Briefly reviews illustrative literature on willingness or unwillingness of older adults to participate in clinical trials, health promotion/disease prevention initiatives, and health programs to maintain or improve functioning of chronically ill older adults. Review provides overview of participation of older adults in health programs and…

Single-case study examined frank disclosure of important topics in brief exploratory psychotherapy, including topics closely related to recent, unintegrated stressor life event. Quantitative measures of emotion and control variables showed heightened levels of both emotionality and defensive control during discourse on topic of stressor event.…

Clarifies several issues regarding the effects of autocorrelated errors on Type I error in ordinary least-squares models. Demonstrates through Monte Carlo simulation the conditions under which distortion in Type I error is less than predicted by asymptotic theory. Suggests a recently developed small-sample method for time-series analyses. (SLD)

Studied results from five linking methods under the graded-response model using simulated data. Results show that differences in the linking coefficients are small. The five methods yielded similar results for longer common-item links with large sample sizes and when the distribution of item-location parameters matched the underlying trait…

This study developed a testing approach to increase sample size to approximately 450 scorable items, previously determined as necessary to optimize the reliability of a speech recognition test. The approach involves an interactive computer program which presents words in 50 three-word groups. The approach was evaluated with 100 persons with normal…

Assessed the robustness of an estimation method for multilevel and path analysis with hierarchical data proposed by B. Muthen (1989) with unequal groups and small sample sizes and in the presence of a low or high intraclass correlation. Simulation results show the effects of varying these conditions on the within-group and between-groups part of…

Monte Carlo methods were used to evaluate an EM algorithm used for the correction of missing data in latent class analysis. Findings regarding bias in parameter estimates suggest practical limits for the utility of the EM algorithm in terms of sample size and nonresponse rate. (SLD)

Empirical results based on comparison with Monte Carlo estimates and using sample sizes of 200, 100, 50, and 20 suggested that the bootstrap technique provides less biased and more consistent results than the jackknife technique for a case of canonical correlation analysis. (SLD)

Proposes and illustrates a new method by which "what if" analyses can be conducted using estimated true population effects. Use of these "what if" methods may prevent authors with large sample sizes from overinterpreting their small effects once they see that the small effects would no longer have been statistically significant with only a…

Shows why the two-step approach proposed by D. Robinson and J. Levine (1997) is inappropriate for the evaluation of empirical results and reiterates the preferred approach of increased sample size and the computation of confidence intervals. (SLD)

Supports a two-step approach to the estimation and discussion of effect sizes, making a distinction between single-study decision-oriented research and multiple-study synthesis. Introduces and illustrates the concept of "conclusion coherence." (Author/SLD)

Derived simplified equations to compute the standard error of the frequency estimation method for equating score distributions that are continuized using a uniform or Gaussian kernel function. Results from two empirical studies indicate that these equations work reasonably well for moderate size samples. (SLD)

Investigated the relationship between sample size, latent trait distribution, and item parameter estimation with the nominal response model through simulation. Results suggest guidelines for reasonable item parameter estimation. (SLD)

Provides select power and sample size tables and interpolation strategies associated with the root mean square error of approximation test of not close fit under standard assumed conditions. The goal is to inform researchers conducting structural equation modeling about power limitations when testing a model. (SLD)

Introduces a computer package written for Mathematica, the purpose of which is to perform a number of difficult iterative functions with respect to the squared multiple correlation coefficient under the fixed and random models. These functions include computation of the confidence interval upper and lower bounds, power calculation, calculation of…