Presentation of quantitative research on the family often suffers from a tendency to interpret findings on a statistical rather than substantive basis. Advocates the use of data analysis that lends itself to an intuitive understanding of the nature of the findings, the strength of the association, and the import of the result. (JPS)

Reports on a project to develop and validate a criterion-referenced performance test of listening summary translation ability. This exam is designed to assess ability to comprehend and summarize in written English recorded conversations spoken in Spanish. The Bachman framework is used to present the test and provide evidence for its validity. (12…

Facilitated communication (FC) as an augmentative or alternative communication system was evaluated with 14 students having autism. At the end of 10 weeks of instruction, no participants were able to produce functional, typed communication, thereby failing to support the cause-effect relationship proposed by FC proponents. (DB)

Argues that school guidance counselors today have many school-related duties in addition to counseling. Investigates ways to implement a program whereby the counselor's role is clearly defined, formally reviewed, and redefined as needed. Encourages school guidance counselors to validate their roles by defining them more accurately and seeking the…

Comparison of 26 hospitalized psychiatric youth with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with 27 similar youth without ADHD on the "Freedom from Distractibility" factor of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children III found no significant intergroup differences, thus concluding that this factor is not a valid discriminant…

This article proposes a new type of pronunciation test, based on the variability principle and language continuum paradigm developed by Tarone (1983, 1985). Trials with 80 elementary and 73 university students indicate that the test distinguishes between subjects with and without phonetic training and is generally reliable and valid. Contains 31…

Finkelhor's Risk Factor Checklist factors were reexamined as predictors of childhood sexual abuse, employing procedures to facilitate a high degree of honest and diligent task implementation and strong ethical safeguards for female college students (n=411). Subjects reported an incidence rate of 24.3%; only one of the checklist's eight factors…

Individuals (n=178) in community sites involved with persons having severe disabilities were surveyed concerning attitudes toward the social acceptability of commonly used training techniques, including antecedent, consequence, and data collection techniques. Groups of respondents differentially rated the social acceptability of the techniques.…

A study used the Delphi technique to validate teaching competencies of graduate teaching assistants. A panel of 17 experts in teaching assistant support and training validated 26 competencies as important but also suggested some depend on specific responsibilities assigned to the teaching assistants. (Author/MSE)

Discusses topical relevance and situational relevance, which takes into account the impact of the retrieval system on the user, in the context of medicine. Topics addressed include scientific validity; limitations of current evaluation methodology, including recall and precision; and a framework for future retrieval research based on an…

To examine the validity of distinguishing children with reading disabilities according to discrepancy and low-achievement definitions, 4 assessments of expected achievement and 2 of actual achievement were obtained for 199 elementary school students. Results do not support the validity of the discrepancy versus the low-achievement definition.…

College students (175 females and 57 males) at 2 large universities completed the College Student Reasons for Living Inventory. Females endorsed reasons for living choices more strongly than males. Subjects self-reporting greater suicidal risk had a lower mean CSRFLI score than those at the lower level of suicidal risk. (FC)

Results of the fall 1993 administration of part two of the Medical Council of Canada's Evaluating Examination for 744 candidates provided evidence of the consistency of the pass/fail and cutting score definitions for the objective- structured clinical examination stations used across examiners. These results support the validity of this…

Examined the multivariate effects of various course characteristics on student ratings of faculty at a Hong Kong university. Data consisted of 4996 course average ratings from 25 departments over two academic years. Significant differences were found in student ratings across academic disciplines, class size groups, course levels, types of course,…

Study focused on the problems of curricular misalignment with placement tests used in community colleges. Findings indicate that while pre-test and post-test scores were highly aligned, there was little or no relationship between placement test scores and student performance in class, or between test content and skills emphasized in class. (PGS)