Sociological computing: An opportunity missed?

Rapid advances in sociological computing are changing virtually every aspect of scholarly sociological work. These changes offer an opportunity for sociologists to improve the quality of their work and bring new insights and approaches to bear on important sociological problems. Nevertheless, sociologists display a profound ambivalence toward computer work by other sociologists. Left unchecked, this ambivalence threatens to turn sociological computing into an opportunity missed. Inadequate rewards, lack of training, and a general failure to understand the importance of computing in sociology threaten to stifle the development of quality soft-ware, push sociologists competent in computing into other fields, and jeopardize the quality of sociological scholarship. This article documents these ambivalent tendencies and proposes reasonable steps the discipline should take to assure that sociological computing does not become an opportunity missed.     

A SCALE IN SEARCH OF A CONSTRUCT: COMMENTS ON GAVIN AND WAMBOLDT

The article examines some issues raised in Gavin and Wamboldt's (1992) recent study on the Family-of-Origin Scale (FOS) (Hovestadt, Anderson, Piercy, Cochran, & Fine, 1985). The discussion centers on unresolved concerns regarding the validity and utility of the FOS and on unsubstantiated and potentially misleading claims made in the Gavin and Wamboldt article. A case is made for conceptual and methodological precision in the study of family phenomena.     

Multicultural perspectives on counseling survivors of rape

The dominant Euro-American culture is a rape-prone culture, as defined by Sanday. Within that culture, rape is both a tool and a consequence of interlocking systems of oppression based on race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. The impact of rape on an individual survivor can only be fully understood in the context of the survivor's own culture, religious beliefs, and experience as an immigrant or refugee. Issues of race, culture, class, and sexual orientation influence every step in the counseling of a rape survivor. Knowledge about the client's culture is essential if accurate assessment and culturally appropriate service are to be provided. Specific examples of the impact of these issues are presented. Ways in which the cultural values implicit in the crisis counseling model may conflict with the client's values and needs are examined.     

Robust confidence interval for a residual standard deviation

The residual standard deviation of a general linear model provides information about predictive accuracy that is not revealed by the multiple correlation or regression coefficients. The classic confidence interval for a residual standard deviation is hypersensitive to minor violations of the normality assumption and its robustness does not improve with increasing sample size. An approximate confidence interval for the residual standard deviation is proposed and shown to be robust to moderate violations of the normality assumption with robustness to extreme non-normality that improves with increasing sample size.     

Goal Ambiguity and Organizational Performance in U.S. Federal Agencies

In spite of numerous observations that government organizationshave high levels of organizational goal ambiguity that exertmajor influences on their other characteristics, few researchershave measured goal ambiguity and tested these frequent assertions.In previous research, we developed measures of four dimensionsof goal ambiguity: mission comprehension ambiguity, directivegoal ambiguity, evaluative goal ambiguity, and priority goalambiguity. Confirming hypotheses developed from the literatureon public organizations, the latter three variables showed relationsto such organizational characteristics as organizational age,financial publicness (proportion of funding from governmentallocations), and regulatory status. This article reports asecond analytical step of examining the relations between thegoal ambiguity dimensions and indicators of organizational performancebased on responses to the 2000 National Partnership for ReinventingGovernment Survey of federal employees. The performance variablesincluded managerial effectiveness, customer service orientation,productivity, and work quality. Regression analyses with numerouscontrol variables found that directive, evaluative, and prioritygoal ambiguity related negatively to managerial effectiveness.All four performance indicators showed significant negativerelationships with evaluative goal ambiguity and directive goalambiguity. The results provide further evidence of the viabilityof the new measures of goal ambiguity, support theory-basedbut previously untested hypotheses, and further indicate thefeasibility and value of analyzing goal ambiguity of governmentorganizations.     

A LOTTO SYSTEMS PROBLEM

A Lotto Systems bet allows the player to nominate n numbers from which (s)he believes the winning six numbers will be drawn, and to bet on all combinations of six of these n numbers. Assume that the winning six numbers come from the nominated n. How many combinations must be entered to guarantee that one combination will include at least five of the winning six numbers? The problem is generalized in this paper, and the method of simulated annealing is used to find solutions for various situations. The case where two supplementary numbers are drawn after the initial six winning numbers is also considered.     

Drug testing laws and employment injuries

Employer use of employee drugscreening procedures is widespread in the U.S. A state-by-state analysis of statutory law applicable to the drug testing issue is combined with state and industry data to isolate how drug testing laws affect workplace injury rates. Based on our data, injury rates are not statistically related to the state’s legal environment.     

Understanding Unemployment Across California Counties

Unemployment rates differ widely and persistently across counties. This article examines equilibrium forces related to this geographic disparity with a focus on California. We show that although seasonal variation in employment can account for some of the differences, it cannot explain the total variation. Factors such as educational attainment, age, and gender appear to be strongly related to unemployment differences. Individuals living in higher‐unemployment areas also have a lower propensity to migrate. Because migration is usually considered to be the main equilibrating force, this evidence helps further explain why unemployment rates across counties are persistently different.