Perhaps due to misunderstandings of the nature of the research task in visual communication, findings of empirical research in that field have been highly inconsistent. Historically, there has been little serious systematic empirical investigation of visual communication. One difficulty is that it is not always possible to measure nonverbal…

Research has identified a number of effective means of maximizing returns to mailed questionnaires. The accompanying cover letter, the first contact with the potential respondents, may be the most important aspect of the survey. Studies indicate that the most effective cover letters incorporate personalization with an altruistic and/or egoistic…

This study examines the development of children's preference for task difficulty levels. Subjects were 78 boys and 66 girls, aged 63 to 105 months. The sample was separated into older and younger groups. Within each age group, half the children of each sex were randomly assigned to one of two forms to test their level of aspiration. Subjects were…

A solution is proposed for analysis of variance procedures with missing cells, such as may occur when a control group is not assigned to any of the rows or columns of the various experimental groups. Mathematical models for two-way design are presented which define several variables; as well as row effect, column effect, and row and column…

The Mahalanobis distance model was compared with the linear discriminant function model and found to provide very similar results, even when a number of the variables were binary. A group of college freshmen were categorized into two groups: 116 "leavers," students who did not return for the second year, and 269 "returners."…

Three different approaches to metaevaluation are described and shown to have been applied to the study of Project Follow Through. These approaches include evaluation of primary evaluations, integrative meta-analysis in which results from several primary evaluations are combined, and secondary analysis involving the independent reanalysis of the…

This study explores the existence of a continuum of sexual aggression among males and a corresponding continuum of sexual victimization among females. A 12-question Sexual Experiences Survey written in parallel versions for men and women was administered to 3,862 university students. Three levels of sexual aggression/victimization ranging from…

In view of a demand for information and an expansion in evaluation research practices, possibilities for combining quantitative and qualitative methods in program evaluation should be explored. Quantitative research methods attempt to reduce observed social phenomena to numerical notations. Their weaknesses include the reduction of social…

Corporate advocacy is the study and practice of communication efforts to advance the policies of business, education, governmental, and nonprofit institutions. The functions of the advocate include gathering information, providing advice based on the information, conducting advocacy programing, and evaluating results. Advocacy research is…

A procedure was developed within hypothesis-testing logic that allows researchers to support a hypothesis that has traditionally been the statistical or null hypothesis. Four activities involved in attainment of this goal were discussed: (1) development of statistical logic needed to define the sampling distribution associated with the hypothesis…

Methods for ordering and selecting variables for discriminant analysis in multiple group comparison or group prediction studies include: univariate Fs, stepwise analysis, learning discriminant function (LDF) variable correlations, communalities, LDF standardized coefficients, and weighted standardized coefficients. Five indices based on distance,…

This document reports on a planning conference of the International Mathematics Committee, responsible for the second study of school mathematics to be conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The study will address issues of interest to mathematics educators, with emphasis on the areas of…

In recent years data have begun to accumulate on the efficacy of role playing as an alternative to deception in research. The ethics of deception as a research technique are also being considered. The present study was designed to provide data describing subjects' post-participation attitudes toward research and researchers in comparable role…

Institutional research (IR) in community/junior colleges in past years has been limited to gathering data for external agencies, concentrating on raw demographic data and student flow studies. IR should be directed toward providing data for administrative decisions and for successful maintenance of college operations. In spite of the heavy demands…

This paper evaluates current practices in curriculum design and discusses some proposals for using efficient Fisherian experimental designs to remedy certain shortcomings in current practices. Two general questions are approached in this paper: (1) how to obtain rational and empirical evidence that a basic curriculum under planning and development…