We examine the American landscape of higher education quantitative research concerning how gender and sex demographic information is collected. We use a directed content analysis to examine the prevalence and operationalization of gender and sex among widely used higher education survey instruments. Our findings illuminate a seemingly haphazard…

Outdoor adventure education (OAE) has a long history of being credited with the personal and social development (PSD) of its participants. PSD is notoriously difficult to measure quantitatively, yet stakeholders demand statistical evidence that given approaches to eliciting PSD are effective in their methods. Rightly or wrongly, many stakeholders…

The essay examines the variety of research methods and measures used in the first-year experience and students-in-transition field over the past 25 years. Interrogating the extant research, Kinzie explores whether the methods and analytic processes most commonly employed are adequate to advance our understanding of complex issues in the field. The…

Research findings on identification of factors associated with increasing response rates to mailed questionnaires are presented. Several tactics which have been used to effect a greater response rate are presented and explained. Physical factors, such as typed correspondence, have been shown to yield higher response rates than duplicated…

A major problem of research into religion is whether religion is uni- or multi-dimensional; a model maintaining the advantages of both approaches is suggested with general religiousness as a broad construct (higher order factor) that is subdivided into a set of more specific factors. (CMG)

This brief review of research examines the mail questionnaire as a research tool. Major topics reported are the advantages and disadvantages of mail surveys response rates, and questionnaire construction. Among the advantages reported are ease of distribution and tabulation, the possibility of a large sample and geographic range, low cost,…

Studies the current epistemological values of North American feminist psychologists. Explores whether the political commitments, personal identities, and professional activities of psychologists are systematically related to different worldviews and different beliefs about the nature of human experience. Lends support to the idea of situated…

Research has identified a number of effective means of maximizing returns to mailed questionnaires. The accompanying cover letter, the first contact with the potential respondents, may be the most important aspect of the survey. Studies indicate that the most effective cover letters incorporate personalization with an altruistic and/or egoistic…

A review of studies that used the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress with families rearing children with developmental disabilities identified three primary difficulties: (1) definitional problems: (2) multiple measures of the same construct that do not converge: and (3) failure to replicate. Solution strategies include separating demands,…

To investigate mistakes in the reporting of diagnostic efficiency statistics, all studies of the diagnostic performance of self-report scales in two psychological journals published between 1980 and 1991 were reviewed. Of 26 relevant studies, 9 had an error in calculation of diagnostic efficiency. Implications are discussed. (SLD)

Conducting observational research in a cross-cultural context invokes a unique set of difficulties. This paper describes sources of bias and threats to validity that are specific to cross-cultural research. It describes problems of cross-cultural research designs for descriptive studies, comparative research, and experimental research and outlines…

Discusses the importance of validating research data from questionnaires, exploring the difficulties presented in an attempt to validate questionnaire data regarding students' attitudes toward learning English in Japan. (Author/CB)

Notes how the wording of questions can affect the results of surveys and questionnaires. Suggests activities to help students become critical listeners, viewers, and readers. (RL)

This presentation is an informal discussion of a questionnaire context effect which led to an erroneous conclusion in analysis of data from the Monitoring the Future project; an annual survey of high school seniors that has occurred since 1975, and that focuses heavily on their drug use and attitudes about drugs. In 1980, the researchers reported…

This document consists of four symposium papers each providing a critical examination of a particular data collection technique in vocational education research. Texts of the following presentations are provided: "Mail Survey Research," by Betty Heath-Camp; "The Telephone Interview as a Data Collection Technique," by James P. Key; "The Personal…