- Title Pages
- Foreword
- A Preface to Three Prefaces
- Book One Artifact In Behavioral Research
- Book Two Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research
- The Nature Of Experimenter Effects
- 1 The Experimenter as Observer
- 2 Interpretation of Data
- 3 Intentional Error
- 4 Biosocial Attributes
- 5 Psychosocial Attributes
- 6 Situational Factors
- 7 Experimenter Modeling
- 8 Experimenter Expectancy
- Part II Studies Of Experimenter Expectancy Effects
- 9 Human Subjects
- 10 Animal Subjects
- 11 Subject Set
- 12 Early Data Returns
- 13 Excessive Rewards
- 14 Structural Variables
- 15 Behavioral Variables
- 16 Communication of Experimenter Expectancy
- Part III Methodological Implications
- 17 The Generality and Assessment of Experimenter Effects
- 18 Replications and Their Assessment
- 19 Experimenter Sampling
- 20 Experimenter Behavior
- 21 Personnel Considerations
- 22 Blind and Minimized Contact
- 23 Expectancy Control Groups
- 24 Conclusion
- Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: A Follow-up
- Book Three The Volunteer Subject
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Interpretation of Data
Interpretation of Data
- Chapter:
- (p.308) 2 Interpretation of Data
- Source:
- Artifacts in Behavioral Research
- Author(s):
Robert Rosenthal
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Identical observations are often interpreted differently by different scientists, and that fact and its implications are the subject of this chapter. Interpretation effects are most simply defined as any difference in interpretations. The difference may be between two or more interpreters, or an interpreter and such a generalized interpreter as an established theory or an “accepted” interpretation of a cumulative series of studies. As in the observer effect, the interpreter effect, or difference, does not necessarily imply a unidirectional phenomenon. When observations are nonrandomly distributed around a true value, these are referred to as “biased observations.” Similarly, when interpretations do not vary randomly—and usually they do not—these are referred to as “biased”.
Keywords: interpreter effects, data interpretation, physical sciences, biological sciences, behavioral sciences
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- Title Pages
- Foreword
- A Preface to Three Prefaces
- Book One Artifact In Behavioral Research
- Book Two Experimenter Effects in Behavioral Research
- The Nature Of Experimenter Effects
- 1 The Experimenter as Observer
- 2 Interpretation of Data
- 3 Intentional Error
- 4 Biosocial Attributes
- 5 Psychosocial Attributes
- 6 Situational Factors
- 7 Experimenter Modeling
- 8 Experimenter Expectancy
- Part II Studies Of Experimenter Expectancy Effects
- 9 Human Subjects
- 10 Animal Subjects
- 11 Subject Set
- 12 Early Data Returns
- 13 Excessive Rewards
- 14 Structural Variables
- 15 Behavioral Variables
- 16 Communication of Experimenter Expectancy
- Part III Methodological Implications
- 17 The Generality and Assessment of Experimenter Effects
- 18 Replications and Their Assessment
- 19 Experimenter Sampling
- 20 Experimenter Behavior
- 21 Personnel Considerations
- 22 Blind and Minimized Contact
- 23 Expectancy Control Groups
- 24 Conclusion
- Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: A Follow-up
- Book Three The Volunteer Subject
- Author Index
- Subject Index
