Although a large body of research has investigated the possibility of motivational or attitudinal differences in men and women that would explain observable differences in levels of achievement, much of this research has failed to produce results. The failure of researchers to consider the characteristics of their college-student samples may have…

The value of physical or corporal punishment is disputed among psychologists; most regard it as harmless, although a subgroup of researchers has controversially suggested that parental use of physical punishment may be causally related to the development of aggression. Thus, the psychological community appears to have separated into determined…

This literature review examines research issues in anorexia nervosa, including conceptual issues and methodological considerations. Research on the family's contribution to the disorder is reviewed. The demographic characteristics of social class, birth order, history of sexual abuse, and biological and genetic factors are examined. Individual…

The paper examines the goals and effects of early intervention with infants at risk for possible developmental problems. Four components of San Francisco Infant Program are noted: (1) services to children, (2) parent involvement, (3) a transdisciplinary team approach, and (4) a research-based model. The research problems associated with…

Three computer simulations were conducted to show that very high aggregate predictive validity coefficients can occur when the across-case variability in absolute score stability occurring in both the predictor and criterion matrices is quite small. In light of the increase in internal consistency reliability achieved by the method of aggregation…

Although it is widely known that special assumptions are needed for univariate analysis of repeated measures data, researchers seldom examine their data for violation of these assumptions. This paper reviews ways in which repeated measures analyses are usually handled and describes limitations of these methods. A design with two within subject…

Principles of program evaluation research are outlined so that bilingual education program coordinators can conduct methodologically acceptable program evaluations. The three basic principles of evaluation research are: identification of the program participants, definition of the program intervention, and assessment of program effectiveness.…

Surveys current methodologies and problems in enrollment forecasting at the State and institutional level. (Author/MLF)

Of 460 two-year colleges responding to a national survey in 1973-74, 63 percent reported some kind of institutional research, but only 15 percent reported that their colleges routinely based important decisions on the results of this research. The most popular areas of research were students, student services, and institutional operations. Other…

A critical overview is presented of the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Zimbardo and his coinvestigators in which they attempted a structural analysis of the problems of imprisonment. Key assumptions are questioned, primarily on methodological grounds, which casts doubts on the plausibility of the experimenters' final causal inferences.…

Piaget's class-inclusion task was revised class-inclusion tasks were administered to 64 kindergarten and 64 first-graders. Each of the revisions enhanced performance as compared with Piaget's standard procedures. These results are considered in terms of two possible interpretations. (Author/SDH)

This paper discusses problems encountered by researchers in applying the guidelines of Finkelhor (1986) for the selection of research instruments for gathering data on the effects of child sexual abuse. Discussion focuses on measures of effects of the abuse experience, measures of post-abuse experiences, and of mediating variables. The data…

Social studies research has been criticized for sampling bias, inappropriate methodologies, incorrect or inappropriate use of statistics, weak or ill-defined treatments, and lack of replication and/or longitudinal follow-up. In an effort to ascertain whether past criticisms were true of current research as well, a review was conducted of 118…

A discussion of the data obtained from grammaticality judgment tasks argues that despite the light shed by these data on problems of second language acquisition theory, there is not yet adequate knowledge of how to interpret those data within a coherent model of performance of the tasks. Therefore, it is concluded, there is no basis for deciding…