By means of a multiple discrimination function analysis it is possible to reject the hypothesis that musicality, as measured by the tests in Wing's battery, is entirely influenced by hereditary factors. (Author)

The ideal item in the criterion-referenced testing situation is the item with a nonsignificant discrimination index and a high difficulty level; items that discriminate negatively are clearly unacceptable; and items that discriminate positively usually indicate a need for revision. (Author)

Illustrates the use of discriminant methodology for measuring therapeutic effectiveness in a study comparing personality traits of adolescent drug users and nonusers (N=80). Results indicated that discriminant techniques can establish a database against which to measure effectiveness when clear distinctions exist between acceptable and…

Used discriminant analysis in an attempt to differentiate nonviolent and violent families as a function of variables said to be significant predictors of family violence in a decade review by Gelles. Results indicate that the predictor variables fail to account consistently for differences among the groups. (Author)

Ten pitfalls for financial analysts are described: information lags, misinterpreting trend data, data shortcomings, sample institutions' problems, misuse of panel ratings, using same indicators for private and public institutions, underdevelopment of conceptual framework, arbitrary financial health scales, shaky use of discriminant analysis, and…

Describes a study that compared academic achievement, personality (locus of control), and response to interpersonal stimuli in father-absent and father-present Black children from grades 3-8. (GC)

Results of this study of eight liberal arts colleges, traditionally women's colleges, suggest that multiple-discriminant analysis provides a rigorous and practical basis for adding an important and largely unexplored between-group dimension to studies in the prediction of within-group performance. (Editor/LBH)

Finds that, for 147 Florida migrant farm workers interviewed in 1978, support for unionization was related, in descending order, to being Black, to perceiving mechanization as a threat, and to being dependent on farm work, married, a non-citizen, illiterate, and poorly educated. Contains 22 references. (SV)

Multi-group discriminant analysis was used to identify the pre-enrollment demographic and academic factors that best separate the success classes in the first-year examinations of science students at the University of Benin. The predictor of success was performance in specialist subjects of the matriculation examination. (Author/MLW)

A sampling of Israeli elementary school principals in high, low, and heterogeneous socioeconomic settings reveals that principals in high SES schools seek to involve parents mainly for the schools' economic benefit, but those in low SES schools solicit the help of parents as teachers. (DM)

In two studies, Study 1 and Study 2, we examine whether attitudes toward people with intellectual disabilities, like sexism and racism, consist of two forms--a classical and a modern, where the classical is overt and blatant and the modern is more subtle and covert. Self-report scales tapping these two forms were developed in Study 1. Based on…

This study explores how children's drawings, as rated on the Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale (FEATS), are related to their emotional and behavioral health. Participating students (ages 8-16, N=53), attending a therapeutic day school for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, drew a picture of a person picking an apple from a tree…

The evaluation of developmental interventions has been hampered by a lack of practical, reliable, and objective developmental assessment systems. This article describes the construction of a domain-general computerized developmental assessment system for texts: the Lexical Abstraction Assessment System (LAAS). The LAAS provides assessments of the…

When a visual target is identified, there is a period of several hundred milliseconds when the processing of subsequent targets is impaired, a phenomenon labeled the attentional blink (AB). The emerging consensus is that the identification of a visual target temporarily occupies a limited attentional resource that is essential for all visual…