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Methodologists have written for years about the importance of attending to important details in quantitative research, yet there has been little research investigating methodological practice in the social sciences. This study assessed the extent to which innovations and practices are adopted by researchers voluntarily. In particular, I use the case of power analysis and effect size reporting as the primary example, but I also examine other reporting behaviours. Results show that while observed power and effect sizes in the educational psychology literature tend to be strong, researchers do not seem eager to adopt practices such as reporting effect sizes and power, and neither do they tend to report their testing assumptions or the quality of their measurement. There is room for much improvement in how we attend to the basics of quantitative research, and it does not appear that persuasion and professional communication are effective in changing practice. more...

Claude Steele’s stereotype threat hypothesis has attracted significant attention in recent years. This study tested one of the main tenets of his theory—that stereotype threat serves to increase individual anxiety levels, thus hurting performance—using real‐time measures of physiological arousal. Subjects were randomly assigned to either high or low stereotype threat conditions involving a challenging mathematics task while physiological measures of arousal were recorded. Results showed significant physiological reactance (skin conductance, skin temperature, blood pressure) as a function of a stereotype threat manipulation. These findings are consistent with the argument that stereotype threat manipulations either increase or decrease situational‐specific anxiety, and hold significant implications for thinking about fair assessment and testing practices in academic settings. more...

Claude Steele’s stereotype threat hypothesis posits that when there are negative stereotypes about the intellectual capacity of certain (stigmatised) groups, members of that group suffer aversive consequences; group members who are most strongly identified with the stigmatised domain in question (e.g., intellectual or academic ability) are those most likely to suffer the effects of stereotype threat. In education, it is widely held that personal investment in schooling should lead to more positive outcomes. However, highly‐invested individuals will most keenly experience the negative effects of stigma. Thus those most at risk for withdrawing from school among students of colour (who suffer a stigma of intellectual inferiority) could be those most invested in schooling. This hypothesis was tested by measuring identification with academics among a group of incoming students at a racially diverse inner‐city high school in the Midwest USA. Regardless of race, the students who most strongly identified with aca... more...