The high school completion rate for the U.S. has increased only slightly over the last quarter of a century. A promising area of focus for dropout prevention efforts may be found in research that assesses how messages about educational attainment may affect school completion rates. The supportive communication framework is used to address how…

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to show that The Netherlands offers an interesting case of apprenticeship as part of an elaborated system of vocational education, combining school and workplace learning. For reaching objectives of vocational education with regard to effective problem solving on the job and work process knowledge the quality…

The U.S. dominant culture's values and ways of knowing depicted in college curriculum assume that American Indian/Alaska Native college students will assimilate to dominant cultural beliefs and values in order to acquire a degree in higher education. Representative of this hegemonic pedagogical paradigm is the prescribed basic communication course…

As performance-based assessments have gained wider use, there are increasing concerns about their dependability. This study is a synthesis of existing studies regarding the reliability or generalizability of performance assessments. The meta-analysis involves summarizing, examining, and evaluating research findings. Articles on the dependability…

Meta-analysis, a way of cumulating the results of research studies, focuses on the magnitudes of effect sizes and seeks to explain effects through study characteristics. This meta-analysis used the methods developed by G. V. Glass to summarize the research on mail survey response rate manipulations. A narrative review using the same studies set…

Meta analytic procedures recommended by various authorities were the subject of a literature review designed not to discuss the relative merits of contrasting recommendations, but to find what is actually in the literature. The sample reviewed included 89 articles published between 1986 and 1992, from 2 journals and 2 information databases. Meta…

This report provides a review of reviews concerning the effects of stimulant medication on children with attention deficit disorders (ADD) conducted by a special federally funded center at the University of California (Irvine). Both computer searching and nomination by ADD experts were used to identify the 336 reviews examined. All reviews were…

Findings from a study that examined the relationship between two educational movements--effective schools and nongradedness--are presented in this paper. Methodology involved: (1) a research review of studies conducted from January 1968 to June 1991 that compared graded and nongraded student performance using standardized objective measures; and…

A meta-analysis examined sex-related differences in conflict styles to resolve some of the competing claims about the existence, antecedents, and nature of these differences. To explore the effect of biological sex on the selection of conflict management strategies (CMS), existing studies relevant to sex differences in the selection of CMS were…

While public opinion associates old age with loneliness, some social scientists argue that emotional responses such as loneliness decline in the later years of life. The purpose of this study was to empirically examine life cycle fluctuations in loneliness. To do so, a meta-analysis of 14 data sets involving over 25,000 respondents was performed.…

The assumptions and consequences of applying conventional and newer statistical methods to meta-analytic data sets are reviewed. The application of the two approaches to a meta-analytic data set described by L. V. Hedges (1984) illustrates the differences. Hedges analyzed six studies of the effects of open education on student cooperation. The…

The relationship between attitudes and behavior has been a topic of considerable debate. Accordingly, this paper reports a meta-analysis of 83 attitude-behavior studies. The analysis suggests that attitudes significantly predict future behavior (combined p<<.000000000001); the average attitude-behavior correlation (ABC) is r=.38. Methodologically,…

The structural model of positive and negative cognition derives from principles of information processing, intrapersonal communication, and cybernetic self-regulation. The model proposes five distinct states of mind quantitatively defined by the proportion of positive to total cognition. A positive dialogue with a set point proportion of .618 plus…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how multiple linear regression provides a viable statistical methodology for dealing with meta-analysis in general, and specifically with the issues of nonindependence and design complexity, such as multiple treatments. Since the F-test and t-test are special cases of the general linear model,…

Since meta-analysis was described in 1976 (Glass) as the application of familiar experimental methods to the integration of available research, at least five coherent approaches to meta-analysis have appeared in common use. These approaches can be divided into two broad groups. In the first group (including procedures by Robert Rosenthal, Larry…