This is a critical review of methodological issues in the evaluation of adult literacy education programs in the United States. It addresses the key research questions: What are the appropriate methods for evaluating these programs under given circumstances. It identifies 15 evaluation studies that are representative of a range of adult literacy…

The purpose of this study was to validate and extend the findings of an exhaustive literature search in Year 1 and a meta-analysis in Year 2 of a 3-year project in which nine (9) small-group discussion approaches were identified. Having identified parameters of discussion that were, to a greater or lesser extent, present in these nine discussion…

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) struggle in the area of academics as well as behavior, and these academic difficulties manifest a great deal in mathematics. The number of children with EBD served in general education settings is increasing, and mathematics curriculum is expanding to include additional content areas and more…

S. Jackson and S. Jacobs' article entitled "Generalizing about Messages" represents an important methodological innovation in communication research. The article urges procedural change by recommending the use of multiple-message designs because of a weakness in single-message designs; it recommends analyzing message-replication data…

This work supplements a previous work, "Philosophical Aspects of Library Information Science in Retrospect." It explores Library Information Science, which deals with the facilitation of recorded knowledge, the metalibrarianship encompassing the theoretical aspects of a broad range of recorded communications, and the philosophies…

This paper summarizes the results of a quantitative review of the validity of the employment interview. It begins by discussing factors that make the interpretation of interview validity data difficult. The interpretation of interview validity data is shown to be hampered by the heterogeneity of constructs and measurement methods in the interview.…

One purpose for combining research studies is to estimate a population treatment effect. The internal validity of a model for how effect size estimates should be computed and combined will hinge upon the homogeneity of the effect size variation. Effect size variation may be assessed in the form of a summary fit statistic, and a direct…

This research describes the statistics and interpretations currently used for reporting discriminant analysis results and attempts to provide some approximate guidelines. Articles in the last 10 years of the American Educational Research Journal (AERT) were scanned. Eighteen studies containing 86 different discriminant analyses were identified and…

The article describes procedures employed for the quantitative synthesis of single-subject research literature in special education. The need for objective, systematic review procedures is noted; previous approaches are reviewed; and the authors' approach (which makes use of overlapping data across phases as an outcome metric) is outlined.…

An evaluation of the "Percentage of Nonoverlapping Data" approach for quantifying outcomes of single-subject research in special education reveals that it is potentially too sensitive to atypical baseline data, not powerful enough to discriminate important treatment differences, and adversely affected by even subtle trends in the data.…

The response to a critique of a proposed method of quantifying outcomes of single-subject research in special education suggests that the alternative procedure proposed has theoretical but not practical merit due to the limited number of observations typically found in single-subject baselines. (Author/DB)

The method of using the percentage of nonoverlapping data points to summarize and synthesize single-subject research in special education was applied to six specific studies. The method was found lacking for such reasons as its failure to identify patterns across time or vital idiosyncrasies in behavior within and across studies. (Author/DB)

The response to a critique of a proposed method of quantitatively synthesizing single subject research in special education reaffirms the authors' view that narrative review procedures are of limited utility without objective standards for evaluating study outcomes. (DB)

Cross-lagged panel analysis was used to explore possible causal relationships between attitude and achievement in mathematics and reading. Measures from 1,758 students from grades two through six were analyzed. Findings are presented and conclusions are drawn. (Author/MT)

Results suggest that (1) sex differences are found for some types of spatial ability but not others; (2) large sex differences are found only on measures of mental rotation; (3) smaller sex differences are found on measures of spatial perception; and (4) when sex differences are found, they can be detected across the life span. (Author/RH)