Mobile technologies, specifically smartphones, offer social scientists a potentially powerful approach to examine the social world. They enable researchers to collect information that was previously unobservable or difficult to measure, expanding the realm of empirical investigation. For research that concerns resource-poor and hard-to-reach…

Instrumental variable estimators hold the promise of enabling researchers to estimate the effects of educational treatments that are not (or cannot be) randomly assigned but that may be affected by randomly assigned interventions. Examples of the use of instrumental variables in such cases are increasingly common in educational and social science…

Statistical reform in school psychology research is discussed in terms of research designs, measurement issues, statistical modeling and analysis procedures, interpretation and reporting of statistical results, and finally statistics education.

Methodology texts argue and many researchers may believe that normality of distribution is a sufficient condition for inferring that interval scale measurement has been achieved. It has also been argued that ordinal measurements cannot be normally distributed. Counter examples and a general result show such reasoning to be fallacious. (Author/RH)

The historic origins of measurement are traced, and the basic requirements for fundamental measurement are outlined. Studying the history of social science measurement shows specific pitfalls the researcher must avoid. Applications of item response theory to social science measurement are discussed. (SLD)