Background/Context: This essay reviews recent demographic literature on school transitions. I describe how a demographic perspective, by which I mean using methods that are standard in the study of population processes, is a useful way to examine differences in access to and completion of post secondary schooling in the United States.…

Several available summaries of research on coaching for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) are summarized and their principal findings discussed. Some additional studies, that have been completed since these summaries were reported, are considered and linked to the summaries. The four major meta-analyses considered are those of: (1) Messick and…

The research on response facilitation factors in mail surveys is reviewed, and background is developed to enable the comparison of results obtained by two analytic approaches, a descriptive analysis and a meta-analysis, using the same set of studies. Specific criteria for sample and methodology were applied to studies extracted from four CD-ROM…

This review focuses on the effects of multiple contacts with respondents on studies of response rates to mail surveys. After screening articles on research criteria, such as the presence of original research and sufficient reporting detail, 28 studies remained of the original 208 identified. The difference in response rate between treatment and…

Communication apprehension (CA) refers to a family of related terms: (a) reticence, (b) shyness, (c) unwillingness to communicate; and (d) stage fright. One pervasive but not totally substantiated assumption in current literature is the relationship between the level of communication apprehension and the level of communication skill demonstrated…

Given that theory is a crucial component of path analysis and that major theories in the social sciences either directly or by inference assume interaction, it appears that interaction has to be considered in path analytic models that reflect those theories. The use of interaction within the framework of path analytic methodology is investigated…

A meta-analysis is performed to determine if the cognitive style construct of field dependence/independence is related to achievement in computer programming. The studies for this meta-analysis came from three major sources: computer searches of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), Psychological Abstracts, and Education Index…

The meta-analytic techniques of G. V. Glass (1976) and J. E. Hunter and F. L. Schmidt (1977) were compared through their application to three meta-analytic studies from education literature. The following hypotheses were explored: (1) the overall mean effect size would be larger in a Hunter-Schmidt meta-analysis (HSMA) than in a Glass…

The effectiveness of assessment centers in evaluating desirable criteria for the principalship is examined in this report, with a focus on the identification of the most effective evaluation criteria. This study explored a variety of factors in the preparation of school personnel for assessment, the actual National Association of Secondary School…

As in processing oral speech, proficient reading involves "chunking" written texts into meaningful phrase units. Unlike oral speech, however, cues for segmenting the written text at the proper points are not clearly marked in the text. One method for helping readers identify and use phrase boundaries is to mark such boundaries in the…

A meta-analysis of studies of the impact of new science curricula on the performance of students was initially conducted in 1983 as part of a coordinated program of meta-analysis of research on science education. This paper reports the results of a re-synthesis of the research dealing with student performance in the new science curriculum using…

On many campuses, student ratings of courses and teachers are routinely given to instructors as feedback about their teaching. This review applies meta-analytic techniques to 30 studies of the effectiveness of student ratings feedback. The studies met the following criteria: (1) they used student ratings as the primary source of feedback; (2) they…

The present study involved a meta-analysis of 157 studies in which only children were compared with individuals raised with siblings. Findings failed to confirm the persistent negative stereotype of only children as maladjusted and disadvantaged. In fact, results suggested that only children are advantaged with respect to intelligence, educational…

The report examines three major research thrusts of the Early Intervention Research Institute at Utah State University. First, meta analysis, a procedure used to review and integrate results of 156 studies (1937-1983) on the efficacy of early intervention with handicapped, at-risk, or disadvantaged children, is evaluated and its needs established.…

A general model is described which can be used to represent the four common types of meta-analysis: (1) estimation of effect size by combining study outcomes; (2) estimation of effect size by contrasting study outcomes; (3) estimation of statistical significance by combining study outcomes; and (4) estimation of statistical significance by…