This 1965 report serves as a guide to the extensive research literature concerned with the prediction of student performance. In his analysis, David Lavin reviews and evaluates research covering more than three hundred sources on elementary and high school, college, and graduate schools. The book presents a discussion of the various criteria of academic performance and several methodological problems such as standardized predictor measures and interpreting relationships between predictors and performance. The findings cover four broad categories of performance determinants: intelligence and ability factors, personality characteristics, sociological determinants, and socio-psychological factors. Each of these categories is carefully scrutinized in terms of a number of theoretical and methodological issues. It indicates several areas for possible investigation and concludes with a plea for a broader context in which to evaluate performance and apply new knowledge.

David E. Lavin was assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

How is the computer modeling of socioeconomic systems being used in government decision making? Is it providing the needed guidance? When it is not, why not? What is its future? How can it be made more useful for policy purposes? To address these questions, the authors investigated a multitude of different types of models being applied or developed in a wide variety of policy areas. They examined models of municipal operations, models of the national economy, and models of the world to detail the tensions between policy modeling and policymaking.

A plan for their national collection and a handbook of methods recommended by the committee on governmental labor statistics of the American Statistical Association. This volume presents the consensus of opinion of the members of the Committee on Governmental Labor Statistics concerning problems involved in the collection and publication of adequate employment statistics for the United States.

Ralph G. Hurlin was director of the Department of Statistics of the Russell Sage Foundation.

William A. Berridge was associate professor of economics at Brown University.

Proving that any program designed to change our social behavior is doing what it set out to do is one of the most difficult problems faced by social science. Yet those responsible for such a program must attempt an evaluation of its results if they are to achieve the support they need. Edward A. Suchman, one of the world's foremost experts in measuring social behavior, presents the most comprehensive study of evaluation available to date.

In Evaluative Research he describes the techniques used to determine empirically the extent to which social goals are actually being achieved, to locate the barriers to the achievement of these goals, and to discover the unanticipated consequences of social actions.

The book is divided into three main sections, representing the conceptual, the methodological, and the administrative aspects of evaluation. It begins with a brief historical account and a general critique of the current status of evaluation studies. The introduction is followed by a conceptual analysis of the evaluative process, including a discussion of different levels of objectives. The methodological section includes an analysis of various research designs applicable to evaluative research. The place of evaluation in the administrative process is related to program planning, demonstration, and operation. Administrative resistance and barriers to evaluation are examined along with the problems in the utilization of the findings.

The book concludes with a brief exposition on the relationship of evaluative research to social experimentation stressing the potential contribution which public service and social action programs can make to our knowledge of administrative science and social change.

This book will have many uses. It will aid the evaluative research person in striking a balance between rigorous method and the situation in which he must function. For the operating practitioner, the book will explain what competent evaluation involves. Administrators will find the volume and invaluable aid.

PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS

“ As someone who is highly involved in conducting meta-analyses and teaching meta-analysis to students, I can say that this handbook has a chapter on every issue that arises. Each chapter is written by a major expert in the field and provides authoritative answers. The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis is a must-have for anyone working on meta-analysis.”
—JANET SHIBLEY HYDE, Helen Thompson Woolley Professor, University of Wisconsin

“[A] tour de force, an indispensable reference that no meta-analyst will want to be without. It is elegantly organized, encyclopedic in breadth and coverage, and articulate in exposition of the role meta-analysis plays in advancing the cumulative nature of knowledge. [The book] is destined to become a classic . . . highly recommended and a must for any serious student or practitioner of the research enterprise.”
—FREDERIC M. WOLF, Learning Resource Center, University of Michigan

Research synthesis is the practice of systematically distilling and integrating data from many studies in order to draw more reliable conclusions about a given research issue. When the first edition of The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis was published in 1994, it quickly became the definitive reference for conducting meta-analyses in both the social and behavioral sciences. In the third edition, editors Harris Cooper, Larry Hedges, and Jeff Valentine present updated versions of classic chapters and add new sections that evaluate cutting-edge developments in the field.

The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis draws upon groundbreaking advances that have transformed research synthesis from a narrative craft into an important scientific process in its own right. The editors and leading scholars guide the reader through every stage of the research synthesis process—problem formulation, literature search and evaluation, statistical integration, and report preparation. The Handbook incorporates state-of-the-art techniques from all quantitative synthesis traditions and distills a vast literature to explain the most effective solutions to the problems of quantitative data integration. Among the statistical issues addressed are the synthesis of non-independent data sets, fixed and random effects methods, the performance of sensitivity analyses and model assessments, the development of machine-based abstract screening, the increased use of meta-regression and the problems of missing data. The Handbook also addresses the non-statistical aspects of research synthesis, including searching the literature and developing schemes for gathering information from study reports. Those engaged in research synthesis will find useful advice on how tables, graphs, and narration can foster communication of the results of research syntheses.

The third edition of the Handbook provides comprehensive instruction in the skills necessary to conduct research syntheses and represents the premier text on research synthesis.

HARRIS COOPER is Hugo L. Blomquist Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University.

LARRY V. HEDGES is Professor of Statistics and Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.

JEFFREY C. VALENTINE is Professor of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville.

CONTRIBUTORS Ariel M. Aloe, Betsy Jane Becker, Michael Borenstein, Kathleen Coburn, Thomas D. Cook, Harris Cooper, Dean Giustini, Julie Glanville, Sean Grant, Larry V. Hedges, Julian P. T. Higgins, Spyros Konstantopoulos, Huy Le, Mark W. Lipsey, Georg E. Matt, In-Sue Oh, Robert G. Orwin, Terri D. Pigott, Frank L. Schmidt, Rebecca Turner, Jeffrey C. Valentine, Jack L. Vevea, Howard D. White, David B. Wilson, Evan Mayo-Wilson, Sandra Jo Wilson, Nicole A. M. Zelinsky

A study of food conservation efforts as documented across exhibits and demonstrations at state, district, and county fairs in the United States, focusing on efforts to conserve wheat and fats.

EVART G. ROUTZAHN was associate director of the Department of Surveys and Exhibits at the Russell Sage Foundation.

MARY SWAIN ROUTZAHN was director of the Department of Social Work Interpretation at the Russell Sage Foundation. 

Complementing the focus on the structural and social-psychological aspects of measuring social change, this report establishes a research approach relating social measurement to antecedent and consequent political considerations: political values, policy impact, power consequences, administrative influences, institutionalization, and so forth. This study is directed to any social scientist interested in political phenomena and in the issue of the relationship between social science and public policy.

Peter J. Henriot, Center of Concern, Washington, D.C.

First the press became the media, and now the media have become the Imperial Media—or have they? In this timely and comprehensive analysis, Michael Robinson and Margaret Sheehan examine how the news media behaved (or misbehaved) in covering the 1980 presidential campaign.

Using the media's own traditional standards as a guide, Robinson and Sheehan measure the level of objectivity, fairness, seriousness, and criticism displayed by CBS News and United Press International between January and December of 1980. Drawing on statistical analyses of almost 6,000 news stories and dozens of interviews with writers and reporters, the authors reach convincing and sometimes surprising conclusions. They demonstrate, for example, that both CBS and UPI strictly avoided subjective assessments of the candidates and their positions on the issues. Both gave the major parties remarkably equal access. But the media seem to give more negative coverage to front-runners, treating serious challengers less harshly. Perhaps the most surprising finding is that networks were not more superficial than print; CBS attended to the issues at least as often as UPI.

Robinson and Sheehan find television coverage more subjective, more volatile, and substantially more negative than traditional print. But CBS behaved neither imperially nor irresponsibly in Campaign '80. The networks did, however, emulate the more highly charged journalism of the eastern elite print press.

By blending the quantitative techniques of social science and the tools of Washington-based journalism, Robinson and Sheehan have produced a book that will be essential reading for students and practitioners of politics, public opinion research, journalism, and communications. Lively and readable, it should also appeal to anyone interested in the role of the news media in contemporary politics.

MICHAEL J. ROBINSON is associate professor of politics at Catholic University and director of the Media Analysis Project at George Washington University.

MARGARET A. SHEEHAN is research analyst for a law firm in Washington, D.C.

Published by the Department of Child-Helping of the Russell Sage Foundation in 1911, this paper analyzes research on height and weight in children.

MILTON A. GERSHEL was attending physician of the Hebrew Sheltering Orphan Asylum of New York City.