Articulating a Role for Program Evaluation in Responsible Conduct of Research Programs

Since Integrity in Scientific Research: Creating an Environment That Promotes Responsible Conduct was released in 2001, there has been increased interest in evaluating programs designed to foster the responsible conduct of research (RCR). The field of program evaluation is designed to determine the worth or value of programs and can serve as a resource for institutions interested in evaluating their RCR programs. This article provides a very brief overview of program evaluation, demonstrates how it can be applied to RCR, and provides key reference information. Evaluating RCR programs can promote institutional accountability for the resources that are used in supporting those programs.     

Survey Participation, Nonresponse Bias, Measurement Error Bias, and Total Bias

A common hypothesis about practices to reduce survey nonresponseis that those persons brought into the respondent pool throughpersuasive efforts may provide data filled with measurementerror. Two questions flow from this hypothesis. First, doesthe mean square error of a statistic increase when sample personswho are less likely to be contacted or cooperate are incorporatedinto the respondent pool? Second, do nonresponse bias estimatesmade on the respondents, using survey reports instead of records,provide accurate information about nonresponse bias? Using aunique data set, the Wisconsin Divorce Study, with divorce recordsas the frame and questions about the frame information includedin the questionnaire, this article takes a first look into thesetwo issues. We find that the relationship between nonresponsebias, measurement error bias, and response propensity is statistic-specificand specific to the type of nonresponse. Total bias tends tobe lower on estimates calculated using all respondents, comparedwith those with only the highest contact and cooperation propensities,and nonresponse bias analyses based on respondents yield conclusionssimilar to those based on records. Finally, we find that errorproperties of statistics may differ from error properties ofthe individual variables used to calculate the statistics.     

POLITICAL INFLUENCE AND REGULATORY POLICY: THE 1984 DRUG LEGISLATION

This paper applies a positive theory of legislation to explain the development of the 1984 Drug Price Competition Act and the Patent Term Restoration Act. Specifically, it examines why regulatory reforms prior to 1984 were stalemated, and why the 1984 legislation was enacted. Results show that prior to 1984, members of the key congressional committees had preferences in which the proposed bills could not beat the status quo. However, changes in subcommittee membership in the House combined with a change in the majority party in the Senate created a situation in which the 1984 legislation could defeat the status quo.     

Effect of Interviewer Experience on Interview Pace and Interviewer Attitudes

Traditional statistical analyses of interviewer effects on surveydata do not examine whether these effects change over a fieldperiod. However, the nature of the survey interview is dynamic.Interviewers’ behaviors and perceptions may evolve asthey gain experience, thus potentially affecting data quality.This paper looks at how interview length and interviewer evaluationsof respondents change over interviewers’ workloads. Multilevelmodels with random interviewer effects are used to account forthe clustering of cases within interviewers and individual interviewercharacteristics in the 1984, 1988, and 2000 National ElectionStudies. The 1984 and 1988 NES released sample in four replicates,minimizing the confound between order in an interviewers’workload and sample composition. We find that over the courseof the studies, both measures change significantly. Interviewerprior survey experience also was significantly negatively relatedto the length of the interview. These findings have implicationsfor interviewer training prior to and during studies, as wellas suggesting future research to reveal why these behaviorsand perceptions change.     

Where Does Religion Matter Most? Personal Religiosity and the Acceptability of Wife‐beating in Cross‐National Perspective

Does religion justify violent acts against wives, or does it reduce approval of this type of intimate partner violence? We examine whether personal religiosity raises or lowers the acceptability of wife‐beating. In addition, we investigate how the relationship between personal religiosity and attitudes toward wife‐beating differs depending on the overall normative context of the country where a person lives. Using multilevel modeling with data from the fifth wave of the World Values Survey (2005–2008), we find that greater individual‐level religiosity reduces the acceptability of wife‐beating. More importantly, cross‐level interactions show that these reductions are greatest in countries where there is a general lack of normative restraint as measured by the “anomie” scale. These observations suggest that religiosity may influence an individual's norms the most in countries where secular controls are absent or weak.     

Computer Science Majors: Sex Role Orientation,Academic Achievement,and Social Cognitive Factors

This study examined the sex role orientations endorsed by 188 male and female students majoring in computer science, a male‐dominated college degree program. The relations among sex role orientation and academic achievement and social cognitive factors influential in career decision‐making self‐efficacy were explored. Findings revealed that androgynous‐ and feminine‐oriented students scored significantly higher on career decision‐making self‐efficacy as compared with undifferentiated students. No significant sex role orientation differences were found for academic achievement and general and career locus of control.