability (the tendency to seek socially and culturally approved behaviors) and argumentativeness, communication apprehension, and communication competence. Using R. Strahan and K. C. Gerbasi's Social Desirability Scales, from a pool of 259 undergraduate students, 70 students were identified…

It has been increasingly realized that (1) multivariate methods are essential in most quantitative studies (Fish, 1988; Thompson, 1992), and (2) all conventional parametric analytic methods are correlational and invoke least squares weights (e.g., the beta weights in regression) (Knapp, 1978; Thompson, 1991). The present paper reviews one very…

This exploratory study investigated whether the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) can predict an infant's behavior on mastery motivation tasks at 1 and 2 years of age. Subjects were 31 normal, full-term infants from white, mostly middle class families. Infants were assessed using the NBAS with Kansas Supplements (NBAS-K) at a…

This study examined whether cry acoustics enhance the prediction of developmental outcome in preterm infants, after accounting for medical and social variables. Selection criteria for 149 preterm subjects included being born at less than 35 weeks gestational age and less than 1,500 grams; for 25 term subjects, selection criteria included being…

A study created and examined a new communication trait--the willingness to collaborate. The Willingness to Collaborate Trait Scale was created. Scale reliability was demonstrated through analysis of internal consistency of the 13-item scale. A communication trait model predictive of trait willingness to collaborate was tested using 401…

Although graduate programs hope that their students will be committed to research in their careers, most students express ambivalence towards research. Identifying the variables that predict involvement in research thus seems crucial. In this study 136 doctoral students from a wide range of disciplines completed the Research Self-Efficacy Scale…

Inadequate samples, methodological deficiencies, and inadequate measures of delinquency and family structure have contributed to the confusion regarding the relationship between the broken home and delinquency. This investigation, seeking to overcome many of the deficiencies of earlier research, used a large, geographically diverse sample, a…

This paper describes a procedure for smoothing the proportions of a double-entry expectancy table which might be used in higher education admissions advising or other functions. The product of the smoothing procedure is a nomograph, a medium for displaying expectancies which provides pairs of individual values for two predictor variables rather…