The data of comparative psychology generally differ from the majority of data collected within mainstream psychology in several key respects – most notably in the diversity of forms of measurement and fewer number of subjects. We believe null hypothesis significance testing may not be the most appropriate method of analysis for comparative psychology for these reasons. Comparative psychology has a rich history of performing several analyses on a few subjects due to a philosophical interest in individual subject behavior, along with group assessments. Since first being published in 2011, Observation Oriented Modeling has successfully been used to analyze individual subjects’ responses from honey bees, horses, humans, and rattlesnakes. Observation Oriented Modeling is highly flexible and has allowed comparative researchers to perform a variety of assessments comparable to null hypothesis significance testing’s T-Tests, One-way ANOVA, and Repeated-Measures ANOVA while producing easily-interpretable and, most importantly, relevant results. This paper describes the diverse manners in which comparative psychologists can assess individual and group performances without concerns of statistical assumptions and limitations that complicate assessments when employing Null Hypothesis Significance Testing.

Since the early 1970s, an important but under-examined subgenre of Made-for-Television Movies have foregrounded critical LGBT concerns, including coming out, parental custody, HIV/AIDS, gays in the military, and hate crimes or featured affirmative LGBT representations. These programs, often highly-rated and critically-acclaimed, were nonetheless sites of political contestation from social conservatives and LGBT activists. Through the lenses of critical media pedagogy, critical cultural studies, and critical media industries studies, this dissertation conducts a critical cultural history of LGBT TV movies. This history includes critical case studies of twenty seminal LGBT programs featuring original interviews with the producers, executives, and writers responsible for their pedagogical design. The evidence reflects how these programs helped frame these concerns, educate audiences, and advocate on behalf of the LGBT community. This research further suggests how progressive pedagogues and media producers might collaborate to help address other social issues through the use of critical entertainment.