Presented is a collection of abstracts of selected technical reports, journal articles, and other documents resulting from research supported by the directorates of the National Science Foundation. Reports are grouped by sponsoring directorate: Biological, Behavioral and Social Sciences; Engineering; and Scientific, Technological and Industrial…

Presents field data to examine family responsibility in caring for Alzheimer's disease patients. Addresses features of social comparison, issue contingency, family history, and kinship priority. Argues that qualitative analysis offers empirical lessons about family responsibility and caregiver functioning untaught by other methods. (Author)

Reports on measures of marital success based both on rates of divorce and separation and on the quality of intact marriages constructed from U.S. national survey data gathered over the 15-year period from 1973 to 1988. Concludes that the probability of ever-married persons attaining and maintaining marital success dropped in the past few years.…

Describes how an educational anthropologist's study objectives developed during fieldwork conducted in a fundamentalist Christian school and community. Asserts that this narrative reflects the strong relation of problem finding to problem solving in the practice of naturalistic inquiry. (KH)

Uses three hermeneutical or quasi-hermeneutical studies in career development to illustrate important dimensions of this type of research. Discusses collecting, recording, and analyzing research material and presenting the interpretative framework. Addresses issues of subjectivity, reliability, validity, accessibility, feasibility, and…

Notes that studies in psychology often have low power because of inadequate sample size and that prevalent psychometric distributions are sometimes radically nonnormal. Demonstrates robustness of independent samples t-test with respect to Type I error. Shows that researchers may use power tables based on population normality without modification…

Attempts to demystify the process of conducting cost-effectiveness research by defining relevant terms and describing the necessary steps. Two previous cost-effectiveness studies of family-based treatment are briefly described to illustrate cost-analysis procedures that may be used in future family therapy research. (Author)

Typical period of unemployment lasts two or three months. Length of unemployment period varies depending on age, sex, race, and education level. Older, college-educated workers often face job search period of four to six months. One in three unemployed persons stops looking for work and withdraws from the labor force (at least temporarily) before…

Presents log-linear methods for ordinal data, known as association models, which take ordinality of variables into account and provide flexible and parsimonious modeling tool to study family behavior and interaction. Explains uniform association model and applies it to nationally representative data to examine how ordinal scale of marital…

Demonstrates how to extend basic concepts embodied in Holland's hexagon of six general types of occupations. Illustrates procedures for locating counselees and occupations on hexagon, noting that procedures, which are compatible with scores from wide variety of assessment instruments, can help counselees identify and explore occupational options.…

Reviews methods for analyzing outcome data when some data are missing. Presents approach for comparing outcome results in two-group, randomized design with missing data. Proposed analysis is based on concept of "modeling our ignorance" by examining all possible outcomes, given known number of missing results with binary outcome, and then…

The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) was begun in 1958 to trace the effects of aging in humans and to distinguish between the true effects of aging and those processes, including disease, socioeconomic disadvantage, and lack of educational opportunity, that may appear or become more pronounced with time but are biologically irrelevant…

Interviewed adolescents to record personal situations they experienced concerning food, nutrition, and/or eating. Situation "movement states" were identified to determine qualitative ways in which adolescents perceived themselves as dealing with situations described. Data indicated that this theoretical base may be used by nutrition educators to…

Three-state study used Issues Validation, environmental scanning process for family life educators that combines literature reviews, professional and public opinion, and survey research to identify issues facing families and youth. Samples of residents, local advisory committees, and community professionals ranked 30 issues facing families and…

Suggests the existence of a third major organizational role for public relations: "communication executive," composed mainly of corporate senior vice presidents of public relations and communication who report directly to CEOs. Reports on a survey of those in this role, and shows that communications methods used five years ago to…