Studies investigating the possible effects of age at immigration (a proxy for age at onset of second language learning) on second language acquisition among immigrants often explicitly take the effect of length of residence in the destination country (a measure of exposure to opportunities to learn the second language) into account. A third…

Over the last 50 years the process of producing transcripts of all kinds of interactions has become an important practice for researchers in a wide range of disciplines. Only rarely, however, has transcription been analyzed as a cultural practice. It is here argued that it is precisely the lack of understanding of what is involved in transcribing…

The standardization data for the California Verbal Learning Test-Second Edition (CVLT-II; D. C. Delis, J. H. Kramer, E. Kaplan, & B. A. Ober, 2000) were used to evaluate the base rate of 6 specific discrepancies between various key variables. The results indicated that CVLT-II performance discrepancies should equal or exceed 1 or 1.5 z score…

Comments on the article by J. S. Hyde (see record 2005-11115-001), in which Hyde reviewed meta-analytic evidence on gender differences and concluded that most psychological gender differences are in the close-to-zero or small range. The current author notes some omissions from Hyde's review, including the findings through other research large…

A recent paper by Yilmaz, Boone, and Andersen (2004) is criticized on four grounds. First, the paper does not have adequate definitions of "urban" and "sub"urban". Second, the interpretation of these terms for Ankara does not reveal the particular socio-economic circumstances existing there. Third, no clear grounds are…

The commonly used method of reliance on failure to reject the conventional null hypothesis as a positive indication of equivalence is questioned in a study. An alternative method, based on a re-visioning of the null hypothesis, is proposed which also avoids the uncontrolled type II error present in the traditional method.

Active parental consent policies have been blamed for low participation rates and selection bias (i.e., loss of "high-risk" youths) in school-based studies. In this article, the authors describe active consent procedures that produced an overall active consent rate of 79% in a sample of more than 4,500 middle school students attending 29…

The agonistic approach--aimed at embracing opposing perspectives as part of a qualitative research process and acknowledging that process as fundamentally political--sheds light on both the construction of and the resistance to research identities. This approach involves reflexively embedding interview situations into the ethnographic context as a…

The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the state of the research on testing accommodations, as well as to identify promising areas of research to further clarify and enhance understanding of current and emerging issues. The research described encompasses empirical studies of score comparability and validity studies, as well as…

This article raises some questions about the current policy context of debates on the link between research and teaching in academic work, specifically within university education departments. It draws selectively from a research project which investigated education academics' perceptions and experiences in Scotland and England but focuses…

The current article reviews the literature on school refusal behavior. Definitional inconsistencies, the effects of biased assessment processes, and the consequences of the lack of ethnic, racial, and economic diversity in school refusal research samples are highlighted. An increase in the use of low-income, ethnic minority, community samples in…

Compelling arguments for reform of statistical practices have been made in many disciplines, in some cases over several decades, but achieving reform has proved difficult. We discuss how reform has progressed--or not progressed--in psychology, medicine, and ecology and describe case studies of attempts by pioneering journal editors to change…

Purpose: Owing to increasing debts and lack of parental contribution to undergraduates' income, UK students are taking paid employment during term time in order to finance their studies. The aim of this investigation is to explore employed and non-employed students' perceptions of the impact of this paid employment on the university experience.…

This paper provides a framework for developing sampling designs in mixed methods research. First, we present sampling schemes that have been associated with quantitative and qualitative research. Second, we discuss sample size considerations and provide sample size recommendations for each of the major research designs for quantitative and…

Social sciences research is entrenched with particular values, beliefs, norms, and practices that students, faculty, and researchers reproduce over time. In this article, the author argues for extending what counts as research within the social sciences to be more inclusive of differing methodologies and writing genres. Using personal narrative,…