It is suggested that the functions of an institutional review board are to educate, inform, and assist in protocol preparation as well as to review applications in order to ensure that human subjects involved in research are protected. The University of Texas Health Science Center also mediates, exerts peer pressure, and influences policy as it…

Problems in research on psychological androgyny include rigidly held values, dubious definitional assumptions, diffuse and atheoretical research directions, and alienation from basic concerns in "mainstream" personality research. An idiographic model of sex roles, defined herein, would increase the predictive utility of assessment in such…

Assumptions of applied behavior analysis are presented: (1) good practice should be good research; (2) behavioral goals, procedures, and effects should be socially validated; and (3) a systems perspective should be adopted when focusing on behavior analysis and intervention. (Author/JAC)

Concludes that there is no evidence for differential validity in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) between racial subgroups and that black norms for the MMPI are premature. Criticism of these findings is also presented. (Author/BEF)

Examined in this essay are theoretical propositions and empirical evidence that have been used to generate support for the notion that Black people harbor feelings of self-rejection and self-hatred. It is argued that few studies actually show that the majority of their Black subjects exhibit self-hatred responses. (Author/EB)

Some of the problems faced by the Rom (Gypsies) in the United States include stereotyped images, attitudes, and cultural traits that are considered quite different from those that are commonly accepted in American society. Research on this group is especially difficult to conduct. (Author/EB)

Addresses the problem of defining the high school economics course and notes the consequent difficulty of measuring teaching and learning effectiveness. Identifies a two-step factor analysis/regression procedure as an effective technique in economic education research. (KC)

Factor scale scores are sometimes used as weights to create composite variables representing the variables included in a factor analysis. If these composite variables are then used to predict some dependent variable, serious theoretical and methodological problems arise. This paper explores these problems and suggests strategies for circumventing…

Suggests that personality assessment is an organic and logical extension of personality theory, and its role is nonoverlapping but complementary to that of experimental social psychology in the study of human social behavior. (Author)

The author reviews research on the origins of life, beginning with Thales (636 B.C.), synthesized by C. Darwin in "The Origin of Species," continued by H. DeVries' mutation theory, and enhanced by the discovery in 1944 of DNA. For journal availability, see SO 505 260. (AV)

Examining the validity of a theory scientifically requires careful attention to how one interprets data. Unfortunately the process is not clear-cut; the theoretical meaning of empirical data is not obvious. The experimental study by Avery et al. (1976) of empathic understanding (EU) is analyzed along with Horwitz's (1977) rejoinder. (Author)

Finds, among other things that a positive relationship exists between communication satisfaction and employees' organizational commitment and that school teachers were significantly more satisfied with communication practices and more committed to their organization than were employees of two other Guatemalan organizations (a hospital and a food…

Raises concerns about using interview data in phenomenological research, arguing such data are more related to discourse and the interviewee's perception of what is appropriate to say in the context than to "ways of experiencing," which is the object of study in phenomenography. Also argues that in important respects, discursive…

Considering how important analogies are to human thinking, it is surprising how little attention educators and educational researchers give them. Valid research results can lead to false conclusions if viewed through the mental filter of a faulty analogy. This article examines two policy problems (prison literacy/recidivism rates and vanishing…