Many different techniques have been used to increase response rates to surveys. In this study, Federal Express overnight service was used to test the effectiveness of express mail in stimulating response to a mail survey of 132 physicians. The sample was randomly split into two groups. One group received the initial mailing by Federal Express…

Perhaps as a response to the unfulfilled promises of more scientific, experimental forms of educational research, interest in the case study has revived in recent years. Case studies are studies of individual, bounded systems having their own intrinsic interest and are usually naturalistic, or noninterventionist, in design. Case studies try to…

Investigated is the topic of research implementation and how it can affect evaluation results. Even when evaluations are well planned, the obtained results can be misleading if the conscientiously-constructed research plan is not correctly implemented in practice. In virtually every research arena, one finds major difficulties in implementing the…

The authors offer a detailed and systematic critique of Piaget's theory of cognitive development, examining it in relation to other theories of development. Chapter 1 points out some of the problems in building and evaluating scientific theories and considers contrasting approaches to cognitive development (including those which focus on…

The absence of firm knowledge about the nonintellectual activities of college students requires that care be taken about the information sources accepted and the way in which such information is phrased. A longitudinal study, conducted on the University of Wisconsin Madison campus on the nonintellectual factors in academic success, seeks to…

The University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) ought to reaffirm its commitment to theoretical research. Research in educational administration during the last twenty years has been applied or practical rather than purely theoretical or scientific. Although there is certainly a place for practical research, theoretical research ought…

Aggregation of data is, by definition, an obscuring of details for the sake of achieving a summary. It is, therefore, potentially harmful to accuracy. Attention should be given to the aggregation that scores undergo prior to statistical tests. Two familiar research designs where this is important are a) in two groups/one measure cases, and b) in…

Unanticipated obstacles and difficulties, endemic to industrial research in complex sociocultural settings, indicate that reliable conclusions concerning industrial life are problematic. Discussion of sampling biases reveals that error of unknown proportions is introduced into the research process: first, when decisions about whom to study are…

This report is a re-analysis of the data collected and analyzed by the Westinghouse Learning Corporation (WLC) and Ohio University concerning the average impact of Project Head Start on the cognitive development of a nationwide sample of children. The re-analysis was considered necessary because of unclear methodological issues in evaluation…

Reports on a study of the reasons why 40 of 125 persons did not respond to a questionnaire asking them about the accuracy of news stories in which they had been mentioned. (GW)

This article reviews reasons why research has shown so little application to practice. Among the reasons cited are: confusing definitions and terminology, failure to address questions which are important to practitioners, prevalence of inconclusive results, and failure to appreciate the political and social implications of research. (JDH)