This study examined whether American College Testing (ACT) scores are a reliable predictor of college success using data on Chicago State University (CSU) graduates. The study used data on all undergraduates who had successfully completed a degree program and graduated in one of nine successive terms between Fall 1990 and Fall 1993 and also had an…

The concept of the "voice" as developed by Robert W, Firestone (1984 and later) has been hypothesized as an essential mechanism in self-destructive behavior in general and suicide in particular. This study applies the theory of the voice to the development of the Firestone Voice Scale for Self-Destructive Behavior (FVSSDB). The FVSSDB…

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study of the relation between teachers' perceptions of bureaucratic and professional role orientations and their perceptions of the principal change-facilitator style. An additional focus was on the cultural aspects of school organizations involved in planned-change initiatives. The sample consisted…

A survey of librarians in LIBRAS, a consortium comprising 16 Chicago-area liberal arts college libraries, tested two hypotheses: (1) the salary level of the group with faculty status is significantly greater than that of the group without faculty status; and (2) there is a statistically significant correlation between the amount of professional…

This research aims to clarify the dimensionality of the Life Satisfaction Index A (LSIA). A multiple indicator structural equation model, which includes eleven items loading on three first-order factors and one second-order factor, is proposed to delineate the structure of LSIA. This model was empirically examined by using data from the 1974…

A comparative survey of 46 Alaska school superintendents and 520 in the nation at large reveals that nearly all the superintendents in both groups consider their relationship with the school board to be important and spend a considerable amount of time on that relationship. A positive correlation emerges between the importance superintendents…

Although it is commonly considered that personality characteristics are stable over long periods of time, some recent theorists have questioned this view. In order to examine a number of personality, social, and family oriented characteristics, 44 women were interviewed three times (at young adulthood, middle age and young old age) over a 40 year…

The paper is a critique of the traditional mode of interpreting factor analyses; it is not a criticism of factor analysis per se. Instead, the author proposes a statistical procedure based upon stepwise regression (SRP). The traditional mode focuses on the largest factor loadings (FL). A factor is both described and named by these heavily weighted…

Factors to consider when studying attrition are: (1) the academic reasons students drop out or are suspended; (2) the institutional definitions of attrition; and (3) the procedures used to monitor the successes or failures of students. A recent University of Texas study of literacy developed at the community college included a mini-study of…

A longitudinal study of mental development during the first 6 years of life was conducted to determine whether different social and biological variables were related to mental development at different ages. A total of 218 children having complete neonatal records of 12 biological variables were studied at 6-month intervals until the children were…

This paper presents a promising new item bias detection technique that derives practical appeal from its simplicity and economy, and provides data relating to the method's consistency across samples. The proposed regression on item characteristics (RIC) method is a straightforward and inexpensive approach to the study of item bias, based on…

This study examined the intercorrelations of four instruments (three self-report and one behavioral) at two points in time (before and after a course in counseling psychology). The test-retest reliabilities of all instruments were highly significant, but only on the behavioral test of empathic communication was there a change over time. (Author)

A Computer program written in FORTRAN IV is presented which will create a population of desired size with marginally normal score vectors manifesting any desired centroid and covariance matrix. Uses and documentation are provided. (Author)

Final grades in an introductory psychology course were found to correlate significantly with a test representative of course content and ACT scores. (Author)

This paper describes an approach to item analysis that is based on the estimation of a set of response curves for each item. The response curves show, at a glance, the difficulty and the discriminating power of the item and the popularity of each distractor, at any level of the criterion variable (e.g., total score). The curves are estimated by…