Addresses the research issues raised in several Federal cases involving the Freedom of Information Act. Outlines implications for the possible abrogation of researchers' property rights to their data and the potential breach of the confidential researcher-subject relationship. (Author/APM)

Presents a critical analysis of Robert Alun Jones' methodology for seeking a sociological understanding of sociology's past by analyzing classic sociological works. Excerpts from the writings of Jones and other sociologists, both classical and contemporary, are included and criticized. (DB)

Criticizes the approach of sociologist Charles Camic toward understanding the history of sociology. Suggests that if sociologists are to understand earlier societies, they must understand thought patterns which prevailed in those societies and must produce a history of sociological thought which is genuinely historical. (DB)

Discusses problems associated with the use of three approaches (natal, behavioral, and subjective) to the measurement of ethnicity. Describes factors associated with a lack of ethnic identification and implications of the existence of "nonethnics" for research on ethnicity. (Author/BE)

Methodological problems associated with treatment research on cigarette smoking are explored, and possible solutions are discussed. The main problems considered are the selection and retention of subjects, the measurement of smoking, the design of treatment studies, and the interpretation and generalizability of experimental results. (Author)

Delineates sources of problematic methodology in research designed to relate measures of sex-role orientation to indices of psychological well-being. Procedures in sex-role research are examined in relation to orthogonal scales of sex-role orientation that provide independent measures of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny. Directions for…

In a secondary analysis of the Abrams and Siegel evaluation of the Transcendental Meditation program at Folsom prison, experimental groups fared better than control groups, although the treatment explains only a small proportion of the variance. (Author)

Most research on educational policy making in Britain has depended on the case study approach. This article outlines the procedures, advantages, and theory of this approach and then discusses the problem of trying to generalize from case studies. (WD)

The decline of the psychometric paradigm for studying intelligence was due in part to its failure to meet four challenges. On the surface, users of the information-processing paradigms seem successfully to have met these challenges, but at a deeper level, the level of success is not so great. (Author/BW)

Surveys the state of writing research, research needed in the 1980s, and how teachers need to be involved in that research. (HTH)

Argues that developmental psychologists need attitudes, methods, and conceptual schemes that integrate the distinctive contributions of both nature and nurture in order to study change and consistency in developmental functions, as well as individual differences in behaviors of interest. A conceptual scheme for early mental development is…

The methods and problems of research on the psychology of death include ethical difficulties, the conceptual poverty and oversimplification of most rating systems, and an overemphasis on anxiety and fear. The changes resulting from death education or therapy and their relation to modes of denial should be studied. (Author)

Tn the context of earlier work on the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study (which ran from 1935-1945 and involved 325 predelinquent boys and a matched set of controls), J. McCord's recent 30-year follow-up is seen as raising issues with respect to the controlled experiment as a basis for evaluation and study of psychotherapeutic effects. (Author/PHR)

Conceptual and methodological guidelines for voice therapy research are presented, and suggestions are offered for selecting experimental designs. Divergent terminology, philosophy, and issues of voice therapy are examined to serve as an overview and as a basis for research direction. (Author/DLS)

Data indicate that absolute summer achievement decline is not common. Relative decline, where low achievers do not keep pace over the summer with their peers, is common. Finally, attendance at summer school appears to have no strong ameliorative effect on achievement, either short-term or longer-term. (Author/MLF)