According to many higher education experts, merit scholarship screening methods discriminate against a disproportionate number of underrepresented minority (URM) students. The screening methods, however, favored individuals with the highest achievement test scores and above-average GPAs. The assumption in the common selection model is that test…

A Monte Carlo study was conducted to discover the amount of bias to be expected in canonical correlations and in the canonical redundancy statistic. Six hundred random sample replications of 72 conditions were performed and the mean sample values compared with population values. Conditions were varied with respect to the number of predictor…

This study was designed to fill the need for empirically derived information to determine the most salient factors which differentiate street gang youths from youths in comparable neighborhoods who remain independent of the street gang. (Author)

The effectiveness of the Tabu variable selection algorithm, to identify predictor variables related to a criterion variable, is compared with the stepwise variable selection method and the all possible regression approach. Considering results obtained from previous research, Tabu is more successful in identifying relevant variables than the…

Four methods were used to weight predictors associated with a Resident Assistant job: (1) rank order weights; (2) unit weights; (3) critical incident weights; and (4) regression weights. A cross-validation was also done. Most weighting methods were highly related. No method was superior in terms of protection from validity shrinkage. (GDC)

Linear regression models that predict faculty salaries from professional and affirmative action variables were developed to validate promotion and merit criteria, set a starting salary scale, and identify possible systematic and individual salary inequities. All 377 full-time teaching faculty and librarians (309 men and 68 women) employed by a…

Educational programs and evaluations which were submitted to the Department of Education's Joint Dissemination Review Panel (JDRP), in order to be named validated programs, were studied to identify program characteristics associated with large versus small effect size. Effect size was calculated for 165 out of 232 submittals reviewed by JDRP from…

The purpose of this study conducted in May 1984 was to: (1) develop a demographic profile of the typical student user of Minnesota University's Walter Library; (2) confirm the validity of a similar survey conducted the previous year; and (3) determine why subjects used this particular library. The third objective was added to this survey via the…

The decisions made by admissions committee members of the Medical College of Virginia were studied to determine the criteria used to arrive at value judgments and to analyze variations in predicted ratings based on these criteria. All 983 applicants to the 1980-81 entering class of the medical school who underwent file review evaluations (the…

The relationships of quantitative measures of writing skills to overall writing quality as measured by the E.T.S. Composition Evaluation Scale (CES) were examined. Quantitative measures included indices of language productivity, vocabulary diversity, spelling, and syntactic maturity. Power of specific indices to account for variation in overall…

To determine the relationship between 16 background variables and students' evaluations of instruction, a questionnaire was completed in 511 undergraduate courses at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Student variables, including grade point average, class size, expected grade, and prior subject interest, rarely explained 10% of…

The Quality Measurement Project was established in 1956 by the New York State Education Department to determine the feasibility of measuring quality differences between schools and of identifying variables related to these differences. In the latest revision of the project, begun in 1964, 99 representative school systems, excluding the New York…

The Efficacy Scale for Creative Productivity (ESCreP) was developed to measure students' convictions that they could be creative producers. Self-efficacy, an individual's estimation of ability to perform a behavior, is based upon performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and emotional or physiological arousal. Three…