Discusses issues to consider when investigating behavioral effect of foods, including idiosyncratic response to particular food, necessity of identifying individual sensitive to food being studied, necessity of including washout phase, consideration of withdrawal effects, assessment of change, dietary challenge, and time parameter necessary for…

Academic freedom and the protection of human research subjects are central tenets of American universities. Academic freedom protects the rights of tenured professors to conduct autonomous research; human subject protection ensures that research causes as minimal a risk as possible to study participants. Although the two principles are mutually…

This article feeds into debate about the feasibility and usefulness of educational experiments by discussing methodological issues arising out of a study which sought causal links between teaching and learning of one aspect of French as a foreign language. The study involved two small-scale experiments which tested a hypothesis regarding the…

This article discusses the use of propensity scoring in experimental program evaluations to estimate impacts for subgroups defined by program features and participants' program experiences. The authors discuss estimation issues and provide specification tests. They also discuss the use of an overlooked data collection design--obtaining predictions…

Little is known about effective eHealth recruitment methods. This paper presents recruitment challenges associated with enrolling African-American girls aged 8-10 years in an eHealth obesity prevention program, their effect on the recruitment plan, and potential implications for eHealth research. Although the initial recruitment strategy was…

Argues that more attention should be given to the specification of the independent and dependent variables which describe, explain and predict intraindividual stability and change over time. Statistical techniques for such study are briefly discussed. (Author/SDH)

Attempts to account for discrepancies between results of the Hall and Kingsley experiment (1968), (in which the majority of college students did not resist extinction in a contrived instance of non-conservation of weight), and the Miller, Schwartz and Stewart experiment (1973), (in which the majority did resist extinction). (ED)

Activities of the Teacher Corps'"Corps Member Training Institute" (CMTI) were studied to illustrate methods of inquiry which can be adapted to the study of teacher training events to capture some of the reality of these events. For the CMTI, a Study Team was mandated to demonstrate the impact of the Institute (identify, document, judge,…

A number of recommendations are set forth with the purpose of moving toward greater comparability of research results and more efficient accumulation of knowledge. These recommendations include more precise definitions of variables and samples, the inclusion of marker variables, and a review of the literature to plan alignment of new studies with…

When unsubstantiated findings are used as a basis for national policy, the results can be disastrous"; the recent work by Moynihan and Mosteller, ostensibly proving" the Coleman report, actually points up its errors. (Editor/SP)

In an effort to maintain internal validity while maximizing the generalizability of evaluation results, the theory-testing methodology that links program activities to outcomes (program theory) is proposed. To evaluate a program by explicating and testing the program theory is to perform evaluation as theory testing. (PN)

Discusses methodological problems involving use of MMPI by reviewing past literature. MMPI is so easily used that it is sometimes misapplied or data obtained from it are incorrectly analyzed by researchers unfamiliar with its limitations or peculiarities. Suggestions for improving research design are made. (Author/BEF)

A simple technique is presented whereby experimenters who must use different word lists for different experimental treatments with exceptional children can postexperimentally establish equivalence of list difficulty. (Author)