The Law School at North Carolina Central University faced the dual problem of improving student performance on the bar examination while maintaining a large percentage of black students. The Law School Admission Test (LSAT) was found to be the single best predictor of student performance on the bar examination. However, if only the students…

The diagnosis of children as learning disabled (LD) has become an increasingly popular diagnostic rubric, but the operational definition of "learning disabled" remains a vague, ill-defined construct which is based upon diagnosis by exclusion of other obvious causes. Diagnostic test results and cultural and familial information taken from case…

Differences in self-descriptive patterns of adults who dropped out of high school completion courses and those who completed their courses were examined using the Adjective Check List (ACL) to measure adult personality attributes. Subjects (N=142) were asked to endorse those adjectives which best described themselves and to skip those which did…

Instruments to measure decision-making skills of grade 5, 8, and 11 students were developed as a part of Pennsylvania's statewide assessment program. A decision-making model was formulated based upon John Dewey's five major steps of the critical thinking process: (1) identify the problem; (2) establish the facts; (3) formulate the hypothesis; (4)…

Six motivational items from the North Carolina Central University freshman survey were investigated as possible predictors in the undergraduate admission equation. Equations were computed using data from 1976 to 1978, employing a double cross-validation design. A scale combining the six motivational questions was used in the equation along with…

The role that time frame plays in the media agenda-setting process was studied by examining the single issue of civil rights over an extended period between 1954 and 1976. The public agenda was determined from 27 Gallup polls, conducted between 1954 and 1976, which asked respondents what they considered the most important issue facing the American…

A study was conducted to determine the influence of family background and attitudinal factors on occupational aspirations of Year 9 students in Victoria, Australia. A survey was made of all Victorian Year 9 students and comparisons were made between groups of students who aspired to different occupations. Discriminant function analyses were…

A review of research on "incomplete text," which refers to a variety of adaptations of cloze procedures, illustrates how construct validity has been considered and will need to be considered in future research on the subject. Much of the early research on incomplete text focused on product--providing quantitative assessments of…

In 1960, Project TALENT gathered demographic, cognitive, and socio-pyschological data from a nationwide sample of high school students. In addition, responses from a saturation sample of 16,000 cases in Knox County, Tennessee were collected. The relationships between attitudes, personality traits, and subsequent alcohol abuse (as shown by Knox…

An empirical test of a contemporary model of psychosocial stress was conducted to evaluate expected differences in cognitive and affective functioning for males and females in a professional career sample. Perceived powerlessness and affective hostility were viewed as constituting a cluster of adaptive responses to personal/social conditions…

Commonality analysis is a statistical technique used within the context of a study to examine school effects among disadvantaged students. The research investigated the unique and common contributions of background, mental ability, program and parental involvement variable sets to the reading vocabulary and comprehension of students participating…

As part of a Student Outcomes Model, a study was conducted of attrition in the 1975 freshman class at the University of Colorado using longitudinal survey data from nonreturning students and those currently enrolled. Discriminant analysis was employed to identify factors that distinguished persisters, academic dismissals, stopouts, and transfers.…

Over a 4-year period moral reasoning and performance data were studied on 350 resident pediatricians, internists, and practitioners of family medicine from seven different institutions. Clinical performance was measured by faculty ratings, and integrity (moral reasoning) was measured by Kohlberg's Standard of Moral Judgement Interview and Rest's…

A relatively simple procedure for modeling periodic components in time series data is presented in this paper, along with an example of the procedure's use with communication data. Similar to multiple regression analysis, the described procedure has four steps that are based on information about periodic waves and their components, how to create…

To evaluate the usefulness of standardized achievement tests in assessing pre-university academic achievement and aptitude, the Council of Ontario Universities administered tests to incoming freshmen at four Ontario universities, and also examined their high school and subsequent university performance. The tests were designed to measure…