This study examined whether gender influenced college students' attitudes regarding classroom seating layout. Seating layouts included: a) rows of tablet-arm chairs, b) U-shaped, c) clusters, and d) rows of tables with individual chairs. The sample consisted of 912 college students. Factor analysis yielded two dimensions: "Feeling at Ease" and…

The assessment of children's social skills is an important task for school psychologists in both applied and research settings. The present study examines the psychometric properties of parent ratings of the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS), in kindergarten through third grades, testing for measurement differences between boys and girls, between…

This study examined the psychosocial correlates and psychometric properties of the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (SAWS) (Webster, 2003a). Seventy-three men and 98 women ranging in age from 17-92 years (Mean age = 42.77) completed an expanded, 40-item version of the SAWS, the Loyola Generativity Scale, and the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale.…

Elementary and middle school children were given a large battery of tests evaluating reading subskills and reading-related cognitive abilities. These measures were used to define latent representing skills and abilities believed to be important components of reading comprehension. Hypothesized relationships among these constructs were specified…

The purpose of this research is to study the effects of drama and traditional methods on primary school students' use of reading strategies, on their attitudes toward reading, and on their perceptions of the drama method. A pre- and post-test experimental design with the control group was employed for this study. The drama technique was used in…

This study assessed the invariance in the factor structure of the "Test of English as a Foreign Language"™ Internet-based test (TOEFL® iBT) across subgroups of test takers who differed in native language and exposure to the English language. The subgroups were defined by (a) Indo-European and Non-Indo-European language family, (b)…

How to make learning more interesting is a basic challenge for school education. In this Finnish study, the international ROSE questionnaire was used to survey, during spring of 2003, the relationship between interest in biology and out-of-school experiences for 3626 ninth-grade pupils. Interest and experience factors were extracted by using the…

A frequent reason for teachers not making special provisions for a gifted child is that the child is "not fitting in socially." The conjecture that a psychological source of such negative affect has evolved along with human language was tested with a large sample (N = 377) of teachers in England, Scotland, and Australia who were…

This study measured and applied Senge's (1990) fifth discipline model of learning organizations in a culturally distinct population, namely teachers in 17 vocational high schools located in the Seoul megalopolis. The participants were 976 full-time vocational and academic teachers in public trade/industry-technical and business high schools in the…

The study examined attitudes toward school inclusion of students with disabilities of 1,145 prospective teacher trainees from six national/religious groups in eleven colleges in Israel: The groups were secular, religious and ultra-orthodox Jews and Muslim, Christian and Druze Arabs. Participants responded to the "Opinion Related to Inclusion…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the spring 2008 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) results from a community college located in Southeast Texas to determine what relationship student engagement had to student persistence and academic performance and if that relationship differed by race, ethnicity, or academic program.…

The organization of cognitive factors in a sample of older adults was investigated by a joint factor analysis of the subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery-Revised (WJ-R) and the Detroit Tests of Learning Aptitude-Adult (DTLA-A). Two extensive batteries were administered, following R. W. Woodcock's recommendation that in…

A study explored psychometric relationships among three dialectical tensions (connection/autonomy, openness/closedness, and novelty/predictability). A confirmatory factor analysis using 694 undergraduate students (347 romantic dyads) culled from various courses in a large midwestern metropolitan university confirmed the existence and independence…

The cognitive style dimension of scanning refers to consistent individual differences in the extensiveness and intensity of spontaneous attention deployment, leading to individual variations in vividness of experience and the span of awareness. The cognitive style of focusing was conceived as an adaptive counterpart to the defense mechanism of…

The Bath County Computer Attitude Scale (BCCAS) has received limited attention concerning its reliability and validity with a U.S. adult population. As developed by G. G. Bear, H. C. Richards, and P. Lancaster in 1987, the instrument assessed attitudes toward computers in areas of computer use, computer-aided instruction, programming and technical…