This article discusses, from various vantages, Ryan Tweney's (this issue) pedagogical technique of employing historical replications of psychological experiments with graduate students in psychology. A "prima facie" perspective suggests great promise for this sort of academic "ancestor analysis," particularly given the enthusiasm and skill…

Robert E. Ployhart, recipient of the Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology, is cited for innovative work in examining reactions to staffing practices and efforts to enhance the acceptability of recruitment and staffing practices; for exemplary use of applied statistical models in examining multilevel effects…

Historically, interesting psychological theories have been phrased in terms of correlation coefficients, which are standardized covariances, and various statistics derived from them. Methodological practice over the last 40 years, however, has suggested it is necessary to transform such theories into hypotheses on covariances and statistics…

This article proposes that psychological research published in APA journals focuses too narrowly on Americans, who comprise less than 5% of the world's population. The result is an understanding of psychology that is incomplete and does not adequately represent humanity. First, an analysis of articles published in six premier APA journals is…

The present article provides a primer on (a) effect sizes, (b) confidence intervals, and (c) confidence intervals for effect sizes. Additionally, various admonitions for reformed statistical practice are presented. For example, a very important implication of the realization that there are dozens of effect size statistics is that "authors must…

This article reviews the literature from 1996 to 2007 to update the 1998 Brestan and Eyberg report on evidence-based psychosocial treatments (EBTs) for child and adolescent disruptive behavior, including oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. Studies were evaluated using criteria for EBTs developed by the task force on promotion and…

Child and adolescent obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic and debilitating condition associated with a wide range of impairments. This article briefly discusses the phenomenology of OCD, the theory underlying current treatment approaches, and the extant psychosocial treatment literature for child and adolescent OCD relative to the…

This review synthesized findings from 17 studies since 1998 regarding evaluation of outpatient treatments for adolescent substance abuse. These studies represented systematic design advances in adolescent clinical trial science. The research examined 46 different intervention conditions with a total sample of 2,307 adolescents. The sample included…

Eating disorders represent a significant source of psychological impairment among adolescents. However, most controlled treatment studies have focused on adult populations. This review provides a synthesis of existing data concerning the efficacy of various psychosocial interventions for eating disorders in adolescent samples. Modes of therapy…

In a well-designed experiment, random assignment of participants to treatments makes causal inference straightforward. However, if participants are not randomized (as in observational study, quasi-experiment, or nonequivalent control-group designs), group comparisons may be biased by confounders that influence both the outcome and the alleged…

Multisite research designs involving cluster randomization are becoming increasingly important in educational and behavioral research. Researchers would like to compute effect size indexes based on the standardized mean difference to compare the results of cluster-randomized studies (and corresponding quasi-experiments) with other studies and to…

Longitudinal inquiry has long been recognized as a uniquely powerful method for seeking understanding of psychological development. A 30-year longitudinal venture is described--its theoretical motivation, methodological rationale, and details of implementation. Some of the novel and implicative findings the study has generated are briefly…

Demonstrates how, by adopting active agent model of humans and several associated research methodologies, one can conduct research using point estimation. Presents two studies that establish link between meaningfulness of action and subject's ability to self-determine actions in that domain. Agentic models are shown to greatly enhance explanatory…

Given the proliferation of factor analysis applications in the literature, the present article examines the use of factor analysis in current published research across four psychological journals. Notwithstanding ease of analysis due to computers, the appropriate use of factor analysis requires a series of thoughtful researcher judgments. These…

In psychological research on cultural differences, the distinction between individualism and collectivism has received the lion's share of attention as a fundamental dimension of cultural variation. In recent years, however, these constructs have been criticized as being ill-defined and "a catchall" to represent all forms of cultural differences.…