In the scientific literature, the debate around the school and class effect is polarized, because the variance between schools and classes is explained either by school and class process or by group composition. The first aim of this article is to shed light on this debate and move beyond it by reviewing qualitative and quantitative studies…

Using data collected in 2000 on a racially and ethnically diverse sample of high school seniors, this study analyzes adolescents' expectations and desires about marriage and parenthood, including unwed parenthood. The conceptual framework combines family context, opportunity cost, and social-psychological perspectives. Each perspective receives…

There are few studies measuring the effects on painting quality of playing background classical music at special schools. Primary students with severe intellectual disabilities (N=24) were taught abstract painting in a two-part method. The first part involved a Pictorial Only method and the second, immediately following it, involved a Pictorial…

At study was undertaken at California's College of the Canyons (CoC) to investigate the relationship between students' self assessments of skills on Computerized Assessment and Placement Programs forms and results from assessment tests in mathematics, reading, and writing. Data were collected on students who enrolled at the college in fall 1995…

The Study Activity Questionnaire (SAQ) was administered to 83 college students who were enrolled in either an introductory research methods course or an introductory statistics course in the college of education at one university. At the beginning of the term the students completed the SAQ with reference to how they typically studied (pretest),…

As part of an effort to statistically validate the placement tests used in California's San Diego Community College District (SDCCD) a study was undertaken to review the criteria- and content-related validity of the Assessment and Placement Services (APS) reading and writing tests. Evidence of criteria and content validity was gathered from…

This study was undertaken to develop guidelines for making interpretive inferences from scores on the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), a norm-referenced test of English-language listening comprehension (LC) and reading (R) skills, about level of ability to use English in face-to-face conversation, indexed by performance in…

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, student-reported high school grades, and scores for four other Admissions Testing Program tests were correlated with freshman grade point average for 299,794 students at 198 colleges from the enrolling classes of 1978, 1981, and 1985. The purpose of the study was to determine whether observed changes in…

There has been concern over the validity of the Algebra Diagnostic Test (ADT) used to determine the actual level of student preparation for the first quarter of calculus as taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. It has been hypothesized that performance-based questions, along with the more traditional multiple choice questions,…

Numerous theories have attempted to explain possible factors relating to an individual's propensity for engaging or failing to engage in preventative health behaviors. The Health Locus of Control (HLOC) is now considered to be an important variable for understanding an individual's likelihood for following health promoting behaviors. This paper…

The relationship between locus of control and academic achievement was studied for 42 adolescent black males identified as at-risk by their teachers. The Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control scale (NS-LOC) for children was used as a measure of locus of control. School grade average and the Stanford Achievement Test (SFAT) battery composite provided…

To determine on which levels of cooperation most media specialists and public librarians function, and whether or not the cooperation is satisfactory, a survey was conducted of libraries and school media specialists in the Atlanta-Fulton County and Gwinnett County (Georgia) areas. Questionnaires (152) were mailed to 115 school library and media…

In this article some results are presented relating to the dimensionality of instruments containing polytomously scored as well as dichotomously scored items, concentrating on the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress' (NAEP) mathematics and reading assessment data and several simulated datasets. The maximum likelihood factor analytic…

This paper focuses on the geographic locale settings reported in two surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The two surveys are the School Universe component of the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey and the Public School component of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Instances where the self-reported locale…

A series of three studies examined the validity of certain features of computer person and non-computer person stereotypes, including gender, academic achievement, communication apprehension, and receiver apprehension. First a pilot study developed a computer attitude estimate (CAE) scale and survey method. Subjects were 47 high school students…