In most reliability studies, the precision of a reliability estimate varies inversely with the number of examinees (sample size). Thus, to achieve a given level of accuracy, some minimum sample size is required. An approximation for this minimum size may be made if some reasonable assumptions regarding the mean and standard deviation of the test…

In this study, Hull's Drive Theory was applied to a test of the effects of general anxiety and situational stress upon speakers' lexical diversity, speaking rate, speaking time, and evaluations made of the speakers' ability. Recordings of speeches made by 122 individuals were rated by three judges on scales measuring central idea and analysis,…

The phenomenon of principal "burn out" is the result of many conditions surrounding the principalship. First, as the number of students has risen over the last 40 years, the number of schools has declined. Too, teachers have become better educated and more specialized, making them less ready to accept the opinions and direction of…

PERHAPS THE MAJOR PROBLEM IN TASK ANALYSIS FOR INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IS TO DETERMINE WHAT TO DESCRIBE AND ON WHAT LEVEL OF DETAIL. MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS OF DESCRIPTION MAY BE NEEDED TO ESTIMATE THE COST OF INADEQUATE PERFORMANCE TO A SYSTEM AND THE PROBABILITY OF ADEQUATE PERFORMANCE WITHOUT TRAINING--THE PROBLEM OF IDENTIFYING DIFFICULT COMPONENTS…

This paper suggests that a change in mode of expression --narrative, descriptive, or expository--can influence the syntactic complexity of children's writing. The implications of the research studies reviewed here may offer direction for education in general. Instructional strategies which make use of variation in writing mode to encourage gains…

In order to study the complexity of sentence combining in college students, 32 students from five basic composition courses were asked to perform three writing tasks at three distinct times during the eight-week instructional period. Each student was asked to rewrite a passage of kernel sentences, to write a composition in the argumentative mode,…

This study used a series of simulations to answer questions about the efficacy of adaptive testing raised by empirical studies. The first study showed that for reasonable high entry points, parameters estimated from paper-and-pencil test protocols cross-validated remarkably well to groups actually tested at a computer terminal. This suggested that…

A project to determine the level of development complexity necessary to produce cost-effective instruction is described. The project is designed to investigate alternative levels of instructional development complexity, how these different levels affect spending, varying degrees of student achievement associated with each level, and the time…

To investigate developmental differences in timesharing performance, 60 boys, 20 in each of three age groups (7-, 10- and 13-year-olds), performed an auditory matching task and a tracking task alone and concurrently, the latter under two sets of instructions. Decrements produced by concurrent performance were compared for the three age groups.…

Confined to the interaction of complexity/simplicity of the stimulus play, this paper both focuses on the differing patterns of response between cognitively complex and cognitively simple persons to the characters in "The Homecoming" and "Private Lives" and attempts to determine the responses to specific characters or groups of…

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Rappaccini's Daughter" reflects the author's view that inherent in the human dilemma are ambiguous ironies which cannot be resolved. Although Hawthorne (unlike Ralph Waldo Emerson) perceives evil as an extraordinarily potent force, he offers no clear moral solutions in this story, but examines various…

In this study, fourth-grade materials based on a linguistic approach to grammar known as sector analysis were devised, field-tested, and evaluated. Two socioeconomically similar fourth grades--experimental and control groups--were pre- and post-tested to find possible changes in the complexity of their sentence structure after the experimental…

To study the relationships among figural creativity, intelligence, and personality, 196 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade boys and girls were given a battery of 14 tests. Teacher ratings of creativity and independence, grade point averages, art grades, and IQ scores were also obtained. It was hypothesized that a unitary trait of…

This final report discusses research and literature analyses concerned with the attentional mechanisms in children's learning and analysis of cognitive changes from ages 5 to 7. The long-term objective of the project was to relate knowledge about children's attention and learning to issues of educational practice. The project focused its efforts…

Six explanations of political ideological complexity and finds the social, structural, political activity, socialization, and functional explanations to be unsupported by the data. Both education and political information explanations are confirmed, the former being favored. Ideological complexity changes with education and greater political…