This article illustrates how social research has moved into the public policy process while retaining the essential characteristics of research. It also shows how concerns about participant confidentiality have interacted with attempts by the General Accounting Office to analyze data. Journal availability: see TM 503 798. (CP)

Demonstrates that in research about prison sentencing different definitions and alternate techniques yield different results. Offers two conceptualizations of the sentencing decision and then applies either discriminate or multivariate analysis accordingly. Concludes that such definitions shape the research question, direct the focus of inquiry,…

Notes problems caused by untrained persons and excavators at archaeological sites and lists contacts for persons interested in working at sites in New York State. When excavations are merely a part of a minor unit, students lack the broader picture gained by a thorough study of the site. (KC)

Numerous researchers have found that drug education programs produce little or no apparent change in students' attitudes. The present paper points out possible reasons for such findings. Suggestions are made for some methodological alternatives, and a study in which such methods were effectively used is discussed. (Author)

Provides a detailed description of an experiment involving a particular method of teaching poetry to a class of high ability boys and draws attention to some common educational research procedures and their attendant problems. (DD)

This article discusses the ethical issues involved in research on human "in vitro" fertilization, laboratory experimentation with human embryos, and the intrauterine transfer of such embryos for the purpose of assisting human reproduction. (Author/MC)

In examining the concept "rural" and the rural sociologist's perspective towards the world, it is concluded that the concept "rural" is poorly understood for the purpose of "normal science," and that the world should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than stable fact. (KR)

Describes changes to be made in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) system of peer review approving grants for research proposals. (SL)

If social scientists are to offer useful insights into schooling, the nature of schools as sociological environments needs to be examined. Statistical effects are not the same as social causality and explaining statistical variance is not sociological explanation. (Author/AM)

It is concluded, on the basis of this study, that respondents who are poor and/or of racial or ethnic minority backgrounds require unconventional rules of survey procedure. (Author/AM)

Three tentative conclusions emerge from this study: (1) interviewer effect operates only when questions treat opinions and attitudes, (2) black respondents are more likely to identify "racially sensitive" problems as areas of high concern when speaking to black interviewers, and (3) militant blacks appear uninfluenced by the white…

Field research in the gay world is shaped by two factors: the secrecy of many gay groups, and the stigmatization both of gays and of researchers who study them. Some relevant strategies and tactics of field research are discussed. (Author/AM)

It is possible to devise ingenious means for adapting basic methodological techniques to meet exigencies of the research situation while still meeting the requirements for the collection of valid data. (Author/AM)

Describes development of a computer-assisted instructional tool which provides linkages among the language of college students, the conceptual terminology of sociology, and the classification descriptors used by reference librarians and professional indexers and abstractors. The computer system helps students to focus their research questions and…

Family socioeconomic status, ability, high school curriculum, scholarship receipt, age, race, marital status, enrollment status, employment status, and type of college attended were examined. The importance of these factors varied widely with year of college completed. Results demonstrated that these factors cannot be molded into a single equation…