This analysis reveals critical weaknesses surrounding the theoretical basis for the AIR (American Institutes for Research) evaluation design. It poses questions concerning the evaluation methodology. Specifically, it identifies major discrepancies in the identification of the target population, the selection of comparable control groups, test…

Reading research and reading instruction can each be grouped in two distinct categories, depending on the assumed source of control for the particular reading act that is studied or taught. "Outside-in" theorists view the reading process as beginning with print and ending with some representation or interpretation inside the brain, while…

Exploratory research with large numbers of variables and even larger numbers of relationships is likely to result in frequent Type II errors; that is falsely accepting an incorrect null hypotheses. There are three ways of reducing Type II errors: (1) choosing a lower significance level, which then increases the probability of Type I error; (2)…

Four major pieces of legislation enacted since 1974--Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (the "Buckley Amendment"), Amendment to the Freedom of Information Act, The National Research Act, and The Privacy Act--represent a broad scope, impacting the administration of research, funding procedures, and the very substance and techniques of…

This paper examines the challenges and problems involved in studying the Illinois school finance system, based on the experience of the Center for the Study of Educational Finance in studying the 1973 Illinois school finance reform. The first major section of the paper outlines the major variables in the 1973 Illinois reform and discusses problems…

The stated purpose of this paper is to attempt to formulate the dynamics of research as a process of exchange by discussing the authors' experience in responding to community resistance to a study of Anglo, Black, and Mexican-American parents and their elementary school children in a multi-ethnic urban community. (Author/JM)

Researchers who conducted 194 interviews surveys of low income populations returned mail questionnaires about their experiences; the results are interpreted as bearing upon both the ease or difficulty of interviewing poor people and how advisable it may be to employ interviewers matched to respondents by class and race/ethnicity in surveys of the…

Discusses four issues: the difference between policy research and basic research; the importance of policy research for basic research; the generalizability of field studies; and the relationship of both of the professor in the professional school to the client in the field and of the professional school to the overall society. (JM)

Argues that economic methodologies can be of great assistance in framing the problem of how much more should be spent on the educationally disadvantaged student than on his more advantaged counterpart, and in contributing to studies that address it; and outlines a simple macro-economic model of society which incorporates educational expenditure as…

Reviews previous attempts to achieve comparability in the comparative study of social mobility. Existing cross-national comparisons of mobility are said to be invalid. A scale is proposed as a basis for valid cross-national comparisons. Its properties and achieved results are discussed. (AM)

Questions about the limitations and potential contributions of projective techniques in research are considered and issues which limit the contributions of diagnostic assessment and projective techniques in clinical practice are examined. A proposal is made for conceptualizing diagnostic assessment as a more integral part of the therapeutic…

Because increasing the rate of student retention has become synonymous with higher college enrollments, there is a resurgence of interest in developmental programs and a need to identify what a developmental reading program can deliver in a total retention effort. Two issues from retention research confront college reading programs: the…

The problem of model estimation when the data are collinear was examined. Though the ridge regression (RR) outperforms ordinary least squares (OLS) regression in the presence of acute multicollinearity, it is not a problem free technique for reducing the variance of the estimates. It is a stochastic procedure when it should be nonstochastic and it…

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…