In this paper, I use a nationally representative sample of American high school seniors in 1992 to examine change and stability in the employment patterns of youth as they make the transition from high school to college. Students with weak attachments to the labor force in high school tend to remain unemployed during the first year of college.…

The authors propose a strategy for studying the effects of time-varying instructional treatments on repeatedly observed student achievement. This approach responds to three challenges: (a) The yearly reallocation of students to classrooms and teachers creates a complex structure of dependence among responses; (b) a child's learning outcome under a…

In this issue's "Classroom Notes" section, the following papers are discussed: (1) "Constructing a line segment whose length is equal to the measure of a given angle" (W. Jacob and T. J. Osler); (2) "Generating functions for the powers of Fibonacci sequences" (D. Terrana and H. Chen); (3) "Evaluation of mean and variance integrals without…

A reliable index of lexical diversity (LD) has remained stubbornly elusive for over 60 years. Meanwhile, researchers in fields as varied as "stylistics," "neuropathology," "language acquisition," and even "forensics" continue to use flawed LD indices--often ignorant that their results are questionable and in…

Growing evidence suggests that lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults may be at elevated risk for mental health and substance use disorders, possibly due to anti-gay stigma. Little of this work has examined putative excess morbidity among ethnic/racial minorities resulting from the experience of multiple sources of discrimination. The authors report…

Weighting and variance estimation are two statistical issues involved in survey data analysis for large-scale assessment programs such as the Higher Education Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy Assessment. Because survey data are always acquired by probability sampling, to draw unbiased or almost unbiased inferences for the…

In this book, author Catherine Jones Kuhns introduces student- and teacher-friendly math activities designed to get students thinking like mathematicians and loving mathematics, while addressing content standards through grade 2. She also shows how to make math fun for students, get children actively engaged in learning, create a student-centered…

A major challenge to state and jurisdictional policy makers in implementing the Early Intervention Program for Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities, Part C under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), continues to be determining definitions of developmental delay and criteria of eligibility for services to young children, birth…

Educational assessment is a process of collecting evidence and interpreting it to provide instructors with information regarding students' learning. However, the current design and scoring of most standardized educational tests are insufficient to serve this purpose. The limitation exists primarily due to the lack of cognitive information…

Studies have shown that exposure to discrimination increases the probability that African American adolescents will engage in delinquent behavior, especially acts of violence. The present study extended this research by examining the extent to which supportive parenting buffers a youth from these deleterious consequences of discrimination.…

Background: Although reward processing is considered an important part of affective functioning, few studies have investigated reward-related decisions or responses in young people with affective disorders. Depression is postulated to involve decreased activity in reward-related affective systems. Methods: Using functional magnetic resonance…

Trait psychology implicitly assumes consistency of the personal traits. Mischel, however, argued against the idea of a general consistency of human beings. The present article aims to design a statistical procedure based on an adaptation of the pi* statistic to measure the degree of intraindividual consistency independently of the measure used.…

This study explored the relationship between participation in sport and non-sport activities and freshmen persistence in college. Three categories of persistence behavior were employed: (1) continuing at the same institution, (2) changing institutions, and (3) dropping out of college completely. For men and women, involvement in sports increased…

The model presented used available data to predict whether or not a student will drop out at some time during his or her college career. The model successfully identified students who would or would not drop out approximately 80% of the time. Logistic regression analysis was employed to predict chances of attrition for matriculating freshmen soon…

Sophomores interested in professional colleges with grade-point average (GPA) standards for admission to upper division courses will need specific and realistic information concerning the requirements. Specifically, those who fall short of the standard must assess the likelihood of achieving the necessary GPA for professional program admission.…