The Nairn report, The Reign of ETS, has charged that the major college admissions tests administered by Educational Testing Service (ETS) have undue influence on admissions to higher education, and that the tests have little value in predicting future academic performance. Nairn's claims that the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is a poor predictor…

Prediction of success in a special program often guides program participant selection and treatment. If the statistical analysis used to develop such predictions is based on the special selectivity built into the program, the predictions can be misleading and the validation tests uninformative. Federal district court pretrial release data is used…

A study by Malcolm R. Parks reported in "Communication Monographs" called into question the cross-situational validity of the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA). Park's study, however, is flawed in many ways. He does not provide an adequate definition of "situation." Both the type of factor analysis he chose…

This paper describes two measurement integrity analyses conducted using data on the Battelle Developmental Inventory, obtained from a sample of 78 children with severe disabilities. Procedures used to conduct internal reliability and construct validity analyses are discussed. Researchers are urged to evaluate a test's construct validity when their…

The practice and interpretation of intelligence testing of educable retarded and learning disabled children is examined in this report. The current and future state of intelligence testing is discussed in terms of its predictive, diagnostic, and remedial functions. The first section places a consideration of individual testing formats within a…

Explores the erroneous assumptions underlying Burleson's criticism of Beatty and Payne and examines in context the evidence selected by Burleson to support his criticism. (NKA)

Contrary to findings of the Educational Testing Service and the College Board, the authors contend that coaching can effectively help raise student scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). They argue that the SAT is not in fact a measure of "aptitude" and that high school grades and achievement tests are better predictors of…

Questions the observed correlation between job experts and naive raters using the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ); and conducts a replication of the Smith and Hakel study (1979) with college students (N=39). Concluded that PAQ ratings from job experts and college students are not equivalent and therefore are not interchangeable. (LLL)

Reviews test construction strategies used in the development of many current questionnaire measures of temperament and critiques these measures. Shows the selection of coefficient alpha as sole criterion for inferring unidimensionality to be insufficient, and suggests improvements for construction of temperament measures. (SKC)

Psychological assessment, a subspecialty of psychology has served as one of the earliest proving grounds of automated technology. This Special Series highlights some of the advances in computerized psychological assessment methods and discusses some of the lingering issues and contemporary problems with automated psychological assessment…

Discusses the cultural limits to certainty of measurement and assessment claims about reading and examines some examples of classroom reading lessons. (Author/MLF)

Argues that the major studies supporting the Principle of Relative Constancy in consumption of mass communication products were statistically defective. Presents updated tests of data suggesting that the principle is actually of doubtful predictive value. (MS)

Reports on a study that examines the validity and usefulness of Rogerian rhetoric. (FL)

Details a social constructionist reconfiguration of metaphor analysis (SCMA) that is advanced as a powerful, reflexive analytic tool for discourse-centered social constructionist investigations. Applies SCMA to a body of organizational socialization discourse and illuminates a set of prevailing assumptions that both enable and disable…

The role of the coauthor relationship in the structure of informal communications networks within disciplines is explored, and the validity of coauthor graphs used to map these relationships is tested for both small and large databases. (CLB)