Data from 257 students who passed or failed the National Council Licensure Examination were used to identify success/failure variables. Findings indicate that reasonably accurate predictive data on individual student performance is available at the end of the junior year, allowing faculty to begin interventions for at-risk students. (Author)

A study of 1,587 first-year students at 1 university investigated the usefulness of 16 noncognitive factors as predictors of (1) academic difficulty or success after the first year and (2) attrition or retention into the second year. Data were drawn from a survey and academic records. (MSE)

Explores the psychological origins of media gratification by examining how pertinent psychological variables help explain television viewing motivation. Finds that parasocial interaction, anxiety, creativity, sensation seeking's disinhibition dimension, and television affinity and exposure, helped to predict viewing motivation. (PRA)

Explored within empirical study context complexity of organizational commitment construct and respondent-generated behavioral manifestations of job attitude among plant workers (N=156). Found each commitment dimension related differently to work outcomes and that none of the dimensions was able to predict absenteeism or tardiness. (Author/CM)

Activities of 28 primiparous mothers and their infants that occurred during naturalistic interactions at home were observed when infants were two and five months of age. Findings indicated that infants appeared to be flexible and plastic in their behavioral repertoires, and were influenced by their mothers. Mothers adapted to the behaviors of…

A shooting incident at a rural Pennsylvania junior high school shocked the district into identifying students most prone to violent behavior. Predictors include low self-esteem, asocial behavior, documented family abuse, resistance to counseling, lack of commitment, and depressive or suicidal behavior. Initiating a caring advisory program is the…

Finds that quality of public speaking students' speech performance correlated positively with cumulative grade point average, total preparation time, time spent preparing a visual aid, number of rehearsals for an audience, time rehearsing silently, time rehearsing out loud, number of rehearsals out loud, research outside the library, and…

Analyzes how sixth graders' untrained summarization ability relates to studying and recall of important text information in a more demanding task. Finds that neither summarization ability nor notetaking skill individually predicted better recall. Suggests instructional guidelines and caveats. (RS)

For marketing students (n=349), grade point average was the most important predictor of academic performance; transfers from community college and students with heavy work commitments performed less well; and gender, age, and extracurricular activities were unrelated to performance. These characteristics explained 40% of variance in performance.…

Describes use of a computerized simulation to study prediction in a complex environment (i.e., bus traffic control). Nature of the task, presentation method, number of repetitions, and length of time taken for prediction were measured. Prediction was significantly affected by all factors except number of repetitions. No learning effect was…

Various aspects of epilepsy were studied in 78 children with mental retardation from 1989-1994. Epilepsy remained uncontrolled in 28% of cases, two-year remission was achieved by 26 percent, and mortality was 12% during the study period. Associated cerebral palsy was the most important single risk factor for severe epilepsy. (Author/CR)

A study investigated how, when, and under what conditions 60 highly successful adults with dyslexia managed to develop high literacy levels. For both men and women with dyslexia, interest-driven reading was key to the development of high literacy levels. Fascination with a subject area was a common theme. (Author/CR)

Two weeks after 146 participants completed a survey of openness to differences, they evaluated hypothetical job applicants: a female Native American in the treatment group, a White male in the control group. The treatment-group candidate was rated significantly lower and recommended less frequently. Low openness scores correlated with…

Interviews with four delinquent youth in the process of real-life transitions reveal that predicting resilience or recidivism is not always as simple as quantifying research-identified risk or protective factors. Suggests that there may be other factors that have not yet been pinpointed that should be explored when trying to predict resilience or…

This literature review of family factors associated with externalizing behavior disorders such as hyperactivity and aggression in preschoolers found that: (1) preschoolers with externalizing disorders had families who were more likely than comparison families to have at least one type of negative characteristic; and (2) family characteristics were…