Using student subjects in experimental research: a challenge to the practice of using students as a proxy for taxpayers

The tax discipline has accepted the practice adopted in the economics and psychology disciplines of using student subjects for experimental research purposes. However, in other social science disciplines (e.g. accounting, management or consumer research), experimental research that uses students as a substitute for another group has been widely criticised as having little external validity. In this research, data are compiled from journal articles over a 20?year period to investigate the extent to which tax experiments use student subjects and the potential implications from this practice. Three research questions are addressed. First, do tax studies using student subjects justify or explain the use of student subjects? Second, are policy recommendations or other extrapolations to the tax-paying population made from the student subject results? Third, is any acknowledgement made of the potential limitations of using student subjects? The findings indicate that approximately half of the tax experiments investigated used student subjects. Of these, approximately 80% provided no justification for their chosen subject sample. A similar proportion did not acknowledge any limitations from the use of a student sample. Around half of the papers using student subjects extrapolated their findings to the general tax-paying population or provided tax policy recommendations. In addition, the research indicates that the tax discipline has not had the same level of robust debate on the use of student subjects in experimental research as that seen in other disciplines. This potentially limits the external validity and utility of many of the tax research experiments undertaken to date.     

Insights and recommendations for recruitment and retention of low socio-economic parents with overweight children

Low socio-economic groups are typically difficult to recruit and retain in health research, which makes it difficult to investigate their health-related beliefs and behaviours. Low socio-economic parents with overweight or obese children took part in a longitudinal qualitative child obesity study over 12?months. These parents’ views of and recommendations for appropriate recruitment and retention strategies are reported. Their interpretations and suggestions are considered in the light of the difficulties that were experienced in designing the study to meet their needs and the approaches that were found to be more effective in achieving and maintaining a viable study cohort. Relevant aspects of recruitment included remuneration, recruitment locations and the use of appropriate weight-related terminology. Retention factors included protocol flexibility, ongoing remuneration and learning opportunities. Barriers to ongoing participation are also discussed. Suggestions are provided for future qualitative research with low socio-economic families.     

A Qualitative Study of Communication among Child Advocacy Multidisciplinary Team Members Using a Web-Based Case Tracking System

A qualitative study was conducted to gain information about communication among child advocacy multidisciplinary team (MDT) members when using a Web-based case tracking system. Analysis of the focus groups revealed a number of strengths and barriers. Users positively appraised aptness of the system for expediting communication and saving time. Lack of training and duplication of effort with other systems were recognized as impediments. In addition to the typical reactions to such systems, other factors, such as motivation and subjectivity, are discussed which may affect the success of such systems.     

Communality Across Time: Responding to Encounters with Maternal Encounters: The Ethics of Interruption

I am grateful to the editors and contributors for this wonderful collection of articles that respond to Maternal Encounters: The Ethics of Interruption (Baraitser, 2009 Baraitser , L. ( 2009 ). Maternal Encounters: The Ethics of Interruption . London , UK : Routledge . [Google Scholar]). Rather than restaging the arguments I made in the book, I attempt here to extend my discussion of the maternal subject as a figure that disrupts or interrupts our notions of subjectivity and ethics. Following Elisabeth Freeman, I propose that the temporality of maternal labor binds a socius that is enunciated not just by an irruption of subjectivity (the “discontinuity in the Real”) but also by an irruption of collectivity in the present tense of neoliberalism. This irruption, in other words, creates a commons, that is, the endurance of communality across time.     

Mum's the Word: Intersubjectivity,Alterity, and the Maternal Subject

Where motherhood and ethics are brought together, it is usually under the rubric of an “ethic of care,” with the mother-child relationship figured as a paradigmatic example of such an ethic. In this article I make use of Levinas' account of ethics as first philosophy to flesh out a notion of “maternal alterity” as an alternative to a maternal ethics based on the various complex mental and emotional tasks that make up care. This represents an attempt to recuperate something for the mother out of her often bewildering encounter with the enigmatic otherness of her child. Situating Levinas alongside a dialogue between Jessica Benjamin and Judith Butler on intersubjectivity, I attempt to disentangle maternal subjectivity from the developing subjectivity of the child and offer an account of the maternal subject as an ethical subject situated, perhaps, “otherwise” to a discourse of care.     

Growing Up in the Old Left: An Intergenerational Tale of Silence and Terror

This essay explores the intergenerational transmission of trauma that arises from political repression. Using mine and my family’s experiences of the witch hunts during the McCarthy era, I explore the psychic effects of the political terror and silencing that accompanied my growing up as a Red Diaper Baby and the profound internal shifts that occur when the social surround becomes a place of danger. I look at my family’s experience in the left during the 1950s and I consider the fear that couldn’t be registered, our unexpressed grief and loss, and the multiple contradictions against which our silence defended. Viewing my personal history through a psychoanalytic lens (e.g., Freud, Gerson, Butler, Puget), and considering a clinical example, I explore the ways the social surround of state-imposed terror during the 1950s was elaborated internally from my earliest years, shaping and shaped by my interpersonal experience and intrapsychic fantasy. I also consider the pre-McCarthy era family history that gave nuance to our experience in the 1950s and the emergence in my clinical work of my history of having been terrorized and silenced by the state. Finally, I briefly reflect on the interweaving of political repression and gendered silence.     

The Relationship Between Parent and Child Reports of Parental Supportiveness and Psychopathology of Sexually Abused Children

This study examined the relationship between parent and child reports of supportiveness of intrafamilially sexually abused children and levels of child psychopathology. Fifty-four intrafamilially sexually abused children completed a revised version of the Family Subscale of the Survey of Children's Social Support and the Child Assessment Schedule. Fifty-four parents completed a version of the Family Subscale of the Survey of Children's Social Support, modified for use in parental reporting of their own supportive behaviors. Satisfactory reliability levels were obtained for the revised measures. This study of 54 sexually abused children and their non-offending parents found that although most non-offending parents were supportive of their children, the children reported considerable distress. Although there was no significant difference in mean levels of support reported by parents and children, the two measures were not significantly correlated. This suggests that parents and children perceive supportive behavior differently, although both constructs are of importance. Multiple regression analysis found that both child and parent reports of parental support were predictive of levels of child psychopathology, but that child estimates were a stronger predictor.     

Using Online Reviews in Social Care

The emphasis placed on choice of social care provider means that there is an increasing need to furnish service users with reliable and up‐to‐date information on provider quality. In England, encouraging users to leave online feedback on providers is seen as one of the ways of improving the supply of information. However, using these channels for social care raises a number of issues, for example, the challenge of generating enough content to be of value, and the need to protect the anonymity of potentially vulnerable users. This article aims to summarize these issues, by drawing upon the experience of an established ratings site (TripAdvisor), and of heath service rating systems, as well as literature on decision‐making and behaviour across social care and related sectors. The article concludes that online ratings can assist users to choose providers, however, they will need to be supported by carefully designed processes to maximize their usefulness.     

How much ambiguity aversion?

Experimental results on the Ellsberg paradox typically reveal behavior that is commonly interpreted as ambiguity aversion. The experiments reported in the current paper find the objective probabilities for drawing a red ball that make subjects indifferent between various risky and uncertain Ellsberg bets. They allow us to examine the predictive power of alternative principles of choice under uncertainty, including the objective maximin and Hurwicz criteria, the sure-thing principle, and the principle of insufficient reason. Contrary to our expectations, the principle of insufficient reason performed substantially better than rival theories in our experiment, with ambiguity aversion appearing only as a secondary phenomenon.