This paper extracts the characteristics of the view of ability in educational practices during the period of rapid growth in Japan, focusing on the influence of these perceptions on the Ministry of Education's educational policies. The analysis draws on the debate about "vocational aptitude tests" and "observation guidance."…

It can be difficult to navigate the tasks of repertoire selection and part assignments in a way that produces a successful performance product while also being educationally beneficial to all students. However, researchers have explored methods of ensuring these goals through repertoire selection. In this article, I present ideas for how educators…

Goldhammer (this issue) proposes an interesting approach to dealing with the speededness of item responses. Rather than modeling speed as a latent variable that varies from person to person, he proposes to use experimental conditions that are expected to fix the speed, thereby eliminating individual differences on this dimension in order to make…

The main challenge of ability tests relates to the difficulty of items, whereas speed tests demand that test takers complete very easy items quickly. This article proposes a conceptual framework to represent how performance depends on both between-person differences in speed and ability and the speed-ability compromise within persons. Related…

This study investigated evaluations and advice communicated to male and female technology interns experiencing work difficulties, using a 2 (workplace issue: ability or interpersonal) ×2 (intern gender: male vs. female) between-subjects experimental design. Technology professionals rated hypothetical interns on competence, qualifications,…

In this paper, we report on the design and implementation of a state of the art Student Information System (SIS) being developed in a moderate size Alberta, Canada school jurisdiction. The SIS design is premised upon transparency, balanced, comprehensive, and multi-method assessments that links qualitative and quantitative data in support of…

Feedback from years of nationwide use has resulted in a 3rd Edition of this unique, systematic, and objective guide to considering and implementing academic acceleration. Developed and tested by the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa, the IAS ensures that acceleration decisions are systematic, thoughtful, well reasoned, and defensible.…

The purpose of this study was to determine the most important factors in predicting academic outcomes at the post-secondary level. With an increasing number of students attending college and the spiraling costs of post-secondary education there is a greater need, now more than ever, to discern the most important factors in positive academic…

First- and higher-order factor analyses are explained from a conceptual rather than a mathematical perspective. A case is made for performing higher-order factor analysis when factors are theoretically related. Actual scores of 301 children on 24 ability measures are used to demonstrate interpretation of second-order factors using the FORTRAN…

This study tested the specificity-generality hypothesis regarding moderation of aptitude test validity by job ability requirement differences using 24,482 Air Force enlistees in 37 jobs. Moderating effects due to job differences were not found, and job ability differences did not moderate the relationship between the amount of "g"…

Recently there appears to have been an increase in interest in the relative power of general ability and narrower cognitive aptitudes to predict real world performance in training programs and on the job. This area has important practical implications for personnel selection and classification, particularly for large organizations such as the…

Paper presented at the International Seminar on Experimental Research in Music Education (University of Reading, Reading, England, July 9-16, 1968).

Studied the constructs underlying the Ball Aptitude Battery (Ball Foundation; BAB) in 3 studies involving 329 and 365 adults and 175 ninth graders and in a reanalysis (study 4) of previous BAB data. Results show that "g" plays a significant but not dominant role in the BAB, which measures abilities needed for assessing person-job fit.…

Paper presented at the International Seminar on Experimental Research in Music Education (University of Reading, Reading, England, July 9-16, 1968).

Analyzed several data sets to compare the prediction possible from a uniform general factor score with that produced by a separately tailored set of regression weights when those weights are applied to a new cross-validation sample. Found that with smaller samples, the uniform general factor score was clearly superior. (Author/ABB)