In this article, the author problematizes two well-known positions on the relationship between means and ends in education. On the one side, there are those who problematize the means of education without necessarily redefining its ends, and on the other hand, there are those who challenge the purported ends of education while maintaining certain…

Historically, the potential of a person has been perceived as fixed and primarily inherited, thus, different from achievement. Current thinking broadens our view of human potential, not as a fixed capacity, but as malleable and incremental, depending on multiple factors, exogenous as well as endogenous, facilitative or inhibitive. This conception…

India's National Science Talent Search (NSTS) examination (1963 to 1976) was imagined and implemented by some top scientists of the period. It aimed to identify "talented" secondary school students with an aptitude for science and mathematics. Selected students attended undergraduate summer schools, did research in special labs during…

The assumption that students are differently talented often underlies the public and philosophical debate about the justice of school systems. It is striking that despite the centrality of the notion of 'talent' in these debates, the concept is hardly ever explicated. I will suggest two explications: First, philosophers who point to different…

Average intelligence quotient (IQ) scores have been rising throughout the 20th century and likely before--a pattern now known as the Flynn effect. The central thesis of this paper is that the Flynn effect does not represent genuine increases in general intelligence but rather an increasing aptitude for the types of modern thinking that modern life…

Various texts related to education policy and education research have recently started using two conjugate concepts "competency" and "competence". These terms are sometimes treated as synonyms of a single concept; however, in other cases they are separated and used as two terms of different educational concepts. English also…

This article presents a literature review of pertinent research that has dealt with the relationships between music education and emergent literacy in preschoolers during the past 20 years. In total, 13 correlational and quasi-experimental studies were summarized and compared. These interdisciplinary studies have demonstrated that music education…

Although some research has examined the factorial nature of the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB), none has tested hypotheses relevant to both oblique and orthogonal models via confirmatory factor analysis. Thus, in this investigation, a series of models was tested, which compared the model fit of both oblique/higher order models against a…

Introduction: Most approaches to reducing the socially inappropriate behavior of adolescents target the individual rather than a group. Evidence suggests greater efficiency and longlasting effects may be achieved when groups of peers work together to make meaningful contributions to their communities through service learning projects. In the…

Recent data from 12 pairs of tests representing eight standardization samples show that American IQ gains have occurred at a rate of 0.308 points per year from 1972 to 2002. Linked with earlier IQ gains, Americans have gained about 22 points over the 70 years between 1932 and 2002. Comparing the new WISC-IV (2002) and the old WISC-III (1989) shows…

The concept of aptitude is reviewed, and the uses and misuses of aptitude tests are considered. Many aptitude tests measure general ability plus certain more specialized abilities that are important for success in particular educational programs. Aptitude tests can be subdivided into: (1) group-administered aptitude tests, such as the Scholastic…

Ever since the early days of its existence, the field of psychology has been trying to achieve two different and somewhat contradictory objectives: to understand the "general principles" of the human mind and to explore the "uniqueness" of the individual mind. The latter direction has formed an independent subdiscipline within…

Evaluation of school records of 379 students, ages 6-12 years, referred for possible learning disability (LD) placement found that more than 80 percent of the referred students were placed in LD classes and that two-thirds of those referred scored below the severe discrepancy cutoff on the aptitude-achievement formula. (Author/DB)

Reanalysis with updated exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic methods of correlation matrices for 21 structure-of-intellect divergent production tests from the University of Southern California Aptitude Research Project suggests that the results cannot be replicated and support a higher order 2-factor oblique model of covariance among test…

Future Blogs was developed through collaboration between the Royal Society of Chemistry and The Brightside Trust. It is an innovative e-mentoring scheme that links pupils studying chemistry with mentors from universities or industry and is based on the Bright Journals e-mentoring programme (an e-mentoring scheme targeted at 14-18 year olds…