The author feels that the stakeholder approach unavoidably pushes the evaluation toward technical compromises and accommodations that diminish the long-term gains in knowledge. (PN)

Despite a growing literature on evaluation methods suitable for applied settings, few investigators address the separation of service and research. This article recognizes obstacles to field studies. The authors specify practical strategies for entering service environments and for designing, implementing, and measuring an experimental…

Discusses the limitations of Youniss's identification of morality with humanism and pluralism (universal developmental endpoints or socially constructed rational ideals), suggesting an alternative approach. (MP)

Tests the hypothesis that the presence of attentional deficits in autistic children interferes with their performance on tests of intellectual development and status. Twelve autistic, 12 normal, and 12 trainable mentally retarded children ages four through nine were administered six "Piagetian" tasks assessing performance at…

Economics education research focuses on college classrooms, overlooks the need for replication and generalization of results, and is limited in scope and methodology. Future research should address precollege and graduate level issues, new college level issues, replication and generalization, cost-benefit analysis, and alternative measures of the…

Outlines problems encountered and strategies evolved to deal with them in four studies of the elderly in Manitoba, Canada. Ethical concerns include consent, obligations of the researcher to the respondent, and demands of the respondent. Emphasizes the heterogeneity of the elderly population and its effect on research process. (Author)

Reviews some problems which have risen from the neglect of actual language behavior data in favor of data comprised solely of intuitions as to sentences' grammaticality. Discusses a study of syntactic variation across sex in Japanese as an example of research using socially situated real speech. (EKN)

Provides further support for the contention held by Thomas, Chess, and Korn (1982) that the concept of difficult temperament is not totally a construction of the parents. (MP)

Correction for guessing does not fulfill its intended function when test takers who have nothing to gain from scoring will respond randomly when they could have answered correctly had they tried. Raw scores underestimate abilities. If random guessing is more prevalent in the control group, correction for guessing inflates treatment effects.…

Examines these questions: What are life histories? What problems and people are best suited for them? What motivates people to write them? Does the collection procedure affect the content? and How should the material be analyzed? (Author/SK)

Meta-analysis techniques were used to examine almost 200 studies that considered the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and academic achievement. Results indicated that as SES is typically defined and used, it is only weakly correlated with academic achievement. (Author/RH)

Discusses a survey undertaken to determine how much attention natural and social scientists pay to the works of philosophers of science. A citation analysis revealed that social scientists are more than 25 times as likely as natural scientists to cite the works of prominent philosophers of science. Implications and explanations are presented. (DB)

Post-hoc blocking and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) both employ a concomitant variable to increase statistical power relative to the completely randomized design. It is argued that the advantages attributed to the block design are not always valid and that there are circumstances when the ANCOVA would be preferred to post-hoc blocking.…

To test the use of Bayes's theorem to adjust for nonresponse bias, 600 hospitals were used in a simulated sample survey. On the basis of known information on five variables, Bayes's formula correctly predicted the status of 92 of the 100 "nonrespondents" relative to a sixth variable. (Author/BW)

Criticizes Roger Perry's article about research on alternative schools for failing to define terms explicitly and failing to adequately describe the types of alternatives he was discussing. Holds that Perry's article only adds more confusion to educational theory and gives a picture of hopelessness about the viability of alternative schools.…