Whether students' verbal and mathematics self-concepts were indeed positively correlated after an external comparison, and negatively correlated after an internal comparison, as predicted by the internal/external frames of reference model (H. Marsh, 1986), was studied with 383 high school students. Results support most of the model predictions.…

Uses Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) to predict how much readers would learn from texts based on the estimated conceptual match between their topic knowledge and the text information. Shows a nonmonotonic relationship in which learning was greatest for texts that were neither too easy nor too difficult. Finds LSA was as effective at predicting…

Responds to the article "Students Do Not Overestimate their Life Expectancy: An Alternative Demonstration of Unique Invulnerability" suggesting that students will show optimistic biasing in regard to self-referential information. Discusses a class exercise that focuses on the age of death and is used to see if optimistic biasing occurs.…

Presents an interview with R. Stanley Williams, director of Hewlett-Packard's basic research lab. Williams discusses the limits of silicon computing and the future of the computing industry. (WRM)

Studied the relationships between gender, social class, ethnicity, and school success using data from a large-scale longitudinal database, the Dutch Secondary Education Students Cohort. Results show that school success is not always predicted by expected additive or multiplicative effects of the different background variables. Discusses…

Uses the precise language of science to help teachers develop students' science process skills. Provides critical definitions for the terms observation, inference, prediction, hypothesis, guess, and operational question. By reducing the reliance on guessing, teachers encourage and model the fundamental inquiry skills necessary to do science. (SAH)

Low predictability (ability to identify what events will be happening in the future, when, with whom, for how long, and with what outcomes) may be associated with increased problem behavior among children with disabilities. This paper describes strategies for assessing stability and predictability in a school or community context, and using the…

Examined whether infants believe that size of a moving object striking a stationary object will affect how far the stationary object is displaced. Found that the infants did believe the size of the test cylinder affected the length of the test object's displacement and that they used the initial familiarization event to calibrate their predictions…

Using 308 patients referred for neuropsychological evaluation, 2 regression equations were developed to predict weighted raw score sums for General Memory and Delayed Recall using the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) analogs of 5 subtests from the original WMS. The equations may help reduce WMS-R administration time. (SLD)

Two experiments involving 137 undergraduates tested the premise that the underlying stereotyping processes used by blacks and whites are similar. Findings suggest that the race of the perceiver may moderate the predictions of the complexity-extremity, assumed-characteristics, and expectancy-violation models. (SLD)

Studied educational attainment in a longitudinal study of 2,038 Dutch secondary school students and found motivation, metacognition, and self-regulation to be predictors of attainment, along with student background variables and prior achievement. Metacognitive and self-regulation variables were scarcely related to mean achievement. (SLD)

Studied the interrelationships among characteristics of undergraduate students and the characteristics that predicted achievement in samples of 71 mature-age students entering from an enabling program and 61 younger students entering from high school. Results add to the literature on links between psychological characteristics and academic…

Examined the extent to which subscales and scales developed from the Distance Education Student Progress (DESP) Inventory (D. Kember and others, 1995) were associated with attrition and persistence of 258 external students in the Bachelor of Education Program at an Australian university. Discriminant analysis of 15 factors of the DESP Inventory…

Compared the Parenting Stress Index (R. Abidon, 1990), the Behavior Assessment System for Children (C. Reynolds and R. Kamphaus, 1992), and an informal letter/number probe as predictors of first grade reading and mathematics achievement for 92 children early in the kindergarten year. Results show that number and letter recognition were the best…

Evaluated the usefulness of three approaches for predicting college grades: traditional regression models, high-school-effects models, and hierarchical linear models. Found that both the high-school-effects and the hierarchical linear models were more accurate predictors of freshman GPA than the traditional model, particularly for lower-ability…