The authors encourage those in the field of school psychology to consider the use of learning disabilities assessment practices in relation to specific American Psychological Association and National Association of School Psychologists ethical codes and in regard to the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association,…

Considers relationship between statistically and clinically significant change. Sees Jacobson and Truax's index of clinically significant change as neglecting possible confounding of improvement rate estimates by regression to the mean. Describes alternative method (Edwards-Nunnally method) that incorporates an adjustment that minimizes this…

Describes practical problems and issues that arose during multisite and single site studies that used qualitative research methods. Studies described include study of student involvement in out-of-class learning opportunities at 14 institutions of higher education and study of what students learned as result of membership in National PanHellenic…

Describes prospective longitudinal studies that pertain to stability, developmental pathways, and long-term outcome for conduct problems and hyperactivity. Reviews treatment outcome studies for these problems with at least one year of follow-up data. Discusses implications of longitudinal research for diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of…

Addresses methodological and ethical issues in context of three related school-based studies of primary and targeted prevention of depressive symptoms and disorder in high school adolescents. Issues discussed include obtaining subject consent and protection of confidentiality, minimizing attrition, unit of assignment issue, and ensuring therapist…

Describes hypothesis validity as extent to which research results reflect theoretically derived predictions about relations between or among constructs. Discusses role of hypotheses in theory testing. Presents four threats to hypothesis validity: (1) inconsequential research hypotheses; (2) ambiguous research hypotheses; (3) noncongruence of…

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…

Gotlib and Asarnow suggest that learned helplessness may not adequately model clinical depression. They reply to Rohsenow's criticism that Gotlib and Asarnow's conclusions are unwarranted because the null hypothesis is not demonstrated by a single study and because adequate diagnostic criteria are not presented. (Author/BEF)

Describes two research projects linking family processes with elementary school children's competence in school to provide examples of methodological issues related to investigations that cross systems of family and school. Issues discussed include gaining cooperation from school, recruitment and consent procedures, data collection and measurement…

Presents both logical and empirical evidence to illustrate that the conventional scoring algorithm for ranking tasks significantly underestimates the initial level of group ability and that Slevin's alternative scoring algorithm significantly overestimates the initial level of ability. Presents a modification of Slevin's algorithm which authors…

Amplifies a recent article by the author on influences for religious endogamy. A more appropriate indicator, called the Index of Influences for Endogamy, indicates influences of virtually equal strength for Catholics and Protestants, challenging the earlier conclusion of stronger Catholic than Protestant influences. (JAC)

Notes that psychotherapy process research has produced advances in measure development and substantive findings of process-outcome relations. Describes paradigm shift toward sequentially patterned, significant change episodes, emphasizing segmentation of process by meaningful patterns wherever they occur. Reviews theoretical, psychometric, and…

Discusses problems and issues of psychotherapy process research. Notes complexity of research that attempts to combine process and outcome adequately. Suggests that more than one therapeutic orientation be studied in specific project to include some type of control. Cautions that, although statistically significant correlations between process and…

Notes that polytomous item response theory (IRT) models are appropriate for Likert scale and other polytomous item types. Presents polytomous IRT models, including graded response, nominal response, partial credit, and rating scale models. (Author/NB)

Discusses the role of research methodology as disciplined inquiry in educational research. Uses examples to address issues of generalizability of results, precision, and choice of research methods. (MK)