The purpose of this paper is to present some preliminary findings on the effects of racial status, socioeconomic status (SES), and measured ability (MA) upon academic performance of students in a liberal arts college. Preliminary analyses of academic performance (cumulative grade point averages and semester-by-semester grade point averages) among…

This publication continues the descriptions of the cognitive, psychomotor, and socioemotional measures used in all years of the Head Start Planned Variation Evaluation study. Included is a detailed examination of each measure, a discussion of the theory behind it, and a review of the available data on the measure's reliability, validity and other…

This study examined the effect of a Specialized Language Activities curriculum upon the language development of 40 selected ninth graders who prepared short improvised dramas for production on videotape. Working on the premise that concentration on one aspect of the language arts would aid development in other areas, students in this experimental…

The feasibility and limitations of speaker adaptation in improving the performance of a "fixed" (speaker-independent) automatic speech recognition system were examined. A fixed vocabulary of 55 syllables is used in the recognition system which contains 11 stops and fricatives and five tense vowels. The results of an experiment on speaker…

Two accomplishments have increased the feasibility of taking preparatory steps for the construction of machine intelligence systems which can acquire knowledge about facts or descriptions of facts through man-machine dialogue in the user's natural language. One is a better understanding of the relationship between perception, language, and…

Contents of this book include the following articles: "Genetics and competance: Do heritability indices predict educability?" Jerry Hirsch; "The role of experience in the development of competence," J. McVicker Hunt; "Intelligence-- why it grows, why it declines," John L. Horn; "The demographic context of metropolitan education," Karl E. Taeuber;…

The purpose of this study was to develop a kindergarten social studies unit based on selected key concepts of anthropology and to evaluate the achievement in anthropology for preprimary children. The relationship of selected pupil characteristics to gain in anthropology was also examined. Eleven Georgia public kindergarten classes which were field…

In the most narrow sense, compensatory education has failed; most Title I programs which seek to improve achievement have no discernible effect. This is apparently a result of the fact that the programs seek to provide for disadvantaged students more of the school resources which have never been found to affect the achievement of advantaged…

This study attempts to determine the relative ranking value of information gathering devices that could be substituted for tests of mental maturity. Results indicate that the three best devices are: a standardized test of academic achievement, a test of personality, and a self-concept inventory, all of which are easily administered, scored, and…

Factor analysis was used to summarize the interrelationships between a large and varied collection of measures. Data for 500 third grade students assigned to either an experimental or a comparison condition were obtained. The data covered scores for the first 28 items of the Student Affective Behavior Checklist, (2) 9 nonmathematics subtests of…

The 1972-1973 issue of "Classroom Practices in Teaching English" focuses on the topic of the evaluation of student performance. The 42 articles and statements describe ways to measure reading, writing, and speaking. The writers are teachers in elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities. About half of them are identified with…

Mechanical aptitude is considered to be a composite of several abilities--general intelligence, spatial, mechanical knowledge and comprehension, and relevant manual dexterity and coordination. Abilities are conceived as if organized in a hierarchical model and are assumed to develop as overlearned and generalized response patterns to particular…

A comparison between standard kindergarten programs and AEL's preschool program was conducted to gain some insight into the desirability of using the laboratory-developed procedures rather than standard classroom procedures for affecting learning in 3-, 4-, and, especially, 5-year-old children. Initial differences in intelligence test scores were…

An attempt to synthesize primarily experimental studies of the process of social influence is presented. The point is made that each of us is involved in the process of social influence, both because we often attempt to influence someone else, and because we are constantly targets for attempts at social influence. This book is divided into four…

In a recent study, the mothers of 268 children who were in classes for educable mentally retarded in two public school districts in Southern California were interviewed. The responses of some of these mothers dramatize three issues: (1) biases in the assessment procedures used to label children as mentally retarded; (2) the stigmatization…