The success of America's economy depends on a dramatic increase in the number and diversity of people who complete college with a high-quality credential. To meet this goal, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) is leading a national effort to increase support for students who left higher education without a degree but are eligible…

Recent work has shown that multidimensionally scoring responses from different tests can provide better ability estimates. For educational assessment data, applications of this approach have been limited to binary scores. Of the different variants, the de la Torre and Patz model is considered more general because implementing the scoring procedure…

Research in the field of learning disability presents particular ethical challenges when obtaining consent from participants. This is further exacerbated when the nature of the research requires participation at all ability levels and involves people with communication impairments. The process of obtaining consent in a research study with 48…

Compares second-, fifth- and eighth-graders' reasoning about their relative ability and that of another child (who applied more or less effort) with their reasoning about the relative ability of two others (who differed in effort). Responses to specific questions may be more sensitive to situationally induced motivational influences than responses…

Indicates that the Bayley Scales are a useful assessment tool for characterizing the behavior of premature infants. Results further indicate the need for going beyond summary scores of mental and motor performance and assessing performance in specific areas to obtain a more meaningful picture of individual infants' development. (RH)

Concern has been expressed over the item response theory (IRT) assumption that a person's ability can be estimated in a unidimensional latent space. To examine whether or not the response to an item requires only a single latent ability, unidimensional ability estimates were compared for data generated from the multidimensional item response…

Considers the relationship between coordinate estimates in components analysis and multidimensional scaling. Reports three small Monte Carlo studies comparing nonmetric scaling solutions to components analysis. Results are related to other methodological issues surrounding research on the general ability factor, response tendencies in…

Students from the fifth, eighth, and eleventh grades were asked to describe their ideal self-image. Analyzed according to 19 categories (such as occupation, marriage, and physical appearance), the responses revealed differences according to gender, age, cognitive-developmental level, and socialization experience. (DM)

The role of achievement needs in self-evaluation has been relatively neglected. To examine ability evaluation through social comparison when achievement or self-esteem needs are salient, students (N=102) were given bogus (favorable or unfavorable) ability feedback to manipulate the need for self-esteem maintenance. Achievement motivation was…

Identifies promising areas of aptitude-treatment interaction research (ATI), including research related to general ability, anxiety, prior achievement, and achievement motivation. Also provides general methodological ATI guidelines for science educators. (JN)

Previous research on the primacy effect in ability attribution has focused on intellectual ability, using intelligence test problems as the stimulus material. To examine ability attribution under conditions of ascending (improving), descending, and random patterns of performance on a typing task, 179 college students (69 males, 110 females)…

Examines and discusses origins of parents' beliefs concerning children's developmental processes and specific abilities, and the relations between these beliefs and parental behavior on the one hand and children's cognitive development on the other. (PCB)

Psychological researchers continue to debate the relative contribution of ability and effort to feelings of self-worth. To investigate student preferences for ability or effort and their relationship to self-worth, and to assess the relative contribution of ability and effort to affective experience, two separate studies were undertaken. In the…

The term measurement has been used in a number of different sub-areas of psychology without an explicit recognition of the commonalities and potential differences in measurement characteristics. Analysis of these measurement situations reveals that the one common factor is that a mechanism or discriminative process, that is a standard system of…

Presents an economic model of the relationship among educational effort, ability, employment qualifications, and productivity. Suggests that occupational competency requirements may encourage applicants to restrict their investments in education to the minimum necessary to obtain certification, rather than striving for competency levels that would…