Randomized response techniques (RRTs) are useful survey tools for estimating the prevalence of sensitive issues, such as the prevalence of doping in elite sports. One type of RRT, the unrelated question model (UQM), has become widely used because of its psychological acceptability for study participants and its favorable statistical properties.…

Audit correspondence studies are field experiments that test for discriminatory behavior in active markets. Researchers measure discrimination by comparing how responsive individuals ("audited units") are to correspondences from different types of people. This article elaborates on the tradeoffs researchers face between sending audited…

Many problems confront researchers who are developing appropriate methods to determine the effects of sexual abuse. Particularly serious problems arise when the victims are children who were abused while attending a day care center. Several methods for studying child sexual abuse have been recommended. This paper discusses problems researchers…

Examines issues related to the design and interpretation of high-risk depression research, including the identification of symptoms and syndromes, categorical versus dimensional scales, aspects of depression to be considered, specificity of effects, use of process measures, and conceptualization of risk and resilience. (MDM)

This article discusses methodologic limitations of four observational study designs (ecologic, case-control, cross-sectional, and cohort) that dominate the child abuse and neglect literature and identifies key features of an "ideal" study of child maltreatment. It proposes a new mixed-design strategy, which improves ability to identify child…

An alternative method of identifying effective schools, based on the concept of effective schools as statistically atypical, was tested. This paper investigates the issue of consistency of the identification of what is termed "exceptional" schools. The following tests were administered to all first through fourth graders in 431 schools…

Model identification of time-series data is essential to valid statistical tests of intervention effects. Model identification is, at best, inexact in the social and behavioral sciences where one is often confronted with small numbers of observations. These problems are discussed, and the results of independent identifications of 130 social and…

The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The SASS is a set of integrated self-administered surveys designed to obtain national information on all aspects of the school system. The Teacher Listing Form (TLF) is the first in the SASS series. It is sent to the…

This review of the literature on employer satisfaction with vocational education graduates is based on a search for representative studies with different methodologies and from different sources. Observations made are organized into four basic categories: (1) theoretical considerations in conducting research; (2) methodological considerations in…

Reviews several potential problems that often invalidate statistical tests of social theories. Discusses how there may be very serious identification problems in the estimation of the relationship between executions and homicides, and that serious questions may be raised regarding the validity of any particular estimation of this relationship.…