Patients with mild dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT), patients with major depression, and normal control subjects completed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) Digit Symbol test of incidental memory. Though mild DAT and depressed patients had equivalent deficits in psychomotor speed, DAT patients recalled fewer digit-symbol items.…

Reappraises the relationship between television use and reading achievement. Concludes that what change there is in reading skills does not seem to be related consistently to time spent viewing TV. Suggests that the question of the influence of media use on reading achievement requires a more sophisticated approach than has been applied in the…

Despite the difficulties involved in developing and using noncognitive measures, they constitute an essential component of a comprehensive outcomes assessment program. Six noncognitive methods are discussed: observable performance measures, self-report measures, consensus-rendering techniques, inventories, simulations, and secondary data…

Thirty normal geriatric individuals, who had been randomly assigned to one of three feedback modes, were instructed to produce a phrase at slow, average, and fast speaking rates. Results suggest that visual-verbal and verbal-quantitative feedback lead to significantly better performance than verbal-qualitative feedback, particularly when the task…

Describes an experiment that tested the effects of a vertical versus a horizontal arrangement of brief structured text entries on know-item search time. The results discussed include the effects of the searcher's age and entry arrangement on search times, and subjects' judgments on the ease of use of the entry arrangements. (Author/CLB)

Description of a process for solving human performance problems focuses on the analysis phase, which examines information to determine causes and develops recommendations for solving the problems. Techniques used for gathering data are described, criteria for evaluating ideas are listed, and weighted scores for performance improvement ideas are…

Demonstrated a relationship between shyness and dysfunction in behaviors essential to career development in young adulthood: interpersonal orientation of expressed interests, frequency of career information-seeking, career decidedness, and expectations about the value of assertiveness in job interviews. Found shy men in particular significantly…

Points out that significant progress in performance assessment is gained by adopting an interdisciplinary approach for Data Envelopment Analysis. Describes a number of case studies as well as the limitations of the technique and the caution required in interpretation. (Author/BSR)

Focuses on students' immediate behavioral and cognitive responses and short-term outcomes during seatwork tasks. Twenty-four first graders in six classrooms were observed for the (1) apparent focus of attention, (2) nature of involvement with instructional stimuli, (3) initiative taken to seek help, (4) level of success, and (5) perceptions of…

Steps in a small business analysis are discussed: understand how company activities interact internally and with markets and suppliers; know the relative importance of controllable management variables; understand the social atmosphere within the company; analyze the operations of the company; define main problem areas; identify possible actions…

The effects of success and failure on task performance, and attributions about performance, were compared for high and low instrumental college women. For the high instrumental group, success facilitated task performance, whereas failure had no debilitating effect; for the low instrumental group, success had no effect on subsequent performance,…

Administered the Hooper Visual Organization Test (VOT) to 54 elementary students referred for psychometric evaluation. Results showed no significant relationship between sex and VOT scores, but age and IQ were significant correlates. (JAC)

The influence of five background variables (sex, race, home environment, amount of homework, and parents' education) on three dependent variables (student perception of science instruction, student attitudes, and student achievement) was examined. Sex, race and home environment were shown to have influence on science achievement. Other results are…

Data from a national survey of 659 black undergraduates were analyzed to identify factors which influence black academic success. Institutional characteristics and student attributes were found to be much better predictors of black academic success at predominantly white schools than strength of racial identification and other conventional…

Data on 30,030 sophomores in the "High School and Beyond" project were analyzed to test the private school superiority hypothesis for science achievement. The supposition that private schools are superior to public schools in producing science achievement is rejected. Other factors related to achievement are noted and discussed. (JN)