Reviews research concerning relationship of nonverbal ability measures recommended for hearing impaired students and learning potential. Reviews both earlier studies indicating that nonverbal measures could be used to predict academic achievement and more recent studies urging caution or suggest questionable predictability when interpreting data.…

Describes two invariance tests, the jackknife procedure and Procrustean rotation, and applies them in a discriminant analysis for this heuristic study. Invariance testing helps to prevent overemphasis on findings of statistical significance and overgeneralization of a research result, and thus is gaining favor as an indicator of result importance.…

Asked 391 students to provide 3 types of mathematics self-efficacy judgments. Students' reported confidence to answer the problems they were later asked to solve proved a more powerful predictor of that performance than either their confidence to perform math-related tasks or to succeed in math-related courses. (RJM)

Results of completion of 4 instruments (Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, Strong Interest Inventory, Hermann Brain Dominance Inventory, and Learning Styles Inventory) by 75 accounting, business administration, and public administration graduate students suggest that the Hermann (and to some extent the Strong) inventory has potential value for…

Matching almost 47,000 men and women on type of math course taken and grade received, women scored about 33 points lower on the Scholastic Aptitude Test-Mathematics than men who had taken the same course and received the same grade. Sex differences call into question the validity of the SAT as a predictor of college math performance. (SK)

This article defines test bias and reviews research methods most aptly applied postpublication to educational and psychological tests. Best methods for estimating bias in criterion-related or predictive validity and determining bias in construct validity across groups are explained. (Author/JDD)

The issues of construct validity, predictive validity, and item content bias on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) are examined. The review concludes that most objective data have not supported the issue of bias of the WISC-R when used with children of different ethnic backgrounds. (JDD)

New methods for representing the structural properties of domain-specific knowledge were studied. Network representations of data from 40 college students' ratings of the relatedness of domain concepts were derived using the Pathfinder scaling algorithm, and similarity between students' and instructor's networks was then assessed using a…

This study, involving 11 older males with mild or moderate sensorineural loss, tested whether speech gain that results from a hearing aid fitting is predictable on the basis of unaided performance intensity curve, unaided narrow-band sound field thresholds, hearing aid insertion gain as a function of frequency, ambient noise, and internal hearing…

Discusses why agentic and idiographic approaches (in combination with more typical nomothetic, nonagentic studies) may enhance the predictive accuracy of psychological experiments. Presents study on exercise behavior of 42 college student subjects and analyzes it from 3 perspectives: nonagentic-nomothetic, nonagentic-idiographic, and…

Two differing opinions about the value of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in college admissions address these topics: over-reliance on the test as a predictor of student success; omission of some students' scores from institutional profiles; effects of abolition of the test; and admissions officer understanding of psychometrics. (Author/MSE)

The Work Values Inventory and Self-Directed Search were used to predict retention of students in office occupation majors at Utah Valley Community College. The predictive model distinguished among students either retained (graduated, on-track, and "jobbed-out") and noncompleters. Noncompletion was correctly predicted for about 73 percent…

Using a national sample of recent medical school graduates (n=12,213), a study of predictive validity of the National Board of Medical Examiners test parts I and II found strong correlations between performance on those parts and part III, supporting the test's use, at least in part, for selection of residency applicants. (MSE)

Reports on the results of a study of nontraditional undergraduate students that was conducted to determine whether self-directedness in learner profile was a predictor of computer anxiety. Analysis based on the Oddi Continuing Learning Inventory and Oetting's Computer Anxiety Scale (COMPAS) indicates that self-directedness is a useful predictor.…

Discusses issues of validity and fairness in the use of intelligence tests for job selection. Expands set of constructs used to predict job performance and sets of performance criteria used to quantify job performance. Presents an agenda for research and practice in job selection and training for the future. (MMU)