Random Thoughts on the (In)credibility of Educational-Psychological Intervention Research

I am proud that throughout my professional career my path has crossed—if only symbolically—with that of the much-revered Professor Edward Lee Thorndike. For starters, Benton Underwood’s frequency theory, which years ago Elizabeth Ghatala and I used as a basis for several research investigations (e.g., Ghatala & Levin, 1976), has at least a psychological connection to Thorndike’s Law of Exercise. Then, while editing the 1992 American Psychological Association centennial issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology, I paid homage to Professor Thorndike’s enormous contributions to the field of educational psychology. In the inaugural issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology, Thorndike (1910) wrote on the potential contributions of education to psychology, and vice versa, thusly: