Anxiety and tension are two affective factors which seem to interfere with measurement of instructional effects. Test anxiety respresents a possibly confounding effect in the measurement of any given knowledge. A study was conducted to examine the effect that relaxation training administered immediately prior to testing would have on academic…

This report summarizes the results of research designed to study the psychometric and technological feasibility of adaptive testing to assess spatial ability. Data was collected from high school students on two types of spatial items: three-dimensional cubes and hidden figure items. The analysis of the three-dimensional cubes focused on the fit of…

This study investigated the development of students' abilities to integrate information in stories as an aspect of reading comprehension. Students aged 8, 11, 14, and 18 judged the importance of key statements, which varied in their causal relations within an episode, between episodes, and in a higher-order structure, yielding three levels of…

Knowledge of and use of the information provided by learning style theories can be of help in providing better educational experiences for students. Learning style preferences are of particular significance in programs such as allied health/health occupations education that practice selective admissions. Since the students have all been judged…

This book on classification abilities is part of a series designed to assist beginning and experienced teachers in becoming regular evaluators of their own instruction. The book consists of two sections. The first section provides information on: resemblance and consistent/exhaustive sorting; multiple membership and inclusive classifying; and…

Administrator development programs are multiplying, yet little is known of their effects. If instruction is meant to produce cognitive, affective, and psychomotor changes in participants, inservice programs should duplicate that process--and, by extension, improve schools. Two instruments in each of four areas (cognitive , affective, psychomotor,…

This study investigated the effectiveness of the use of computer networking in providing guided practice in teaching reading comprehension to middle school students (grades 6-8) in remedial reading class. (Guided practice is defined as the phase of instruction immediately following the presentation of a new skill, concept, or strategy, in which…

An analysis of the findings in 70 U.S. and foreign studies that compare male and female students' performance on tests of cognitive functioning was conducted. The studies were reported in various science and psychology journals between 1965 and 1981. Overall, the results showed small but consistent gender differences, with males scoring slightly…

The potential of a cognitive model task analysis scheme (CMS) that specifies features of test problems shown by research to affect performance is explored. CMS describes the general skill area and the generic task or problem type. It elaborates features of the problem situation and required responses found by research to influence performance.…

A psychometric model called Saltus, which represents the qualitative aspects of hierarchical development in a form applicable to additive measurement, was applied. Both Piaget's theory of cognitive development and Gagne's theory of learning hierarchies were used to establish the common features of hierarchical development: (1) gappiness--the…

A serious problem in the area of attitude research is the low relationship between verbal attitude and supposedly related overt behavior. A study tested a model derived from M. Deutsch's proposition on persuasive communication stating that for communication to be effective in a conflict situation, it must convey to the information receiver the…

Although student evaluation of instruction forms are used by colleges to provide information to instructors and administrators, personality and cognitive style variables of the student raters are rarely considered. A cognitive developmental measure, the Paragraph Completion Test (PCT), two cognitive style measures, Bieri's Modified Rep Test and…

This document presents a cognitive diagnostic test which was devised as part of the Multilevel Remediation in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics project funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare). The test diagnoses the following areas of cognition judged by empirical analysis…

This study assessed the construct validity of a cognitive structure interpretation of multidimensional scaling solutions of concept similarity data. Using high school subjects, convergent validity was assessed through correspondence of scaling solutions of three similarity rating tasks; word association, similarity judgment, and semantic…

To investigate the impact which continuity in children's programs might have for children's longterm cognitive and noncognitive development, effects of a prekindergarten (PreK) program on children's performance was measured using two cognitive measures at the end of the subjects' first grade year. Staff development activities in selected districts…