Dr. Valentine's curriculum vita [PDF]

My research interests follow two related paths. A social psychologist by training, most of my scholarly work involves systematic reviewing and meta-analysis. Broadly, this research addresses statistical and methodological issues involved in making judgments about relationships from a body of studies. My primary interest is in improving the rigor with which systematic reviews are conducted, in order to increase their trustworthiness and utility. In this regard, I co-edited (with Harris Cooper and Larry Hedges) the Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis, 2nd edition, and have conducted related empirical work. I am also the former co-chair of the Methods Group of the Campbell Collaboration, the current co-chair of the Campbell Collaboration’s Training Group, and a statistical editor in the Cochrane Collaboration’s Developmental, Psychosocial, and Learning Problems group.

In Valentine, Pigott, and Rothstein (in press), for example, we provide a primer on statistical power in meta-analysis, show how meta-analysis is often the preferred inferential technique even in situations with as few as two studies, and, for reviewers who prefer not to do meta-analysis, provide suggestions on how to present study results in a way that both avoids narrative summary conclusions and presents the results in the most interpretable and helpful manner. This theme is continued in Valentine, Biglan, et al. (under review), in which we argue that the methods used by many scholars and governmental agencies (e.g., the National Registry of Evidence-Based Prevention Programs, or NREPP) to make the determination of whether an intervention has been successfully replicated are fundamentally flawed and result in the under-identification of effective interventions; we also provide better alternatives to current practice. This paper is aimed at scholars in the prevention sciences and the policy makers who fund them, and our hope is to increase the sophistication with which funding and research decisions are made.

The second path my research follows is implied in all of this work. Specifically, I use my knowledge of systematic reviewing and meta-analysis to issues related to public policy. For example, I have conducted a systematic review of longitudinal studies of the relation between self-beliefs and academic achievement (Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper, 2004), which has implications for school-based preventive interventions. Along these same lines, I have a manuscript in the late stages of preparation that provides a meta-synthesis of twelve syntheses of the effects of after-school programs (Valentine et al., under review), and am working with graduate students on reviews that examine the impact of social and academic integration on graduation rates among college students, and background characteristics and experiences that predict adjustment (specifically, well-being) among college students.

Educational Background

• PhD Social Psychology, University of Missouri, 2001
• MA Psychology, Northern Arizona University, 1994
• BA Psychology, University of New Mexico, 1992

Teaching Areas

• Applied Analysis of Variance
• Cross-disciplinary Research in Education
• Introduction to Social Psychology
• Research in Schools and Classrooms
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Undergraduate Honors Seminar in Psychology

Professional Memberships

• American Educational Research Association
• Association for Psychological Science
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology (APA Division 8)
• American Psychological Association
• Educational Psychology (APA Division 15)
• Society for Prevention Research
• Society for Research Synthesis Methods