Monthly Archives: October 2008

That’s a heading in the first chapter of a fairly extensive book on behavioral science research: Measurement, Design, and Analysis: An Integrated Approach by Elazar J. Pedhazur, Liora Pedhazur Schmelkin (1991, Lawrence Erlbaum). Here’s the quote: “To be meaningful, any activity, including the reading of research reports, has to emanate, first and foremost, from sound critical thinking. If there is a message we would like to convey from the very beginning, it is that you exercise common sense, that you not let mumbo jumbo and technical jargon get the better of you. An adverse effect of inordinate reliance on methods and quantification is a dimunution of critical thinking among researchers and consumers of research alike. There is such an allure, an almost magical quality, in specialized terminologies, in formulas and fancy analyses, particularly when performed by computer, that the likelihood of giving little or no thought to what they mean is high.”