The paper summarizes and presents counter arguments against positions claiming that randomized experiments in early childhood are unnecessary, impractical, or unethical. It is concluded that more frequent use of randomized experiments in early childhood special education would provide more effective program evaluation data for resource allocation…

The question studied was whether opinions of persons interviewed about educational interests and perceived needs at randomly selected geographic locations in a metropolitan area differed from those of three other persons living in the immediate vicinity. With few significant exceptions, no statistically significant differences were found between…

This study examined those characteristics of a sequence to which children respond when they are presented with partially learnable sequences followed by a series of trials on which all responses are correct. (Author/RK)

Author, who teaches psychology at Wesleyan University, discusses the differences in approach to teaching of the traditionalist" teacher and the teacher concerned with experiments in which emotions and life relevance play a central part." (Author/DR)

Author describes an experimental unit, the Utopia Project, given in the College of Basic Studies at Boston University, and shows how it works with examples of actual projects undertaken by students. (DR)

The methodology suggested in this paper employs a selection rule for identifying group members that generates groups that have a range of achievement within groups but equal distribution of raw scores between. (Author/BW)

Guidelines for protection of human subjects in survey research demand that research designs provide for subjects'"informed consent." This paper reports procedures employed within a study of marijuana and other drug use which were in compliance yet avoided problems of nonparticipation and the gathering of inaccurate information. (Author)

A QuickBASIC program is described that can be used to conduct Dunnett-like comparisons on a set of independent proportions. The statistical method used, based on Levy's statistical method (1975), is an extension of the well-known Dunnett test for multiple comparisons on means. (Author/SLD)

A formula that is simpler to calculate than the Kappa statistic of J. Cohen is presented for the situation where each subject in an experiment is rated on a nominal scale by two or more judges. Equivalence with Pearson's chi-square statistic in this situation is demonstrated. (SLD)

A total of 685 articles in "Mental Retardation,""American Journal of Mental Deficiency," and "American Journal on Mental Retardation" from 1980 through 1989 were examined. The mental retardation classification system developed by the American Association on Mental Retardation was used in over 50 percent of the…

The effect of reducing the number of score groups in the matching criterion of the Mantel-Haenszel procedure when screening for differential item functioning was investigated with a simulated data set. Results suggest that more than modest reductions cannot be recommended when ability distributions of reference and focal groups differ. (SLD)

This study examined the influence of challenge-based recreation on the collective efficacy of families with at-risk adolescents. Thirty-four families participated in one of three experimental groups and a control group. Collective family recreation efficacy and conflict resolution efficacy increased for families in all three recreation contexts.…

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that performance assessment increases educational value in teaching-learning activities using a quasi-experimental research design. In this research, the three measurement criteria of educational value are suggested as "improvement & advancement," "sincerity & enthusiasm," and "individuality &…