The present study investigated whether parents' own behaviors and beliefs or their interpretations of their children's behaviors relate more closely to children's own mathematics achievement beliefs. Age and sex differences in children's perceptions of their parents' beliefs were explored. A total of 740 children in fifth through twelfth grades…

Temperament and objective and subjective measures of academic competence were interrelated in order to test two alternative models: (1) a direct effects model stressing intraorganismic, noncontextually mediated links; and (2) a developmental contextual model emphasizing social interactional processes between students and teachers. Data from the…

In 1983, in the Netherlands' highly differentiated school system, two types of curriculum representing different ability levels were combined as a first step towards a more heterogeneous grouping of student abilities. A study of one aspect of the results of this change compared over 1000 samples of English and German second language listening…

A study was conducted at the University of Maine at Orono (UMO) to examine gender differences with respect to mathematical problem-solving ability, visual spatial ability, abstract reasoning ability, field independence/dependence, independent learning style, and developmental problem-solving ability (i.e., formal reasoning ability). Subjects…

Two different conceptions of ability are proposed. The first conception of ability is more differentiated and generally employed by adults and older children. Here ability level is defined with reference to the performance of others assuming that optimum effort was employed. High ability means higher than others. The second conception of ability…

The typical approach to studying the cognitive competencies of the elderly involves giving the same task to samples of elderly adults and college students. On such comparisons of performance of cognitive tasks, the elderly have almost always been found to be inferior, which is interpreted as indicating an irreversible age-determined decline in…

Several common assumptions about human intelligence are challenged in this paper. The "bucket" theory of intelligence describes intelligence as a stable psychological characteristic which affects learning, and which, when accurately measured, predicts an individual's learning capacity. The authors reject the idea that people who have…

In a high school writing class of eight students, a computer was used as a word processor to permit close observation of students as they learned. The class was studied using ethnographic techniques: videotape, audiotape, teacher/researcher journals, student writing, and interviews. Three types of learners emerged: marginal--those who had…

This study delineates the relationships between social background, classroom experience, and academic abilities. Classroom experience is mainly judged in terms of students' affective dispositions. The objective is to clarify how these dispositions are shaped by the personal and situational factors in a child's social background, and then how they,…

Presented are the preliminary results of a study of the effects of relative labor market opportunities for the highly educated on high school academic achievement and college attendance. Across regions, a one percent decline in college relative to high school graduates is estimated to induce a decline of 0.3 to 1.4 percent in reading and…

The report summarizes results of a survey of musical performance abilities of Americans of various ages. During 1971 and 1972 a national assessment program was conducted to measure the musical abilities of nine-year-olds, 13-year-olds, 17-year-olds, and young adults from 26-35 years of age. Exercises were divided into five groups: singing familiar…

Variables that best explain variance in student attrition for 168 freshmen students from a college of agriculture within a major midwestern university were studied in 1979. Variables were selected from a theoretical causal model of student attrition (Bean, 1981), a review of the literature (Bean, 1978), and five empirical investigations conducted…

Children residing in McLean County, Kentucky, and attending grades three through six who either had or had not attended kindergarten were compared in terms of academic aptitude, total reading, language expression, and math application scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS). It was found that students who had attended kindergarten…

Volunteer college students were assigned to one of six computer administered vocabulary tests, one half with immediate knowledge of results (KR) after responding to each item, and the other half without knowledge of results. The six tests were designed to be at one of three levels of difficulty and consisted either of 50 preselected items…

A systematic study is reported of the mathematical skills and learning abilities of new students immediately prior to entry into the Open University's (England) foundation courses in technology and social sciences. The intent was to provide predictive information about potential student entry skills for the team preparing a new technology…