Research related to identification of delinquents, causes of delinquency, and effective intervention to stop delinquency is reviewed in this paper. In summary, the review indicates that adolescent problems appear to be concentrated among those disadvantaged in a variety of ways. Further, the reviewed literature indicates that biases in the justice…

It has been suggested that surveys dealing with the incidence of crime among the elderly do not take into account the varying individual and group levels of fear and exposure to threat of victimization. Data from Law Enforcement Assistance Administration surveys were used to review the personal victimization of older persons, incorporating the…

The problem of change scores' correlation with initial status and the problem of low reliability in the measurement of change are addressed. By treating the correlation between initial status and change as a design problem rather than a statistical issue, research questions can be formulated in terms of changes in the shapes of growth curves…

Exploratory research suggests that denominational preferences, fundamentalism, and church attendance are related to an individual's position on political issues. A review of research reveals that religious beliefs are stable, developed early in life, and are central to an individual's other orientations. Research on religious orientation is…

A persistent problem in the evaluation of field-based projects is the lack of no-treatment comparison groups. Frequently, potential comparison groups are confounded by socioeconomic, racial, or other factors. Among the possible methods for dealing with this problem are various matching procedures, but they are cumbersome to use with multiple…

Because cognition is inherently inaccessible to observers, researchers interested in cognitive approaches to argumentation frequently rely on self-reports for data. Opponents to self-reports argue that such data have very limited value. They claim that when subjects are put in a position where they have to tell more than they can know, they…

The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to provide the reader with a guide to relevant research in the area of Gestalt therapy, techniques, and methods. The majority of the references are journal articles written within the last 5 years or documents easily obtained through interlibrary loans from local libraries. These references were…

Naturalistic inquiry (based on the ethnographic research paradigm) has the potential to supplement, or possibly to replace, quantitative experimental research in education. For years most reading researchers have used the experimental research design. This design fails to tap self-concept, value systems, purpose of and attitude toward reading,…

Noting the increasing interest in qualitative research in general and ethnographic research in particular, the authors of this report clarify the place of the latter within the former. The authors present six criteria for an ethnographic approach to education, illustrated with examples, and discuss ethnography's advantages and disadvantages. The…

The booklet addresses issues regarding the prevalence of mental retardation. Difficulties in obtaining prevalence figures are noted, specifically limitations of the use of the population curve. Prevalence studies are reviewed and methodological problems cited. Sex, age, and socioeconomic factors in the prevalence of mental retardation are…

A relationship exists between attitudes and some behaviors, and learners' attitudes are definitely influenced by mediated instruction. Attitudes can be defined and measured, using systematic processes such as self-reports, reports of others, sociometric procedures, or records. Researchers have examined the relationship between attitude positions…

Educational researchers have claimed that the quantitative and qualitative approaches to educational inquiry are, indeed, compatible. However, it would be unfortunate to discontinue this debate. The quantitative-qualitative debate began with the interpretive approach to social inquiry. Dilthey argued that since cultural/moral sciences differ from…

The high incidence of reported posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Vietnam veterans has prompted researchers to search for reliable assessment and treatment procedures for this disorder. Although some encouraging preliminary data on the use of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) have been obtained, it is uncertain if this…

Monte Carlo studies explored the sampling characteristics of Cohen's d and three approximations to Cohen's d when used as average effect size measures in meta-analysis. Reviews of 10, 100, and 500 studies (M) were simulated, with degrees of freedom (df) varied in seven steps from 8 to 58. In a two independent groups design, samples were obtained…

Because health behavior is often concerned with dynamic constructs, a longitudinal approach to measurement is needed. The Longitudinal Guttman Simplex (LGS) is a measurement model developed especially for dynamic constructs exhibiting cumulative, unitary development measured longitudinally. Data from the Television Smoking Prevention Project, a…