This paper highlights the need for a systematic, content aware, and theoretically-based approach to test design. The cognitive components approach is endorsed, and is applied to the development of a computerized perceptual speed test. Psychometric literature is reviewed and shows that: every major multi-factor theory includes a clerical/perceptual…

Field dependence and spatial ability are examined as different labels for a common underlying dimension. Sixty college students completed two tests of field dependence and two tests of spatial ability. Results of an analysis of covariance found no evidence to view the two traits as distinct from each other. (Author/LMO)

A comparison of test results on the Visual Discrimination Test was made between a group of 22 reading disabled children and 22 children who were reading on or above grade level. Both groups were of average or above-average intelligence and the two groups were matched for age and sex. The mean age was 10 years and 3 months and all the reading…

Two experiments investigated perceptual primacy of dimensional and similarity relations in stimulus classifications of younger and older subjects. Results support a differential-sensitivity view of perceptual development which asserts that individuals at all ages primarily perceive and use separate relations. (RWB)

Grade level norms were developed, based on a sample of 678 elementary school students, for various error scores of the Benton Visual Retention Test. Norms were also developed for 201 normal children, 58 minimal brain dysfunction children, and 101 educable mentally retarded children. In both the copying mode and the memory mode, most errors were…

Purpose: Two studies were conducted to investigate the effects of classroom noise on attention and speech perception in native Spanish-speaking second graders learning English as their second language (L2) as compared to English-only-speaking (EO) peers. Method: Study 1 measured children's on-task behavior during instructional activities with and…

Latent trait measurement theory was used to investigate the measurement characteristics of both parts of a multiple-choice measure of field-independence, the Finding Embedded Figures Test (FEFT). Analysis was based on data provided by 1,528 students enrolled in one of two middle schools located in the southern United States. Of the subjects, 731…