Describes two studies that examined how chronic loneliness influenced local news and soap opera viewing by nontraditional and traditional college students. The relationships between loneliness, media use, and interpersonal interaction are discussed, and discriminant analyses are presented that examined viewers' motives, attitudes, and activities…

Study compared teachers contemplating quitting the profession with teachers planning to continue. Subjects completed surveys which assessed work-related attitudes, perceptions, and reaction to work environment conditions. Results indicate that teachers who plan to quit or remain can be reliably distinguished by patterns of work-related attitudes,…

Compares characteristics of students taking programming-oriented versus applications-oriented higher education courses. Topics include computer engagement, programming experience, computing attitudes, a greater gender imbalance in enrollment on the programming-oriented course, the usefulness of psychometric measures, discriminant function…

The present study examined which measures best identify English-speaking French immersion (FI) students at risk of future reading difficulties in French and English. Using reading scores taken in both languages at the end of Grade 1 and beginning of Grade 2, typical and poor reader groups were identified. Measures taken at the beginning of Grade 1…

Though the processes of change are conceived as the core constructs of the transtheoretical model (TTM), few researchers have examined their construct validity in the physical activity domain. Further, only 1 study was designed to investigate the processes of change in an adolescent sample. The purpose of this study was to examine the exercise…

This study examined the relationships between three identity styles (i.e. the information style, the normative style, and the diffuse/avoidant style) and a number of social-cognitive and attitudinal variables (including empathy, prejudice, and conservatism). Discriminant analysis on a sample of late adolescents (N=393) led to the conclusion that…

The purpose of Study 1a was to determine the criteria that differentiate students who perform well and those who perform poorly on a standardized test of university-level writing. Discriminant function analysis revealed that measures of structure, sentencing, paragraphing, and grammar play the most important role in separating these two groups.…

The psychometric properties of the Self-Report Depression Questionnaire (SRDQ) were evaluated, extending a previous assessment of this instrument. Data from two independent studies (Esbensen, 2004; Seltzer & Krauss, 1989) were pooled to generate a sample of 192 individuals with primarily mild or moderate mental retardation. Reliability estimates…

It is assumed that students with EBD who have more severe deficits in academic, behavior, and/or social domains are placed in more restrictive settings. However, this assumption has not been empirically tested. This study compared students educated in self-contained classrooms to students educated in a self-contained school to determine if the…

Discriminant analysis was used to ascertain whether or not student achievement and expenditure per pupil allow one to distinguish between Ohio charter schools and their associate public schools. The sample consisted of 129 Ohio charter schools and 30 associate public schools. The difference in means between the two types of schools was significant…

Methods of adjusting cut scores used in placement decisions are examined empirically. Admission and performance variables are used to study alternate methods of adjusting cut scores for placement in standard and accelerated rhetoric courses in a large university setting, with the predicted variable being success or failure as measured by…

This study replicated previous research that tested the validity of A. Biglan's classification scheme, a theoretical framework for empirically examining the differences among academic disciplines and classifying them according to three dimensions (hard-soft, pure-applied, life-nonlife). In addition, new data were used to attempt continued…

This second volume of the final report contains the statistical tables, coding key, and the rating manual for the coding key. Data on interrater reliability, factor analyses, and discriminant analyses are included and described. The manual for the coding key includes the data base and/or criteria for each item to be coded. (MNS)

An informal study was conducted of the courses selected by ninth grade students who later dropped out of high school. Longitudinal data were available for high school students in the Austin (Texas) Independent School District, from 1978-79 to 1982-83. The courses selected by high-risk students in ninth grade, including extracurricular activities…

Difficulty and discrimination ability were compared between multiple choice and short answer items in midterm and final examinations for the internal medicine course at Louisiana State University School of Dentistry. The examinations were administered to 67 sophomore dental students in that course. Additionally, the impact of the source of the…