This paper seeks to raise awareness among educational researchers and practitioners of some significant weaknesses and internal contradictions of randomised control trials (RCTs). Although critiques throughout the years from education scholars have pointed to the detrimental effects of this experimental approach on education practice and values,…

This paper describes and demonstrates a new online resource developed to help researchers proactively plan for student attrition: the Student Attrition Lookup Tool (SALT). With SALT, researchers can access student mobility estimates for different student and school subpopulations and for different transition periods from kindergarten to grade 12.…

In this chapter, the authors explore the effect of incentives on attrition and nonresponse in a multi-institutional longitudinal study. They organize this chapter into three sections. First, they review the literature regarding nonresponse among students and the effects of incentives on attrition and nonresponse in studies that employ…

This monograph looks first at opportunities provided by research in the adult literacy field and then identifies challenges to scientific research and suggests ways to address these challenges so that better evidence can be generated in the future. It has two goals that support the building of a stronger research base for the adult literacy…

Sixty-five infants (mean age of 111 days) who failed to complete a two-day operant-conditioning task were compared with a stratified random sample of those who did on measures of infant temperament and several demographic characteristics. A discriminant-function analysis was performed. (Author/BN)

Most of the observational study of marriage has focused on relatively young and highly educated couples from professional backgrounds; working-class couples, older couples, and couples from distressed marriages seem reluctant to volunteer for research on close relationships. The development of techniques for recruiting these couples represents an…

Data previously reported (Garfield, 1978) on the number of clients/patients appearing at psychotherapy sessions from intake to termination did not identify the attritional features of service delivery systems. These earlier studies were retabulated and new data were accumulated from several contemporary sources: a university counseling center, an…

Arguing that reliable and valid dropout rate estimates are prerequisite to establishment of causal factors and intervention programs, this article examines differences in definitions of dropouts, computational methods, and the complexities in defining cohorts, as well as the importance of sample attrition. Several sources of error are discussed.…

A statistical method has been developed for nested incomplete samples in a longitudinal study in which part of the sample has dropped out in such a way that the data have a nested pattern. A procedure which performed well in a Monte Carlo experiment was extended to a two-factor incomplete design with repeated measures on one factor. Methods…

The Amish, who came to North America from Europe in the 1700s and 1800s, and settled primarily in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New York, and Ontario, Canada, have attracted much attention and interest, particularly in the area of health care. The purpose of this bibliography is to guide the investigator toward the principal sources…

This paper describes the contours of a program of research focused on Australian youth and the transition they make within and between education and work. The project was initiated in 1978 and centered on longitudinal mail surveys. Questionnaires were sent to three cohorts aged 24 to 25 years old, 20 to 21 years, and 15 to 16 years. Samples…

Describes a class experiment illustrating students' illusions about their own mortality (often referred to as "unique invulnerability"). The students received information, culled from actuarial tables, concerning age and mortality rates. The students consistently overestimated their own age of death even when told they would do so. (MJP)

Even though attrition presents a serious threat to the validity of longitudinal research, there is a lack of standardization for reporting it. To examine the effectiveness of four tests for attrition -- two for external validity and two for internal validity -- the tests were applied to two large scale projects: the first, Project HASP, is a…

Longitudinal studies conducted with children typically experience non-response problems that can make substantial inroads on sample size and introduce bias into the analysis. Three methods for limiting non-response in school-based research programs were assessed: (1) asking parents to return consent forms only if they do not want their children to…

This study describes the use of event history modeling as a tool for understanding student departure from college. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics High School and Beyond (HS&B)/Sophomore Cohort longitudinal study a detailed history of individual students' college careers was constructed using a regression-like…