And They Call This Research …

There needs to be dissidence expressed with (1) studies that compare apples with oranges simply because these are subsets of the set of fruit and (2) studies that present statistical findings but do not discuss them or arrive ac some conclus i o n ( ~ ) about the data. Subsets of a set do have communalities but not identicalities. Moreover, the tendency to leave the reader to infer on the basis of that which is given may coo often be misleading. Take from many possible ones in the literature, for example, the recent article by Covin and Lubimiv (1976). In this the authors compared the scores on the Wide Range Achievement Test with those for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised-to what end? As an exercise in statistics it may have merit. But what the correlations mean for cognitive development and/or intellectual level and/or academic prognosis is noticeably absent. Are the correlations causally and/or associatively meaningful? What should one infer from the rs? from the scores? In short, what was the purpose of this article and why was it published?