Unbiased Estimation of Sampling Variance of Correlations

In a recent article, P. E. Spector and E. L. Levine (1987) asserted that the estimate of sampling error variance used in validity generalization studies is biased when the number of correlations is relatively small. In addition, Spector and Levine maintained that the bias is such that the sampling error variance estimate seriously overestimates the actual variance of observed correlations. A partial replication of Spector and Levine's study showed that the alleged bias was due to a distributional artifact and that the sampling error estimate is not seriously biased. We review evidence from several Monte Carlo studies indicating that the sampling error estimate is quite accurate.