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Responds to D.W. Levine's article, `True Scores, Error, Reliability, and Units of Analysis in Environment and Behavior Research,' featured in a 1994 issue of `Environment and Behavior.' Critique of the application of measurement theory; Inappropriate postulation about the distribution of universe scores.

Details the problems caused by the choice of units of analysis in evaluating environmental assessment items. Fallacy of interpreting results based on ecological entities as applying to individuals; Errors in interpreting assessment results based on individuals as applying to settings.

Different types of physicians may vary in degree of inter-physician dominance. We distinguish physicians who are already licensed (most dominant) from newly licensed foreign physicians (least dominant) and newly licensed U.S. trained physicians (of intermediate dominance). We regress state characteristics reflecting different types of rewards separately on the location distribution of each type of physician. We find that those most dominant physicians' locations are best predicted by affluence and urbanization and the least dominant physicians' locations by the availability of jobs. We conclude that the addition of the dominance concept allows a more meaningful analysis of physician location than is afforded by previous ecological and economic analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of female sterilization has grown rapidly throughout the world, especially in the United States. Yet the psychosocial impact of tubal ligation is incompletely understood. Most previous research has been retrospective and has lacked comparison groups of women using other birth control methods. This study used procedures developed in World Health Organization research to study the impact of voluntary tubal ligation on Alabama women. The design was prospective, included a comparison group, and called for 6- and 12-month follow-ups. Tubal ligation reduced follow-up pregnancy rate and scores on a measure of fear of pregnancy. Sterilization also produced a small increase in menstrual distress but did not affect sexual satisfaction or mental health nor did it increase regrets about contraceptive choice over other methods. These results imply women attained the goals that led them to choose sterilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial data were used to assess the correlation between several estimates of average student change in various schools and the ‘true’ impact of those schools. Results indicate that all estimates involving pretest-posttest differences measure school impact with reasonable accuracy. It is important to measure change over the entire course of learning, however, and not just over the later stages of learning. The correlations between change scores and other school characteristics reflect with reasonable accuracy the relationships between those characteristics and impact, but consequently will be large only when the underlying relationships are substantial. Simple gain scores measure the true situation about as accurately as other change estimates, are easier to compute, and probably are more meaningful to non-researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research on the accuracy of interpersonal perception. It notes that one of the difficult problems in studying interpersonal perception is that of holding cues constant for all observers. The study indicated that on the contrary, it is possible to obtain a measure of the ability to judge others accurately that is reliable and general over a variety of judging instruments. It also mentions that the ability to judge others consists of at least two relatively independent components, sensitivity to the generalized other and interpersonal sensitivity.

This study examines the geographical distribution of various junior college characteristics. Scores for 6 factors or categories of college characteristics, identified in earlier ACT research, were computed for each of 581 accredited junior colleges. When these junior colleges were classified and analyzed by geographical region, significant differences were found among regions on all 6 factors--Cultural Affluence (or Private Control), Technological Specialization, Size, Age (or Conventionalism), Transfer Emphasis, and Business Orientation (or High Cost). The regional differences are discussed and implications are suggested for research and counseling as well as for junior college planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which aims to extend the description of college environments to include institutions for professional education in the U.S. and Canada. In a population of 100 medical schools, 28 characteristics were intercorrelated, and a principal component analysis was carried out. Four components were rotated to a final solution by the Varimax procedure and given titles such as Affluence, Canadian versus U.S. Admissions Policies, Size, and Emphasis on Hospital Training. For the 52 U.S. medical schools that are in the same location as their parent university, correlations were computed between medical school scores on the factors and university characteristics. It is noted that the size and affluence of medical schools seem to reflect characteristics of the parent university. Size is most related to quality of graduate education. The four rotated factors appear to provide a brief but fairly representative profile of medical school characteristics.

The article presents information on stereotypes and components of accuracy of person perception scores. Over the past few years, a large and heterogeneous research literature has concerned itself with the response of Ss to other persons as stimuli. It has become conventional to refer to the area dealt with by this literature as "person perception," although "person cognition" might be more appropriate. Most such studies have used some global measure of accuracy of person perception. This approach, however, has been criticized strongly, because people feels that global measures of accuracy are virtually meaningless because they lump together all sorts of response sets and other psychological processes which interact in complex and confusing ways. This study used procedures based on a test of accuracy of person perception which requires Ss to "predict" the responses of six standard persons seen serially in filmed interviews to an inventory measuring acceptance of conventional religious beliefs. Its purpose was to evaluate the effect of providing Ss with varying amounts of information about the stimulus persons on the following components of accuracy of person perception scores.

The article responds to O'Connor's comments on the methodologies used by Cline and Richards in their studies on how people perceive others. O'Connor analyzed the inadequacy of the methodologies used by Cline and Richards in analyzing interpersonal perception. Cline and Richards used sound color movies featuring interviewees who served as the persons to be judged. From 20 films, they reduced it to 10 until it became 6. O'Connor commented that this procedure can also produce a heterogeneous scale of vocabulary knowledge.