Despite their long trajectory in the social sciences, few systematic works analyze how often and for what purposes focus groups appear in published works. This study fills this gap by undertaking a meta-analysis of focus group use over the last 10 years. It makes several contributions to our understanding of when and why focus groups are used in…

Given their capacity to identify causal relationships, experimental audit studies have grown increasingly popular in the social sciences. Typically, investigators send fictitious auditors who differ by a key factor (e.g., race) to particular experimental units (e.g., employers) and then compare treatment and control groups on a dichotomous outcome…

A recent recommendation by Holt (EJ 200 576) that coefficients resulting from estimating log-linear and similar models should not be interpreted is argued to be based on lack of clarity about the substantive and theoretical importance of the choice between dummy and effect coding for categorical variables. (Author/GDC)