Several alternative paradigms or approaches for social science research, each with different focuses, are gaining recognition in education. A scheme for organizing knowledge about vocational education is proposed as a basis for selecting an appropriate research approach and its attendant focus. (Author)

Examined group differences in self-reporting anxiety for one hundred chronic pain patients, an equal number of college students, and two smaller comparison samples. Pain patients, relative to nonpatients, acknowledged dramatically fewer total signs of anxiety. Also, pain patients endorsed significantly more somatic than cognitive indicators of…

Cross-validated the factor structure of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities for 105 kindergarten children. A factor analysis generated five factors, including Verbal Comprehension, Quantitative-Reasoning, Memory, Perceptual-Performance, and Motor factors. The overall factor pattern provides further evidence of the construct validity of the…

Evaluated discriminant validity in frequently used measures of irrational beliefs relative to measures of trait anxiety in college students (N=142). Results showed discriminant validity in the Rational Behavior Inventory but not in the Irrational Beliefs Test and correlated cognitive rather than somatic aspects of trait anxiety with both measures.…

Aims to assess relationships between phonological tasks, determine their degree of convergence, and investigate the predictive power of different tasks. Ten phonological awareness tasks were administered to 58 kindergarten children whose reading abilities were assessed one year later. Seven measures were moderately related to reading ability and…

Suggests several strategies for evaluating the learning potential and measuring the progress of the disadvantaged child based on the process of the individual: who he is, what he can do, and what he desires to accomplish. (TO)

A problem-solving inventory was administered with other measures of cognitive abilities and school achievement in order to determine interrelationships between these measures. A distinct problem-solving factor, separate from measures of school achievement and language abilities but related to logical thinking and conceptual ability was…

Construct validity in intelligence test construction can be attained by the use of Piaget-type tasks, which involve the basic categories of intellectual functioning''; examples are given. (Author/SP)

A pictorial, language-free method for assessing some of the cognitive aspects of acculturation is presented, and a practical and inexpensive scaling technique is described which is guaranteed to provide internal consistency even where the quantities have not previously been measured. (Author/FF)

An attempt to integrate some promising theoretical approaches to cognitive learning and develop an integrated model which could be tried out in an action learning situation-the classroom. (Author)

New curricula in the social studies requires new procedures in student evaluation. (NI)