Discusses issues native ethnographers face working in their own cultures (i.e. the authors studying Appalachia): pattern recognition; selective reporting; economy in discovering cultural meaning; bias in informant selection, mode of entree, and establishment of rapport; value conflicts; separation of participant and observer roles; and…

While theoretical analogs of misattribution therapy appeared promising, attempts with clinically relevant behaviors have not been successful. This study attempted to increase plausibility by manipulating familarity with the setting and psychological arousal in a clinically relevent situation. Authors conclude misattribution effect is not effective…

The use of analysis of variance was examined under the assumption that the treatment had been randomly assigned to students, when in fact, the class had been the unit. Data support the idea that if one can randomly assign treatments to intact classes, consideration should certainly be given to doing so. (Author/GK)

This study tested poor readers' facilities at detecting informational inconsistency in a text given at three levels of explicitness in prereading direction. Experimental materials presented a generalizability dilemma, which is discussed in detail. (Author/GK)

Describes a variety of relatively simple procedures for the modification of instruments to reduce cultural bias in research and to enhance the overall quality of industrial education research efforts. (SK)

Examined the relationship between adjustment and conventionalization both in terms of idealization of the spouse and in terms of the response format employed in measures of conventionalization. Results, based upon questionnaire responses from 365 married individuals, found these explanations to be inadequate. Suggests conventionalization and…

Discusses and explains experimental validity, including both internal and external validity, in terms that a classroom teacher can understand and use in his own research. (CK)

A popular abbreviated version of the Marital Conceptualization Scale (MCS) was administered along with other measures of conventionality to 181 married couples. Correlational analysis failed to confirm the construct validity of the MCS as defined by the instrument's author. The investigators proposed renaming the response set "marital social…

Educational research has been excessively atheoretical and has not produced an accumulating body of systematically observed empirical facts. Much of the best work has been reductionist, partly because it has been rooted in paradigms of the behavioral sciences and partly because of the fragmentation of the community of professional researchers.…

Problems in conducting research with public offenders include lack of: a systematic body of knowledge, avenues of dissemination of information, a data base describing the situation, and communication between researchers and criminal justice staff members. Ethical concerns need to be dealt with. (Author)

Discussed problems and deficiencies in past research on clinical diagnosis, pertaining to sampling problems with regard to clinical subjects studied, adequacy of control groups, base rates, clinical versus statistical significance, lack of cross-validation, and problems due to reliance on inadequate schemes of classification. Future research is…

An extensive review of the literature on Mexican-American elderly reveals more argument than consensus in interpretation of available data and a tendency for researchers to treat this population as if it were homogeneous. To improve this situation, specific recommendations for future research are offered. (Author)

The use of evaluations for policy and program development and change is critically reviewed. Existing conceptions of utilization are discussed and improvements in the methods of detecting use are suggested. Five clusters of variables affecting utilization are described and hypotheses about the reasons for their effects are outlined. (Author/AL)

The choice of the clustering method, the similarity measure, the computer program, and the procedure for estimating the number of clusters should be clearly specified in any journal article using cluster analysis. Adequate evidence of a cluster solution's validity should be provided before the solution is published. (Author)

Raises objections to the methodology used and the conclusions drawn by L. S. Fleisher, J. R. Jenkins, and D. Pany in a study reported in a previous issue of this journal (see EJ 210 792). (MKM)