The aim of this study was to investigate the strategies leading to test item responses in 60 young (20-25 years) and 60 middle-aged (35-40 years) adults, whose highest level of education had been either secondary, technical or university. Subjects were individually administered a 12 item test similar to Raven's Progressive Matrices, and were…

By identifying speculations concerning cognitive abilities and cognition's relation to culture, this paper outlines some of the work surrounding basic writers and speaking-writing relationships. Beginning with a discussion of the differences between speaking and writing popularized by Mina Shaughnessy, the paper goes on to examine studies that…

During the summer of 1983, 77 community college students enrolled in English composition courses were administered the Nelson Denny Test during the first week of the summer session and just prior to final examinations to: determine reading ability and grade equivalences in reading; ascertain if there were relationships between academic achievement…

Sentence-combining exercises improve the psycholinguistic abilities of students developmentally ready to profit from them, by developing language skills used in the writing process. (JH)

Problems in the use of pupil achievement measures for evaluating teachers, schools or systems are reviewed, with the conclusion that they are disabling. The following reasons are cited: (1) What the pupil brings to the classroom in terms of ability, previous knowledge, home and peer influence, motivation, and other influences is clearly very…

There is no conclusive evidence as yet that television has provided sufficient cause for the decline in scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and other measures of academic achievement or aptitude, although it may be one of several elements in a complex causal system. The major studies show that television viewing, after the early school years,…

This study was designed to examine the predictive significance of different types and degrees of precocity in preschool children and to assess the effects of participation in a model preschool-kindergarten program operated in conjunction with the study. Extraordinary precocity is defined for this study as performance at the norm for children twice…

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between reading achievement and a set of social and individual variables through the use of a critical path analysis. Data, taken from Cycle II of the National Health Examination Survey, included statistics on a national sample of 7,119 children, ages six through eleven years. Four…

A study investigated the effects of a teacher inservice program on teaching fourth grade students the functional relationship between questions and the response information to which they refer. Ten teachers and 180 of their students participated in the study. Three of the teachers participated in a traditional half-day teacher workshop on…

A study investigated the linguistic development of three kindergarten children judged to be high, moderate, or low in emergent reading ability. Specifically, the study examined whether a developmental direction from dialogue to monologue exists in the children and whether a characteristic of thought termed "inner speech" underlies each…

This study was designed to formulate a predictive equation to identify community college biology students (N=420) who most probably would not succeed in science courses. A College Biology Student Survey (developed for the study), Nelson Denny Reading Test (Form-F), College Guidance Placement (CGP) Arithmetic Test, and An Inventory of Piaget's…

This handbook describes the procedures used to develop, administer, and analyze the results of the 1978-79 art assessment of 9-year-olds, and 17-year-olds by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The primary purpose of the handbook is to provide detailed procedural information for people interested in replicating the assessment…

Information is presented on a federally-funded project at Wayne State College, Nebraska, which was designed to examine general education and the extent to which the critical thinking skills of communicating, quantifying, analyzing, and synthesizing are being promoted. The project is described in relation to five stages, the specific chronology of…

Historically, few women pursue studies or careers in science. In an effort to determine factors that relate to a scientific career choice, this research examines differences between sexes and among majors in 180 males and females in biological, physical science, and nonscience college majors. Nonscience majors mostly included female language…

Research is examined on learning and memory from text across the adult life span. The outcomes of the extant studies are contradictory. Clarification of these confusing findings is obtained by examining variations in the learner variables of education level and performance on vocabulary tests. Problems are considered in equating the learner…