To rule out threats to internal validity, proposes a control group design in which control group subjects are given an alternate treatment that they perceive as equally desirable to and that is similar in duration and procedures to the experimental treatment but that is concerned with dependent variables unrelated to the experimental treatment.…

Identifies and discusses three myths that pervade experimental counseling and psychotherapy: (1) that experimental subjects receive treatments appropriate to their clinical problems; (2) that the treatments are deployed as purported; and (3) that control groups customarily used by researchers allow them to determine the existence of a treatment…

Explores issues in evaluating exemplary programs, including the measurement of the degree to which the program is exemplary or promising. Suggests that comparison (control) group analysis can mislead researchers about the effectiveness of a program and suggests the use of gain scores to identify exemplary programs. (SLD)

Standard practice in educational program evaluation expends considerable resources in planning and executing elaborate research designs, but lacks description of how the programs do differ in the experimental'' and control'' situations. A serious consequence is that elaborately designed evaluation studies may end up appraising non-events, with…

Presents a prototypical case illustrating what positivist research means and argues that even critics of positivist research are logically committed to propositions that can be tested only through positivist research paradigms. The relationship between the nature of a community's research enterprise and its educational provisions must be causal.…