A procedure is described for increasing the reliability of tests after they have been given and for developing shorter but more reliable tests. Eight tests administered to 200 graduate students studying educational research are analyzed. The analysis considers the original tests, the items loading on the first factor of the test, and the items…

As the terms "multidisciplinary" and "interdisciplinary" are frequently used in general systems literature without a clear determination of their meanings, the author seeks to show a logical and epistemological interpretation of their meanings in the context of an organismic model for curriculum design. Logical and…

Consistent with Anderson's weighted averaging model, it was predicted that 19 subjects who were defined by a lack of differentiation among their personal constructs would experience considerable inconsistency in the factorial combination of five personality trait dimensions selected from each subject's REP test. Such inconsistency was expected to…

A national sample of parents of young children, representing demographic and cultural diversity, participated in a needs assessment study for the development of a television series on effective parenthood. A questionnaire containing 60 forced-choice items and one open-ended question was sent to each subject. Responses from 1,799 parents indicated:…

The responses from 212 college students in an educational psychology course to the Inventory of Student Perception of Instruction and the Instructional Improvement Questionnaire were factor analyzed and related to three measures of course achievement. All three measures correlated significantly with each of the six factors drawn from each…

Stable factors of student ratings of teachers have been found under a variety of settings. The author suggests that these factors are artifacts of the raters' implicit categories of teaching behaviors and are not necessarily reflective of the behaviors themselves. (JKS)

Two sets of mathematical reasoning and two sets of verbal comprehension items were cast into each of three formats--constructed response, standard multiple-choice, and Coombs multiple-choice--in order to assess whether tests with identical content but different formats measure the same attribute. (Author/CTM)

Attempts to suggest a set of verbal labels which could be used to describe occupational characteristics, as perceived by grade 9 students, and to group these labels into parsimonious clusters. Also obtains a set of bipolar-adjective scales for use in measuring perceptions of occupational characteristics. (Author/RK)

The study compared various methods of identifying teaching factors and found substantive similarity of the dimensions defined from student's implicit theories and various types of correlational data. Results are interpreted both with respect to the rating process and to the nature of the factors identified in previous student ratings research.…

Data gathered from 896 faculty members from two technical colleges, three community colleges, two private universities, and three public universities revealed three dimensions of the presidential role: personal-public image, faculty and student interaction with presidents, and absence of autocratic leadership style. (Author/LBH)

Suggests the use of principal components analysis as an alternative solution to the problem of grouping speakers by sociological characteristics prior to quantitative analysis. An example is presented of its application to vowel variation data collected as part of a sociolinguistic survey of English in Sydney, Australia. (Author/CB)

This study is based on three distinct elementary cognitive tasks using chronometric techniques: (1) the S. Sternberg memory scan task, (2) a visual scan task; and (3) the Hick paradigm. Certain parameters of the tasks are compared experimentally and correlationally. Subjects were 48 university students, tested and retested on the tasks in a…

A study was undertaken at Loma Linda University to identify the psychological needs that motivate undergraduate students to seek nonrequired information, the sources they use, and any relationship between the needs and sources. A significant relationship was found between the motivating needs and the categories of sources used. (CDD)

Presents arguments for and against: the theoretical acceptance of language skills breakdown; the Unitary Competence Hypothesis/General Language Proficiency theory; and the existence of a separate listening comprehension factor in language ability. Also considered is the technique of factor analysis in language research. (CB)

An instrument was developed for the assessment of nonverbal communicative behaviors of school administrators. Based on data from literature and a teacher survey, a 25-item instrument with rotational solutions clustering constructs in three factors was developed. The conceptual labels of Attentiveness, Openness, and Formality were assigned to these…