Data for 4-, 5-, and 7-position Likert formats from 292 undergraduates showed systematic error varied among formats, i.e., central tendency errors tended to increase with increasing numbers of categories and to reduce variances expected.
Boys admitted to a treatment facility do not always complete their treatment. This study analyzes the follow‐up socialized coping of boys preponderantly classified as conduct disordered who were admitted to a residential treatment center. The boys were categorized into 10 different groups, only 1 of which consisted of those who actually completed treatment. The differences between groups and subsequent coping were fairly pronounced and highly significant. Further analysis indicated that very few of the group differences could be attributed to either age at admission or duration of treatment. Data analysis supported the hypothesis of treatment effectiveness in that boys who completed treatment did better in general than boys who did not, although those withdrawn by their parents did best of all. Furthermore, the rather pronounced differences among groups that failed to complete treatment raised certain methodological questions with regard to the practice of aggregating such groups in evaluation research.
Residential treatment agencies face increasing external pressure to conduct outcome evaluation research, due to mandates by accrediting agencies, managed care, and the changing na-D. Patrick Zimmeiman. Editor of this department, is Coordinator of Rcsearch at the Sonia Shankman orthogenic ~chool; and Lecturcr in the Department of Psychiatry at thc Univcrsity of Chicago. Ile is also a membcr of the Senior Associate FaculLy at the Illinois School for Professional Psychology and a Candidate at the Chicago Ccnter for Psychoanalysis.The authors may bc written at the
The negative attitude psychologists hold toward behavioral variability is contrasted against the more positive attitude biologists hold toward genetic variability. It is argued that variability is a necessary prerequisite to adaptation, whether genetic or behavioral, and that the sources of variability are intrinsic to the organism. One can also find constraints upon variability present in biological systems and it is proposed that too much variability is maladaptive and that variability is stabilized at some ideal level by a system of checks and balances. It is suggested that both sources of variability and constraints thereon could more profitably be investigated directly rather than continuing with the philosophy that variability constitutes noise to be eliminated.
0+3SYCHOLOGISTS have borrowed certain un-P questioned principles which likely stem from classical physics but were transmitted to them through the filter of academic philosophy. Research design and statistical analyses proceed along the lines that the better controlled is a study, the more likely it is to contribute significant as well as meaningful data. Primarily, control is supposed to reduce error variance or background noise. Linear models abound in which effects are generally assumed to be additive constants and error variability is tacked on a t the end of the equation as unwanted but omnipresent background noise. That is, the concept of one variable being functionally determined by one or more other variables was modified to fit the data by simply adding e to the end of the expression. For example, if Y should be proportionate to X , the psychological analogue mould be: Y = a x + e, where e is the error or the fudge factor which allows the experimenter to preserve the form of an equation by artificially augmenting the uncertainty of the input until it agrees with that of the output. The relevance of X now becomes a statistical question in the sense that the contribution of X must be audible above the background noise provided by e. Consequently, anything that reduces noise will
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