Traditional predictor variables of SAT scores and high school grades seldom account for more than 16 percent of the variance in student performance in college and graduate school, and they account for even less in decisions of students to leave school. Three studies are presented that added nonintellective variables to the traditional combination…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 28 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) a method of individually appraising the precursory skills of beginning readers; (2) the effects of instructing third grade students in interpretive reading…

Elementary and secondary teachers in Brazil, Jordan, Venezuela, and the United States feel they have a fair amount of autonomy in running their own classrooms, somewhat less autonomy regarding certain miscellaneous job-related matters, and still less autonomy in matters affecting the operation of the school as an organization. The attitudes of a…

A questionnaire was developed and tested in 1980-81 to determine any differences between University of Saskatchewan students who were required to discontinue their studies and students who successfully completed their first year. A list of factors considered to contribute to student failure was developed, and the format involved a personalized…

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…

Models that have appeared in the student attrition literature in the past decade and behavioral models from the social sciences that may help explain the dropout process are examined, and an attempt is made to synthesize a causal model of student attrition. The models of Tinto, Spady, and Rootman in the area of student attrition, and models of…

Language skill attrition refers to the loss of any language or portion of a language whether it be the declining use of mother tongue skills, the replacement of one language by another in language contact situations, the deterioration of language in the neurologically impaired or elderly, or the death of whole languages. In this paper, language…

The study described in this report was conducted at the State University of New York (Geneseo) to determine which instructional variables were most responsible for students' liking or disliking for a course (student affect), course satisfaction, and voluntary participation in additional course work in a field (behavioral intent). The report first…

Regression formulations and related concerns involved in dealing with wage discrimination suits involving college faculty are considered. Several models based in hypothesis testing "policy capturing" uses of multiple linear regression are presented, and problems related to the court's view of statistical significance are examined.…

A variety of terms related to test bias or test fairness have been used in a variety of ways, but in this document the "fair use of tests" is defined as equitable selection procedures by means of intact tests, and "test item bias" refers to the study of separate items with respect to the tests of which they are a part. Seven…

The conceptual model of the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (NLS) has been modified from James Trent's General Educational Development Model. The NLS model is presented and briefly compared with the General Educational Development Model. The major portion of this document consists of NLS questionnaire items or…

A study was conducted to investigate personal and intellectual variables of the special supportive services population at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and to determine reliable and valid predictors regarding the academic success of future applicants. A literature review of the development of compensatory programs and of studies that…

Structural equation models incorporating unmeasured variables make possible the rigorous testing of theories previously difficult to test adequately because of fallible measures of the theoretic variables. This paper first discusses a simple causal model; incorporating a single unmeasured variable for the purpose of exposition. A substantive…

Reading and mathematics achievement and student self-concept were studied in 28 IGE elementary schools (schools using the system of Individually Guided Education). The data comprised 134 variables--input variables (student characteristics, teacher background, and expenditures for instruction); process variables (teaching time and school…

Census data were used to predict average district scores on standardized achievement tests for grades one, two, three, six, and twelve, in 716 California school districts. The following census variables were used: education, income, college, poverty (families); poverty (children); professional occupations; housing; Spanish surnames; and Black.…