Stephen C. Yanchar

The Reliability and Validity of the Outcome Questionnaire

With the rise in efforts to evaluate the quality of mental health care and its outcomes, the measurement of change has become an important topic. This paper tracks the creation of a new instrument designed to assess psychotherapy outcome. The Outcome Questionnaire (OQ) was designed to include items relevant to three domains central to mental health: subjective discomfort, interpersonal relations, and social role performance. This study describes the theoretical development and psychometric properties of the OQ. Psychometric properties were assessed using clinical, community, and undergraduate samples. The OQ appears to have high reliability and evidence to suggest good concurrent and construct validity of the total score. The data presented show that it distinguishes patient from non-patient samples, is sensitive to change, and correlates with other measures of patient distress.

Reconsidering the Compatibility Thesis and Eclecticism: Five Proposed Guidelines for Method Use

This essay examines calls for methodological eclecticism based on the “compatibility thesis,” arguing that they fail to take seriously the assumptions of method and, in so doing, fail to provide a methodological perspective that adequately incorporates the centrally important task of critically examining the theoretical background of methods and conceptual frameworks for research. The authors offer an alternative view of method use and a set of guidelines that emphasize the importance of contextual sensitivity, creativity, conceptual awareness, coherence, and critical reflection in research and evaluation practices.

Critical Thinking as Disciplinary Practice

Critical thinking in psychology has traditionally focused on method-centered tasks such as the assessment of method use, data analysis, and research evidence. Although helpful in some ways, this form of critical thinking fails to provide resources for critically examining the scientific analytic foundation on which it rests and, when used exclusively, prohibits sufficiently critical analysis of theory and research. An alternative view of critical thinking—that emphasizes the identification and evaluation of implicit theoretical assumptions—is advocated. It is suggested that this alternative approach improves on method-centered approaches by addressing not only implicit assumptions but also rule-following concerns. This approach is intended to facilitate innovation and the production of scholarly work in ways that incorporate relational values such as dialogue, care, and respect. Finally, this alternative form of critical thinking is described as a theoretically situated, open, and evolving conception of critique that should itself be continually reanalyzed and refined, particularly in response to the evolving nature and needs of the field.

On the Nature of a Critical Methodology

This article describes an expanded view of methodology— termed a critical methodology—in the wake of criticisms of the received view of scientific method. A critical methodology would involve a deemphasis on method per se, the need for methodological innovation and the continual critical examination of the assumptions that undergird methods and other research resources. It is argued that under a critical methodology, the processes of theory construction and research would be essentially processes of argument construction, where arguments can be supported with many types of evidence. Although there is no final certainty through method under this framework, progress can result from the tension between various perspectives in context.

Learning from programmed instruction: Examining implications for modern instructional technology

This article reports a theoretical examination of several parallels between contemporary instructional technology (as manifest in one of its most current manifestations, online learning) and one of its direct predecessors, programmed instruction. We place particular focus on the unterlying assumptions of the two movements. Our analysis suggests that four assumptions that contributed to the historical demise of programmed instruction—(a) ontological determinisms, (b) materialism (c) social efficiency, and (d) technological determinism—also underlie contemporary instructional technology theory and practice and threaten its long-term viability as an educational resource. Based on this examination, we offer several recommendations for practicing instructional technologists and make a call for innovative assumptions and make a call for innovative assumptions and theories not widely visible in the field of instructional technology.

Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition Using a Diglot Reader or a Computer-Based Drill and Practice Program.

This research study compares the impact of a computer-based diglot reader with that of a sophisticated, computer-based, drill and practice program on second language acquisition. The affective benefits as well as depth and breadth of vocabulary development were examined. The diglot method, originally conceived by Burling, introduces second language vocabulary within the context of a familiar first language text, thus allowing the reader to acquire the second language incidentally while lowering the affective barrier to language acquisition. This research study reaffirmed the positive affective benefit of the diglot method and showed that the diglot reader was equally as effective as the drill and practice program in facilitating vocabulary acquisition.

Teaching Critical Thinking by Examining Assumptions.

We describe how instructors can integrate the critical thinking skill of examining theoretical assumptions (e.g., determinism and materialism) and implications into psychology courses. In this instructional approach, students formulate questions that help them identify assumptions and implications, use those questions to identify and examine the assumptions and implications of theories being studied, and develop defensible positions on the tenability of various theoretical assumptions. We suggest that this instructional approach fits within extant critical thinking proposals, such as those formulated by King (1995) and Halonen (1995).

What Is Psychology About? Toward An Explicit Ontology

Commentators have criticized psychologys overemphasis on method and its simultaneous neglect of questions regarding the subject matter and purpose of psychology. This article summarizes four problems that have resulted from the privileging of method, and in each case illustrates how an explicit ontology provides at least partial solutions to these problems. This article also suggests three metatheoretical assumptions based on the thinking of William James that would allow for the establishment of an explicit ontology and that would allow for psychological entities per se to be studied without the threat of biological or other kinds of reductionism. Finally, concerns that may arise in the formation of an explicit ontology are briefly addressed.

Using numerical data in explicitly interpretive, contextual inquiry: A "practical discourse" framework and examples from Engeström's research on activity systems

This article discusses the potential contribution of certain types of numerical data to explicitly interpretive, contextual inquiry (i.e., inquiry commonly associated with the use of “practical discourse” and “qualitative” methods) and extends an earlier argument on this topic. Three example studies that clarify this earlier argument, drawn from the research program of Yrjö Engeström, are presented. These examples provide concrete demonstrations of two principal ways in which Engeström used numerical data, in conjunction with data accrued through more traditional qualitative forms of inquiry (e.g., phenomenography, discourse analysis), to offer explicitly interpretive, contextual accounts of practical human action within dynamic “activity systems.”

Changing the terms of the debate: Quantitative methods in explicitly interpretive research

We introduce this special issue by arguing that quantitative and qualitative research methods do not line up neatly with the guiding philosophical commitments of the two sides of the schism in the field between the mainstream, natural science approach, and the minority, human science position. This leads to the motivating idea for the issue, the view that quantitative methods, when used appropriately, can contribute to interpretive inquiry in psychology. We discuss the issue’s two main objectives—(1) presenting lines of actual research that illustrate how quantitative approaches can be used in ways that are consistent with a human science approach to the field, and (2) providing critical examination of the motivating idea—and introduce the articles in the issue that address each of these objectives. In the final section of this introductory article, we offer our thoughts about what the full set of papers accomplishes and suggest that the issue’s many-sided exploration goes some distance toward changing the terms of the quantitative—qualitative debate.