Discusses the effects of a grammar test on student admission to the department of communication at the University of Central Florida. (HOD)

A comparison was made between two procedures for testing whether an alpha-numeric character, which was pattern masked to prevent awareness, could access higher-order information concerning its category. (Author)

Two tests of divergent thinking were taken by engineering students and business studies students. One concerned nonscientific objects, while the second concerned objects of specific interest to engineers. The result casts doubts on the validity of previous studies showing arts students better at thinking divergently than science students. (KC)

Compares three statistical methods for measuring the weight of examination components in determining the ranking of overall results. The authors demonstrate the limitations in using standard deviation and part-with-whole correlations and show how covariance techniques provide the best indicators of component weights. Theoretical objections to the…

The article reviews the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery in terms of its standardizaton and psychometric qualities, and its strengths and weaknesses regarding administration, scoring, and interpretation. (CL)

Argues for appraising tests for evidence of construct validity as well as evaluating the potential social consequences of test use. Asserts that construct validity provides a rational approach for predictive hypotheses and a rational basis for judgment of test relevance to the criterion domain. (Author/JCD)

Although it has been suggested that sleep, and particularly REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, plays an important role in information processing, this study found no relationship between any aspect of sleep, in particular time of arousal during the week and on weekends, and academic performance. (MLW)

The New Jersey Education Association charges that serious reporting errors in the state's minimum basic skills (MBS) testing program are causing some children to be falsely labelled as failures and are leading to misallocation of State Compensatory Education Aid, which is based on a formula using MBS scores. (SJL)

Despite the controversy over standardized testing, a 1970 survey indicates that teachers still need and want to use tests as diagnostic tools. Because of problems and abuses, however, changes need to be made so that more accurate and useful information can be derived for educational purposes. (Author/GC)

Attempts to evaluate the effect of various combinations of traditional instructional methods (TM) and personalized instruction (PSI) on final exam scores. It is hypothesized that groups which received PSI combined with enrichment provided by TM will score significantly higher on their cumulative final exam than students who receive instruction by…

Test results of 915 high school students taking a history examination with a choice of topics show that students were generally able to pick the topic on which they could get the highest score. Implications for fair scoring when topic choice is allowed are discussed. (SLD)

A national sample of 820 academically talented children took the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale. Cluster analyses of scores found a three-cluster solution. Further analyses indicated that these clusters were: nonperfectionistic (32.%), healthy perfectionistic (41.7%), and dysfunctional perfectionistic (25.5%). The construct of perfectionism…

Representative profile subtypes were examined in the standardization sample (2200 children) of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III). Two-stage cluster analysis identified five reliable subtypes. A method for determining the relative uniqueness of clinically obtained WISC-III factor index score patterns is…

Because the Reagan and Bush administrations accentuated the negative about American schools, there was little mention of U.S. students' average performance on the geography part of the 1992 Second International Assessment of Educational Progress. On the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (1994), U.S. eighth graders finished slightly…

Compares secondary and junior schools' influence on (British) 16 year-olds' performance on the General Certificate in Secondary Education examination. Presents a mathematical model to explain performance variations, using a cohort of 758 students in 48 junior schools and 116 secondary schools. There is a strong continuity of junior school effects…