The problems of studying families arise from the difficulty in studying systems in which there are multiple elements interacting with each other and with the child. This book attests to the growing sophistication of the conceptualization and measurement techniques for understanding family processes. Chapters in the first part of the book,…

Goals and challenges pertaining to infant sensory and perceptual development are discussed. It is suggested that the inability of researchers to think and talk wisely about "partial accomplishments" in development creates a barrier in developmental research. Conceptual schemes are needed to accommodate these partial accomplishments. Three major…

A review was conducted of the research on error detection studies completed with children, adolescents, and young adults to determine at what age children begin to detect errors in texts. The studies were grouped according to the subjects' ages. The focus of the review was on the following aspects of each study: the hypothesis that guided the…

Concerned with imprecision in researchers' use of the word, "interpretive," this report draws from the work of Max Weber to describe the characteristics of an interpretive science of organizational communication and then briefly lists some advantages of following the interpretive approach. First examining the role of subjective meaning…

Analysis of speech communication studies reveals a number of themes in the arts. A central concern in studies dealing with oral interpretation is what should be the focus in the oral interpretive act. The shifting priorities parallel the shift in emphases occurring in speech communication as a whole: performer/delivery; text/message;…

Survey data concerning teacher education program graduates were used to demonstrate the advantages of a stratified random sampling approach, with followup, relative to a one-shot mailing to an entire population. Sampling issues involved in such an approach are addressed, particularly with regard to quantifying the effects of nonresponse on the…

The data analysis problem posed by a repeated measures design that includes a single observation on a covariate for each subject is considered. The current paper discusses how best to capture a possible dependence of the effect of the within-subject factor on the level of the covariate. Procedures originally explicated by Rogosa (1980) for dealing…

Major obstacles to conducting process research with parent education programs exist; new directions for studying how programs interact with participants are needed. In particular, intervention research is time consuming and expensive. The small number of subjects involved are often at risk and under considerable social stress. Self-selection and…

The more general purpose of the research discussed here which focused on exploring the genesis of a concept of a number of three to five year old children, was to show how the understanding of the influences of testing and observation conditions upon child behavior makes it possible to describe and interpret the behavior of all children.…

The following review focuses on specific problems in the area of rehabilitation research utilization, the proposed solutions to these problems, and some suggestions concerning the general directions that future research endeavors might take. (Author)

Examines the methodologies, objectives, and assumptions of existing national enrollment projection studies. (Author/MLF)

An original study which purported to show that women "pretend to be inferior" on dates is replicated. The interpretation of the original findings are challenged on the basis of an inappropriate collapsing of categories and failure to standardize responses of subjects. It is concluded that "pretending to be inferior" is not a significant social…

Presents a progress report on some methodological advances made on certain facets of the problem of the learning of a structure of a subject matter. (PEB)

Problems associated with the use of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) as a statistical control technique are explained. Three problems relate to the use of "OVA" methods (analysis of variance, analysis of covariance, multivariate analysis of variance, and multivariate analysis of covariance) in general. These are: (1) the wasting of information when…

In discussions about qualitative research, questions often arise concerning appropriate research focus, researcher objectivity, manipulation of people or environments examined, study completeness, and value considerations. Goodness questions (reliability, replicability, and validity) get mixed with value questions (generalizability), with…