Although student evaluation data provide a reasonable basis for making decisions about instructors when generalizing across courses and students, when the course is the object of measurement (OM), data are less generalizable. This finding may be due to the type of evaluation items used or to academic discipline differences in the type of courses…

Two major barriers which stand in the way of the delivery of psychological services to children are inadequate therapy outcome research, and the unavailability of people qualified to teach others to use developed treatments. The long distance training model was developed to avoid such problems. It includes three major components: (1) the use of…

This report explores the field research experience of the Documentation and Technical Assistance Project, an activity of the Center for New Schools in Chicago, Illinois. Using ethnography as a major research tool, DTA studied nine school sites, documented information on how the schools solved problems to bring about school improvement; and…

Studies of children's deceptive behavior have scientific merit and can be carried out in an ethically defensible manner. Many arguments against studies requiring children to deceive others in an experimental context are relatively easy to refute. It is true, though, that the debriefing phase of deception studies presents ethical problems,…

The uses and gratifications paradigm, like the initial conceptions of media effects, can be viewed as a compatible elaboration of contemporary social and political theory. The fundamental assumptions of the uses and gratifications approach, particularly the assumptions regarding the nature and extent of audience activity and the ability of the…

The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect funded a project to develop and field-test an evaluation procedure that could be used by interested states or communities to determine the extent of congruity between (1) their provisions for responding to the problems of child abuse and neglect, and (2) provisions prescribed in the Federal Standards…

Third in a series, the monograph summarizes the key evaluation issues, design approaches, and statistical techniques used in conducting the 1980-1983 impact evaluation of Indian Education Act Title IV Part A programs. The monograph describes the major problems in evaluating the program to determine the degree of its positive contribution to…

In a preceding research report, ONR/RR-82-1 (Information Loss Caused by Noise in Models for Dichotomous Items), observations were made on the effect of noise accommodated in different types of models on the dichotomous response level. In the present paper, focus is put upon the three-parameter logistic model, which is widely used among…

In an effort to learn more about the cumulative nature of psychological gerontology, an analysis was undertaken of professionally published articles dealing with psychological and related processes and listed in Shock's Current Publications in Gerontology and Geriatrics. Findings indicated a remarkable amount of noncomparable data. (Author)

This article describes the life cycle of an industrial research and development project and suggests applications to educational research and development. It also discusses the importance, funding, staffing, and management of a research and development effort.(DC)

A progress report on API studies (Aptitude x Treatment interactions) related to instruction, is used to explore the consequences of attempting to establish in psychological experimentation, empirical generalizations in a world in which most effects are interactive. While the two scientific disciplines of experimental control and systematic…

This report is based on selected surveys of research practices used in eight countries (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States). It is designed as a technical approach to help both scientists and decision makers unfamiliar with these procedures to define the most relevant practices in…

Selective subject attrition from longitudinal study panels can bias estimates of developmental change. Particularly in studies of older adults, sampling effects can adversely affect attempts to estimate true ontogenetic change. Selective attrition effects were examined in 636 Pennsylvania adults (138 males, 498 females), aged 58-91, who were…

Although nearly 14 million jobs have been added to the economy since 1979, there is strong evidence that job expansion has been purchased at the price of lower wages. A number of studies have confirmed this downside to job creation, the most prominent being a 1986 study by Bluestone and Harrison for the Joint Economic Committee. A recent study…

A content analysis of the literature on leadership in colleges and universities and on selection, retention, and attrition of college students, especially minority students, was conducted. It is concluded that elegant questions about the structures and processes of higher education have been asked and answered, but provide little guidance in…