REPLICATION IN EXPERIMENTAL COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: AN ANALYSIS

This study proposes a taxonomy of replication designs and applies it to a representative sample of experimental communication research reports in Communication Monographs and Human Communication Research. Results of the analysis indicate that publishability and reporting practices hamper our ability to identify replication studies. The implications of these findings are discussed, and several suggestions for improving the situation are offered.     

PROGRAM EVALUATION RESEARCH: AN EXPERIMENTAL COST-EFFECTIVENESS ANALYSIS OF AN ARMED ROBBERY INTERVENTION PROGRAM

An armed robbery alarm system was implemented in 48 different stores in two separate geographical areas for 6 months and 12 months, respectively. The alarms were placed in the two separate areas at different times and all alarms were eventually removed. Thus, multiple baseline and reversal strategies were used to evaluate program impact. A device planted in a cash drawer was triggered whenever “bait” money was removed from the drawer sending an alarm signal directly to police cars and headquarters. Onscene apprehensions of armed robbers within target stores were greatly increased even though the armed robbery systems did not deter robbery incidents nor influence the court disposition of the cases. There was also no crime deterrence, crime displacement, or increased apprehensions in either the immediate neighborhoods of target stores or on a city-wide basis. The cost effectiveness of the program was calculated to be poor even though the program is being maintained because of the absence of an alternative robbery apprehension technology.     

STRUCTURED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION: INVESTIGATING AN INTERVENTION FOR IMPROVING SIXTH-GRADERS' READING COMPREHENSION

ABSTRACT

The author assesses students’ understanding of several print‐related concepts toward the conclusion of one year of formal reading instruction. There may be some need for teachers to alter their language of instruction so as to eliminate specialized terms that create confusion among beginning readers.     

ALTERING SHOPPERS' SUPERMARKET PURCHASES TO FIT NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES: AN INTERACTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM

This study reports the results of one effort to help supermarket shoppers alter food purchases to make purchases (and meals) that are lower in fat and higher in fiber. A prototype interactive information system using instructional video programs, feedback on purchases with specific goals for change, weekly programs, and the ability to track user interactions and intended purchases was evaluated. The major dependent measure was users' actual food purchases as derived from participants' highly detailed supermarket receipts. After a 5- to 7-week baseline phase, participants were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition for the 7- to 8-week intervention phase. A follow-up phase began 5 to 8 weeks after participants completed the intervention and discontinued use of the system. The results indicated that experimental participants, when compared to control participants, decreased high fat purchases and increased high fiber purchases during intervention, with evidence for some maintenance of effect in follow-up. Plans for increasing the use and impact of the system are discussed.     

TRAINING FAMILY THERAPISTS: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

This study implemented and evaluated a training program (a written manual, videotaped models, rehearsal, role plays, and performance feedback) designed to teach five subjects the skills to become effective family therapists. The study examined the therapists' use of three target behaviors: instructing, informing, and praising. The therapists, each paired with a parent and a preschool-aged child (2 1/2–4 1/2 yr old), were trained in the clinic to use, and to teach to the parents, several behavioral skills (e.g., praising, planned ignoring, and time-out) relevant to teaching children compliance to parental instructions. A multiple-baseline design across triads (therapist/parent/child) demonstrated that after the training program was instituted, the therapists increased their rates of instructing, praising, and informing the parents; all parents increased attention to compliance, decreased attention to noncompliance, and increased rates of praise to their children; and all children increased their compliance and decreased their noncompliance.     

RESEARCH ON OCCUPATIONAL STRESS: AN UNFINISHED ENTERPRISE

Job stress (and more generally, employee health) has been a relatively neglected area of research among industrial-organizational psychologists. The empirical research that has been done is reviewed within the context of six facets (i.e., environmental, personal, process, human consequences, organizational consequences, and time) of a seven facet conceptualization of the job stress–employee health research domain. (The seventh facet, adaptive responses, is reviewed in the forthcoming second article of this series.) A general and a sequential model are proposed for tying the facets together. It is concluded that some of the major problems of the research in this area are: confusion in the use of terminology regarding the elements of job stress, relatively weak methodology within specific studies, the lack of systematic approaches in the research, the lack of interdisciplinary approaches, and the lack of attention to many elements of the specific facets.     

AN ASSESSMENT OF STUDENTS' CALIBRATION OF COMPREHENSION AND CALIBRATION OF PERFORMANCE USING MULTIPLE MEASURES

In the present study we examined students' ability to judge comprehension of text material (before actually taking a test) as well as ability to judge comprehension performance on text material (after taking a test). We examined each of these two abilities, termed calibration of comprehension and calibration of performance, by using multiple measures rather than just one as has traditionally been done in the literature. We also examined the role of students' self-assessed monitoring ability and self-image presentation in calibration skills. Results indicated that students were able to calibrate comprehension and performance although calibration levels were low, especially for calibration of comprehension. Students who calibrated comprehension well also tended to calibrate performance well. Several measures used to examine calibration of comprehension were consistent predictors ofperformance as were both quantitative and qualitative measures of calibration of performance. Students' calibration accuracy remained stable across measures and assessment conditions. Although students' self-assessed ability was not related to their actual calibration skills, self-image presentation was related to students'self-assessments and to theirability to calibrate performance. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

AN ANALYSIS OF SITUATIONAL DIMENSIONS: A REPLICATION

An analysis of individuals' perceptions of situations was performed and confirmed the main results obtained in an earlier study by Magnusson (1971). Ss gave similarity ratings of situakions from a specific domain. A dimensional analysis and a categorization were mad on data. The method showed good agreement. Stability over time in factor structure was high as well as the agreement between individual structures. The analyses gave a clear and subjectively meaningful structure for both individual data and group data.     

A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF INTERACTIVE EFFECTS BETWEEN COMMON CLASSROOM CONTINGENCIES AND METHYLPHENIDATE

To assess the drug—behavior interaction effects with an 8-year-old boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, common classroom antecedent (e.g., seating arrangement) and consequent (e.g., peer prompts) stimuli were alternated within a school day while drug conditions (methylphenidate vs. placebo) were alternated across days. The results suggested that peer attention maintained disruptive behavior when methylphenidate was absent but not when it was present.     

INTERVIEWER VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY: AN INDIVIDUAL ANALYSIS APPROACH

Interviewer reliability, validity, and strategy for information integration were studied by analysis of data across interviewers and, also, by within, individual interviewer analysis. Candidates ( N = 412) for selection to a military division of a national defense organization were interviewed by 10 female interviewers and assessed on nine behaviorally anchored dimensions. Candidates ( N = 131) subsequently admitted to officers' training school were evaluated, for the purposes of this study, on 19 dimensions and on an overall evaluation taken at six and twelve week points. Results of analyses of data across interviewers indicated that interviewers functioned in a similar fashion, using few of the dimensions in their decisions whereas analyses of individual interviewers indicated higher reliability and individual differences among interviewers' strategy formation. Analysis across interviewers of the relationship of the interview decision to six and twelve week training performance evaluations indicated no validity for the interview decision. Analysis of individual interview strategies revealed differences among the interviewers only at the six week point. Results are discussed with regard to methodological problems, interview strategy differences, criteria dimensionality, fruitfulness of individual, within interviewer analyses, and purpose of the interview.     

WITHDRAWAL OF CHRONIC CHLORPROMAZINE MEDICATION: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Approximately 50% of all institutionalized, mentally retarded adults receive psychotropic medication to control inappropriate behavior. In this study, behaviors exhibited by five retarded adults were formally observed while they were on and off medication. Each subject had been receiving chlorpromazine for six or more years prior to the start of the study. The drug was withdrawn and readministered using a double-blind B-A-B (drug-placebo-drug) design. Effects were highly individualized. Some desirable behavior emerged when chlorpromazine was discontinued.     

THE FUNCTIONS OF SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR: AN EXPERIMENTAL-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Data are summarized from 152 single-subject analyses of the reinforcing functions of self-injurious behavior (SIB). Individuals with developmental disabilities referred for assessment and/or treatment over an 11-year period were exposed to a series of conditions in which the effects of antecedent and consequent events on SIB were examined systematically by way of multielement, reversal, or combined designs. Data were collected during approximately 4,000 experimental sessions (1,000 hr), with the length of assessment for individuals ranging from 8 to 66 sessions (M = 26.2) conducted over 2 to 16.5 hr (M = 6.5). Differential or uniformly high responding was observed in 145 (95.4%) of the cases. Social-negative reinforcement (escape from task demands or other sources of aversive stimulation) accounted for 58 cases, which was the largest proportion of the sample (38.1%). Social-positive reinforcement (either attention or access to food or materials) accounted for 40 (26.3%) of the cases, automatic (sensory) reinforcement accounted for 39 (25.7%), and multiple controlling variables accounted for 8 (5.3%). Seven sets of data (4.6%) showed either cyclical or inconsistent patterns of responding that were uninterpretable. Overall results indicated that functional analysis methodologies are extremely effective in identifying the environmental determinants of SIB on an individual basis and, subsequently, in guiding the process of treatment selection. Furthermore, an accumulation of assessment data from such analyses across a large number of individuals provides perhaps the most rigorous approach to an epidemiological study of behavioral function.