A study was designed to investigate the validity and reliability of the adult Career Concerns Inventory, which assesses career concerns of adults of any age and occupation. Subjects, 4 male and 165 female students (ages 23 to 62) enrolled in the graduate nursing program at a southern university, were administered the adult Career Concerns…

This paper presents an analysis of the factors influencing human decision making, and its implications for the judgments and choices that result from juxtaposition of data with decision content. The analysis serves as a background for the consideration of selected issues regarding the specificity of information in data-based decision making in…

One means of learning about the processes operating in a multiple choice test is to include some test items, called nonsense items, which have no correct answer. This paper compares two versions of a mathematical model of test performance to interpret test data that includes both genuine and nonsense items. One formula is based on the usual…

Psychologists can gain insight into human behavior by examining what people feel about, know about, and do with, computers. Two extreme reactions to computers are computer phobia, or anxiety, and computer addiction, or "hacking". A four-part questionnaire was developed to measure computer anxiety. The first part is a projective technique which…

The Sense of Coherence (SOC) construct, proposed by Antonovsky, has the following three components: (1) Comprehensibility (COMP), the cognitive sense that stimuli confronted convey structured and clear information; (2) Manageability (MAN), the sense that resources at one's disposal are adequate for successful coping; and (3) Meaningfulness (MEAN),…

The data reported here represent the major findings of a number of Institute for Research on Learning Disabilities (IRLD) research studies. The relevant research reports are listed in Appendix A. A summary of the findings is provided in Appendix B. These findings are summarized in two general areas: (a) information on contemporary assessment…

It is shown that empirical mental test P - P plots are approximately equal to theoretical item-item curves, at least for long tests administered to many people. This result is important because it leads to (1) a distribution free method for estimating points on item-item curves; (2) a general method for defining estimates of item parameters; and…

The development of some psychometric indices of performance rating quality based in judgement is traced. The conceptual and analytical confusion that characterizes contemporary research in this area is described. The operational definitions of several criteria of rating quality, including leniency and severity of the rating effect, halo effect,…

A DESCRIPTION IS GIVEN OF ITEM SAMPLING, OR "PSYCHOMETRIC-STATISTICAL INFERENCE," AN APPROACH TO GATHERING AND USING EDUCATIONAL DATA THAT ALLOWS STATISTICAL INFERENCES TO BE MADE SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH PSYCHOMETRIC INFERENCES. THIS IS A PROCEDURE IN WHICH BOTH PEOPLE AND ITEMS ARE SAMPLED AND THE DATA FROM A SAMPLE OF PEOPLE TAKING A SAMPLE OF ITEMS…

This paper presents the purpose, format, topics of seminar sessions, and participant recommendations of a conference on educational testing processes and their relation to blacks. The conference was held to familiarize participants with research data demonstrating the fallacies and inconsistencies inherent in the testing process as it relates to…

This study explored the relationship between young children's affective states and general expectancies for rewarding or punishing events. Subjects were 24 children, ages 4 and 5, from middle-class families. Positive, neutral, or negative affect was induced by having the children think happy, neutral, or sad thoughts for a short period. Two tasks…

This study involved an investigation of the use of Pearson r, tetrachoric r, phi, phi/phi maximum, and Kendall Tau-B coefficients as measures of association for the incomplete principal components analysis of simulated Likert scale attitudinal data, based on a known factor pattern and possessing different types of severe departures from normality.…

This paper summarizes data comparing the correlation patterns of psychometric, social, and demographic variables with intelligence quotient (IQ) and learning potential (LP) scores derived from the Kohs Block Designs and Raven Progressive Matrices procedures. The sample consists of educable mentally retarded special class and institutionalized…

Four confusing issues that have delayed progress toward an awareness that testing is not a source of unfairness for minority students are discussed: (1) the assumptions underlying most of our psychometric manipulations are often not acknowledged or understood; (2) the extent of the objectivity of psychometrics is frequently exaggerated; (3) the…

The review summarizes empirical findings and theoretical views related to the Stroop color-word phenomenon, in which naming of a color is disrupted and delayed by the presence of an "irrelevant" word denoting a color different from the color patch. It was deemed important to increase awareness of this phenomenon, since it involves basic…