The usefulness of L. Guttman's partial order scalogram analysis is investigated in this study of the structure of a set of items that measure attitudes toward legal abortion. These items, drawn from the National Opinion Research Center's "General Social Survey," have been the focus of considerable applied research investigating…

To examine Chinese journalists' opinions on a variety of global communication issues, a study interviewed 38 newspaper and broadcast journalists in Beijing, China, as well as advanced journalism students preparing for careers with "China Daily" or "Xinhua." Analysis used William Stephenson's Q-methodology, an analytic technique…

The report examines uses, advantages, and criteria for selection of behavior rating scales (BRSs) and their use with juvenile offenders, focusing in particular on the Behavior Dimensions Rating Scale (BDRS). Previously normed using a representative sample of behavior disordered and nonhandicapped males and females in grades K-11 (N=1,942), the…

A 13-item adult risk taking scale was selected by factor analysis and internal reliability testing from 25 items administered to 270 urban adults (56% Black; 33% White; 11% Hispanic/other) stratified by socioeconomic status. Chronbach's alpha equaled 0.77. Five items refer to risk of injury, five to risk of illness, one to gambling, and two to…

Survey responses from over half of Oklahoma City's 2,500 teachers indicated their views of the effectiveness and leadership of the city's 94 school principals. The survey's 82 items were selected from ideas suggested in the principal effectiveness literature and from the leadership component of Oklahoma City's prinipal evaluation forms. The…

Identifying the variables which influence student attitudes, perceptions, and behavior patterns in regard to religion, sex, and alcohol has been a major source of investigation. To determine the dimensions underlying the relationship among religion, sex, alcohol use, and alcohol knowledge among university students, 376 University of Maryland…

A total of 36 5- and 8-year-old children were tested on cued and noncued recall of a list of 16 words containing either two, four or eight categories. Reported are numbers of words and categories recalled in cued and noncued situations, cluster grouping, age differences and interaction effects. (SDH)

On the basis of a representative sample consisting of 45 4th-year forms (1,236 pupils) from primary schools in Hamburg, the relationships between teacher or parent behavior and motivation for lifelong learning, achievement motivation and emotional stability were investigated. (Editor)

A multidimensional model for measuring cultural differences (MCD) based on factor analytic theory and techniques is proposed. The model assumes that a cultural space may be defined by means of a relatively small number of orthogonal dimensions which are linear combinations of a much larger number of cultural variables. Once a suitable,…

The Mat-Sea-Cal Oral Proficiency Tests are a series of comparable grammatical structure tests. They have been developed in six languages: English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Ilokano and Tagalog. Their purpose is to identify linguistic skills and deficiencies of primary school children grades K through 4. This research reported on the…

In the development of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) the phrase "more desirable in American society" was used in the final item selection. To clarify whether subjects tended to interpret this phrase normatively or prescriptively, a sample of 432 college men and women used the items of the BSRI to describe either a typical (normative),…

Reports an exploratory study designed to describe the development of the scales, investigate concerns regarding student perceptions of a large university, and examine in a standard research situation the viability of a new method of multidimensional analysis (order analysis, proposed as an inferential alternative to factor analysis). (JT)

Investigates extent to which perceptual factors of speed and flexibility of closure represent more general processes also operating in cognitive and personality domains by including in a single factor analysis perceptual tests and new tests requiring cognitive abilities resembling closure abilities operating in the perceptual domain. (RC)