Methodological and Conceptual Problems and Issues in Attribute x Treatment Interaction (ATI) Research
Keywords:
individual differences, research methodology, educational psychologyAbstract
Twelve methodological and conceptual problems and issues in ATI research are discussed: the impossibility of manipulating organismic variables, the intercorrelation of organismic variables, whether to use “actual” or “perceived” environment measures, the classification and measurement of environmental characteristics, whether to use broadly or narrowly defined attributes and treatments, whether it is necessary to conceptualize both the person and the environment in theoretically comparable terms, whether ATI research should be theoretical or atheoretical, the importance of ordinal and disordinal interactions, determining regions of significant difference in interactions, the confounding of between- and within-class regressions with treatment regressions, and the neglect of intermediate treatments. It is concluded that there is no clear reason to retreat from the ATI orientation and that ATI research may prove to be a cornerstone in the active recognition of the interactive complexity of behavior determinants and may represent an important evolutionary step in psychology in general.
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