Research supported pursuant to a contract with the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education.

In the first experiment, 16 kindergarten children were tested on vertical/horizontal and oblique discriminations in symmetrical and asymmetrical alignments. When stimuli were asymmetrically aligned, the former discrimination was learned as rapidly as the latter. The second experiment demonstrated that the influence of configurational cues in…

Examined the effects of situational constraints and goal setting on job performance and satisfaction in a sample of 120 college students. Results indicated a relationship between task performance and goal difficulty only in the absence of severe situational constraints. Self-set goal level was also associated with performance. (JAC)

Needs for curriculum development in Scottish schools for both able linguists and less able students in the 16-19 age group are discussed. It is proposed that students of moderate ability who have dropped languages in favor of other subjects should be encouraged to return to language instruction for both general and specific educational and career…

A discussion of techniques for teachers to best use functional materials focuses on providing practice in recognizing and manipulating stress and intonation variations to produce attitudinally appropriate utterances. Lesson planning ideas for beginner and intermediate levels are included. (MSE)

This study was concerned with the reliability and validity of subjective judgments about five characteristics of multiple-choice test items from an introductory college-level astronomy test: (1) item difficulty, (2) language complexity, (3) content importance or relevance, (4) response set convergence, and (5) process complexity. (Author)

Twenty preschoolers and 10 student teachers were asked to reconstruct the complete layout of their classroom by using a small-scale model as well as by using life-size furniture in the classroom itself. Children's performances were significantly better in the classroom than they were on the model. (Author/MP)

An empirical comparison of the relative efficiency of verbal aptitude tests developed using two latent trait methods, the one- and three-parameter logistic models, is presented. When a well-defined item pool was used, the simple one-parameter logistic model was as efficient as the more complex model. (Author/PN)

Infants 8.5 and 9.5 months of age were tested for ability to determine the location of an object hidden in one of two covered containers before their left-right positions were reversed. Only the older infants provided with different colored covers to their containers were able to do this task. (Author/DB)

Entry level and senior students given identical pharmacy law units were compared and effects of prior internship and externship experience assessed. Seniors' achievement gain was greater, but prior practical experience showed little effect on achievement. Retention was statistically significant for sophomores 9 to 12 months post-instruction, and…

Test data were used to compare the grading of two forms of double mathematics: pure and applied math, and regular and advanced math. Results confirm expectations that in the former system, the grading is comparable, and in the latter, it is not necessarily comparable. Implications for student admission are discussed. (MSE)

Explores the generalization of changes in children's preferences for easy or difficult goals, when their preferences are induced by exposure to peer models playing a novel athletic game. Subjects played the same game immediately after exposure, participated in a "spelling bee" three weeks later, and chose puzzles of differing levels of…

The restrictions on item difficulties that must be met when binomial models are applied to domain-referenced testing are examined. Both a deterministic and a stochastic conception of item responses are discussed with respect to difficulty and Guttman-type items. (Author/BH)

Two studies were conducted to determine whether students perceive meaningful influence patterns among the causal variables involved in determining exam performance. It was observed that the students perceived a number of both unidirectional and bidirectional intercausal effects; these were related to both perceived success and causal attributions.…