Scholars study representative international surveys to understand cross-cultural differences in mentality patterns, which are measured via complex multi-item constructs. Methodologists in this field insist with increasing vigor that detecting "non-invariance" in how a construct's items associate with each other in different national…

This article investigates the quality of social scientific listening research that reports numerical data to substantiate claims appearing in the "International Journal of Listening" between 1987 and 2011. Of the 225 published articles, 100 included one or more studies reporting numerical data. We frame our results in terms of eight…

Suggests that personality assessment is an organic and logical extension of personality theory, and its role is nonoverlapping but complementary to that of experimental social psychology in the study of human social behavior. (Author)

Research using measures of racial exposure has been appearing with increasing frequency in the literature on race relations. A methodological analysis finds the following problems with these measures: (1) they fail to characterize meaningfully the actual composition of sub-areas; (2) a particular exposure value can describe a wide variety of…

In answer to criticism of the dissimilarity index in measuring the amount of segregation (occupational and racial) in communities, the author has developed an index which reflects differences between cities possessing concentrated ghettos and those with multiple residential clusters. The proximity measure incorporates spatial qualities directly…

Methodological issues which confront researchers using the concept of the family career include the selection of appropriate dependent variables; the efficacy of historical versus immediate effects; and scaling the family career (a proposed replacement for the "family life cycle"). The issue of which dependent variables should be…

Three studies were conducted to test the beliefs that respondents' lack of opinions on public issues offer a realistic explanation for the inconsistencies of opinion measurement and that public opinion researchers may err by forcing respondents to express opinions they really do not hold. The first study, a survey of 612 adults, asked the subjects…

This technical document, part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759, describes a basic model of panel analysis used in a study of the causes of institutional and structural change in nations. Panel analysis is defined as a record of state occupancy of a sample of units at two or more points in time; for example, voters disclose voting…

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. The chapter advocates the analysis of event-histories (data giving the number, timing, and sequence of changes in a categorical dependent variable) with maximum likelihood estimators (MLE) applied to log-linear rate models. Results from a Monte Carlo investigation of the impact…

Four problems are identified concerning politics and power as they relate to public schooling. The first problem is the definition of basic terms and the development of a vocabulary common to researchers investigating the field. Second is the problem of collecting information on and evidence of the political process. This problem is complicated by…

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. Addressing the problems of studying change and the change process, the report argues that sociologists should study coupled changes in qualitative and quantitative outcomes (e.g., marital status and earnings). The author presents a model for sociological studies of change in…

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. The chapter examines the merits of four estimators in the causal analysis of event-histories (data giving the number, timing, and sequence of changes in a categorical dependent variable). The four procedures are ordinary least squares, Kaplan-Meier least squares, maximum…

In this essay, inquiry concerning school organizations is likened to a hunt and some "hunting stories" are told. The stories deal with two areas of inquiry related to pupil control. One area is concerned with the instruments that serve as operational definitions or measures in the author's pupil control research. The other was concerned with a…

Methodologies for life course analyses must explain complex biological, psychosocial, and social factors which result in various patterns of life trajectories. Four problems are characteristic of current research: a seemingly endless list of potentially significant variables; a dearth of life course theory beyond childhood to assist in targeting…

This document is part of a series of chapters described in SO 011 759. This chapter reports the results of Monte Carlo simulations designed to analyze problems of using maximum likelihood estimation (MLE: see SO 011 767) in research models which combine longitudinal and dynamic behavior data in studies of change. Four complications--censoring of…