The critiques by L. Collins and L. Humphreys in this issue illustrate problems with the use of gain scores. Collins' examples show that familiar formulas for the reliability of differences do not reflect the precision of measures of change. Additional examples demonstrate flaws in the conventional approach to reliability. (SLD)

Self-report drug use data were collected from 282 female alternative school students. Logistic regression analyses indicated that sexual abuse history was significantly associated with lifetime use. While the relationships tested in this study are exploratory, they provide evidence for an important connection between sexual abuse and substance use…

Used a genetic design to investigate association between physical aggression and language development in 19-month-old twins. Found a modest but significant correlation between aggression and expressive vocabulary. Substantial heritability was found for physical aggression. Quantitative genetic modeling suggested that the correlation could not be…

Used data from a statewide sample of 5,870 eighth graders in California to examine the correlates of smoking prevalence estimates. Best friends' smoking accounted for the largest proportion of the variance in prevalence estimates. Smoking by peers may give adolescents the impression that smoking is more normative and prevalent than it actually is.…

Studied the relationships between two real time dynamic decision making tasks (microworlds) and one intelligence test with 100 Swedish adults. Raven's Progressive Matrices scores were a predictor of success in the two microworlds. Discusses methodological problems with microworlds. (SLD)

Teachers in three day care programs completed temperament questionnaires and behavior problem checklists for 133 preschoolers. Results indicated that correlations between temperament and behavior problem variables were generally higher for boys than for girls. (BG)

Used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine relationship between welfare and teenage out-of-wedlock childbearing in the 1979-84 period. The results indicated a relationship between welfare policy and out-of-wedlock childbearing for White and Black, but not for Hispanic, adolescents, although the evidence was not strong…

A new coefficient--psi-star--is presented for measuring agreement on bidirectional response continua. The coefficient is designed to measure agreement in larger square contingency tables with even numbers of rows and columns. Advantages of the procedure are discussed. (SLD)

Research reports are reviewed which illustrate the close ties between creativity and entrepreneurship. Comparisons of the characteristics and behavior typical of creative individuals and entrepreneurial individuals indicate the existence of striking similarities. (JDD)

Interviews with 180 second, fourth, and sixth graders concerning control beliefs, agency beliefs, and means-ends beliefs showed that only agency beliefs were strongly and consistently related to cognitive performance. (RH)

A response to comments on internal correlation for statistical analysis, as proposed by the present authors (1989), is provided. Focus is on issues raised by W. W. Rozeboom (1989). Comments by J. H. Schuenemeyer (1989) and R. Bargmann (1989) are briefly considered. (TJH)

Describes a study that collected statistics on the occurrence of terms used in searching an online catalog and investigated the correlation of the selection of terms with their occurrence in indexing. The discussion of the results includes implications for indexing theories. (19 references) (CLB)

This study comparing 413 adults who had been abused and/or neglected as children with a control group (n=286) found significant differences between groups in IQ and reading ability, even when controlling for age, sex, race, and social class. Types of maltreatment were associated with differences in IQ and reading ability. (Author/DB)

The use of mean inter-item correlation as a technique for examining homogeneity is proposed as a descriptive tool that can orient researchers to salient aspects of their scales. A study of 341 undergraduates who completed the NEO Personality Inventory illustrates the technique. (SLD)

Cranial capacities are calculated from external head measurements reported for 40 samples (tens of thousands of subjects) from a 1990 review of ergonomically important body measurements compiled by the International Labour Office. The correlation between brain size and intelligence for groups and individuals is discussed. (SLD)