A study was proposed to determine to what extent a hierarchical structure exists in music and in tests used to measure music ability. The first research question was whether items in the Watkins-Farnum Performance Scale (J. Watkins and S. Farnum, 1954) (WFPS) form a hierarchy, so that early exercises (bars played) are generally easier than later…

A study compared college students' performance on complex multiple-choice tests with scores on multiple true-false clusters. Researchers concluded that the multiple-choice tests did not accurately measure students' knowledge and that cueing and guessing led to grade inflation. (PP)

In an investigation of how different types of topic reinstatements affected second language learners' recognition and recall of sentence topics in lectures, it was learned that repeated structures were more easily recalled and recognized than simple ones, and low English proficiency learners have poorer recall of complex structures. (MSE)

Item difficulty patterns of four groups of nonreferred, average children (ages 7 1/2 and l0 1/2)--Anglos, Blacks, Chicanos and Bermudians--were compared on each of the verbal subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. Item difficulty curves were remarkably parallel. (Author/HLM)

A study of English speakers' acquisition of relative clauses in Chinese, Japanese, Persian, German, and Portugese is reported. Various structures were tested to separate interlanguage features attributable to first language interference from those universal to second language acquisition. Application of an accessibility hierarchy theory and…

A limited attempt to teach and assess the ability of native English-speaking adolescents is described. The concern is not to teach more language but to encourage use of existing language in a formal interview with maximum flexibility and effectiveness. Possible ties into second language instruction are considered. (Author/MSE)

Topics include: (1) the content, style, and level of physics' textbooks; (2) suggestions for in-class use; and (3) recommendations for upgrading current texts. (SK)

Believing that examinee-by-item interaction should be conceptualized as true score variability rather than as a result of errors of measurement, Lu proposed a modification of Hoyt's analysis of variance reliability procedure. Via a computer simulation study, it is shown that Lu's approach does not separate interaction from error. (Author/RL)

Children's occupational choices were scored for complexity using the code numbers of the Occupational Titles. Findings indicated a positive relationship between socioeconomic status and complexity of data manipulation in occupational choices and greater complexity of interaction with things in the occupational choices of boys. (Author/JAC)

The author suggests that the complex educational problems touched on by the television special "Is Anyone Out There Learning?" can only be solved by leadership at the building level. This entire journal issue consists of comments on this CBS news special, aired in August, 1978. (SJL)

Second-grade children completed a reading task during the first half and at the end of the school year identifying words preceded by a congruous, incongruous, or neutral sentence context. The effect of context on reading times decreased with development and practice and increased with word difficulty. (Author/DB)

Studies in self-management, attribution, and achievement motivation challenge the view that basic skills instruction requires strong teacher control, structure, convergence on learning activities, less pupil freedom, and less experimental teaching activities. Student-managed instruction yielded the greatest achievement gains and heightened…

Variation in syntactic difficulty in arithmetic problems is studied to determine its influence on students' ability to solve problems correctly. Findings in a study of elementary school students indicated syntactic difficulty affects problem solving ability, regardless of sex (f=fiche number). (MH)

The construct validity of reading comprehension test items was studied in a two-stage process. Five characteristics of task difficulty were defined and a heterogeneous set of 52 items were rated for these characteristics. Then correlations were obtained between ratings and item difficulty data. (CTM)

A model of reading comprehension focuses on eye fixations, which are related to the level of reading processes--words, clauses, and text units. Longer pauses are associated with greater processing difficulty. This model is illustrated for a group of undergraduate students reading scientific articles from "Newsweek" and "Time" magazines. (GDC)