Measuring change in an educational or psychological construct over time is often achieved by repeatedly administering the same items to the same examinees over time. When the response data are categorical, item response theory (IRT) model can be used as the measurement model of a second-order latent growth model (referred to as LGM-IRT) to measure…

This longitudinal study of beginning teachers in Kentucky yields a number of characteristics useful in identifying persons most likely to obtain and retain teaching positions in secondary education. The Western Kentucky University Teacher Preparation Evaluation Program (TPEP), begun in 1971, follows careers of elementary and secondary school…

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…

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…

Reasons dropouts offer for withdrawal from college and differences between respondents and nonrespondents to a followup questionnaire were studied. During the spring 1980 semester, freshmen and sophomores completed a questionnaire describing their background and college experiences. A total of 156 dropouts (those who did not complete courses…

Unintended pregnancies occur among young people who are sexually active and who do not take sufficient precautions to prevent pregnancy. Two major factors identified as contributing to unintended pregnancy are the lack of knowledge and skill in family planning and inconsistency in use of contraceptives. A pretest-posttest experiment was conducted…

Much of the practice of community health nurses is focused on health promotion. Nurse-client contracting has been used with clients experiencing hypertension, diabetes, or arthritis. A study was conducted to determine whether nurse-client contracting would be useful as a method for providing nursing care to assist sexually active young women to…

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…

This paper explores the question of why some beginning teachers terminate employment in the first 2 years and others do not. The investigation will be conceptually organized around the concepts presented in Becker and Carper's theoretical framework (1956). They identify four elements that beckon and retain individuals in an occupation: (1)…

Selective subject attrition from longitudinal study panels can bias estimates of developmental change. Particularly in studies of older adults, sampling effects can adversely affect attempts to estimate true ontogenetic change. Selective attrition effects were examined in 636 Pennsylvania adults (138 males, 498 females), aged 58-91, who were…

In a longitudinal study, subject attrition constitutes a potential threat to the usefulness of data collected from subjects remaining in later waves of the study. If attrition is selective, then the sample at later waves of the study may be representative of a different population than that represented at the outset of the study. This study…

The follow-up of participants in a longitudinal survey can be difficult and expensive. This paper reviews the experiences of Project TALENT's 11-year follow-up survey of 400,000 individuals tested as high school students in 1960 and the experiences of follow-ups in other longitudinal studies. Methods for minimizing sample attrition and detecting…

Uses pretest data collected with passive parental consent for 2,496 middle school students to examine demographic, attitudinal, and behavioral differences between students for whom active parental consent was provided in later phases of the research and those for whom active consent was not provided. Results show the detrimental effects of…

A study was conducted of experimental mortality (subjects' drop-out) in counter-attitudinal advocacy research, a line of research that explores the extent to which people can be induced to persuade themselves to a new attitude. Subjects were 54 volunteers from undergraduate speech classes. The study involved three stages: a pretest for attitude,…

A longitudinal study was planned to track a class in a prekindergarten program to determine program effectiveness. There are many problems in conducting a longitudinal study, most of which revolve around the long-term commitment required. A carefully designed information system is important. For the study in question, computer software and…