On a more conciliatory note (maybe I'm just in a charitable mood this morning), Mike P. and I do agree on the merits of Don Campbell's writing (and I agree with Mike that Shadish, Cook, and Campbell is a treasure trove of a resource for thinking critically about quasi-experimentation). Also, a quotation from Campbell from his classic 1969 American Psychologist article (Reforms as Experiments), seems apropos here:
"The advocated strategy in quasi-experimentation is not to throw up one's hands and refuse to use the evidence because of this lack of control, but rather to generate by informed criticism appropriate to this specific setting as many plausible rival hypotheses as possible, and then to do the supplementary research..which would reflect on these rival hypotheses." All the best...Scott Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D. Professor Editor, Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice Department of Psychology, Room 473 Psychology and Interdisciplinary Sciences (PAIS) Emory University 36 Eagle Row Atlanta, Georgia 30322 [email protected] (404) 727-1125 Psychology Today Blog: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-skeptical-psychologist 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-140513111X.html Scientific American Mind: Facts and Fictions in Mental Health Column: http://www.scientificamerican.com/sciammind/ The Master in the Art of Living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his intellectual passions. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him - he is always doing both. - Zen Buddhist text (slightly modified) -----Original Message----- From: Mike Palij [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 12:05 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: RE: [tips] Bloor street bridge suicide study On Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:50:14 -0700,, Scott O Lilienfeld wrote: >To those TIPSters who are interested, Joiner uses the same framework >for suicide as an overarching theme in his book - although he adds >acquired fearlessness (as a consequence of habituation to thoughts/images, > etc. of death) as a third causal factor. In contrast to Mike, I've actually >found the ongoing discussion here quite useful and provocative - although >that's perhaps because I never saw the discussion here as primarily >about how best to prevent suicide I have no idea why this discussion was initiated or even maintained. I did not think it was primarily about suicide prevention outside of a single case. >(I don't know anyone who would seriously contend that bridge barriers >are a crucial part of the solution, nor that they say much about the causes of >suicidal motivation). So, what was the point of focusing on this article? >Instead, I think that the recent discussion of what >kinds of evidence we'd find compelling for preventative effects in naturalistic >contexts is actually quite fascinating - and it's helped me to realize that >acquiring such evidence is often a heck of a lot more challenging that most >people (myself included) had assumed. ...Scott If you're not familiar with program evaluation, I'd suggest taking a look at Shadish, Cook, and Campbell's "Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference" and McDavid and Hawthorn's "Program Evaluation & Performance Measurement" where issues of establishing causal effects for policy concerns (e.g., demonstrating that government funded projects produce their intended beneficial effects) are covered. Donald Campbell is one of the best known researchers who was concerned with establishing causal effects in programs operating in natural contexts.. The Campbell Collaboration (www.campbellcollaboration.org) focuses on these issues through the use of systematic reviews -- they mirror the Cochrane Collabarotion (www.cochrane.org ) which focus on evidence-based medicine and health care. Here is a list of topics that the Campbell collaboration either intends to review or has reviewed: http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/lib/index.php?go=browse&sort=title&view=all&; For those truly serious about this topic, I have two words: Propensity scores. Shadish, Cook & Campbell cover this idea in their Chapter 5 but some may find the following article more to the point: http://erx.sagepub.com/content/29/6/530.abstract -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] P.S. This is my third and last post today. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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