On the Need to Use Controll in Social Science Rese

A review of the literature revealed that control (or placebo) vignettes are not used in numerous studies in all areas that employ vignette-based methodology, which is a serious methodological and theoretical flaw. The nature of this flaw and its methodological and theoretical importance is outlined in this paper, as well as procedures and a model for developing control vignettes. Two studies on the degree to which nurse professionals are perceived to be at fault when assaulted by patients are reported which employ control vignettes. In the first study, the use of control vignettes produced better and more objective validation of the assault vignettes than previously available in the literature. In the second study, female and male nurses were blamed as much for the incident that occurred with the patient in the control vignette as they were in the severe assault vignette, but they we.e blamed more in the mild assault vignette than they were in either the control or severe assault vignette. Female nurses, however, were blamed more than male nurses for the incident in the control and severe assault vignette, but not in the mild assault vignette. These complex findings are shown to fit the non-linear elliptic umbilic model of catastrophe theory, and not the linear models and interpretations of these variables currently in the l..terature. These significant and important results would not have been found if control vignettes had not been used. (Author) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.