This paper presents and compares data from the Adaptive Behavior Inventory for Children (ABIC) on three groups of Mexican-American children from California, Austin, and Corpus Christi, Texas. The ABIC is premised on the belief that all behaviors are learned in a particular sociocultural context and that this context must be taken into account when…

This study examines the effects of different kinds of verbal instructions given by teachers on the performance of young children, investigating whether task performance is significantly affected by small changes in verbal content or in the sequence of components of an instruction. Kindergarten children (48 boys and 52 girls) were randomly assigned…

Teachers calling on students to answer questions in class regarding homework assignments and general knowledge frequently invoke the Drama Triangle (Karpman, 1968). Many of these questions automatically put the teacher in the Persecutor or Rescuer role and students in the Victim role. Retaliatory transactions by students often put the teacher in…

One hundred twenty college freshmen in the lowest 20% of their classes participated in a study of the relationships between scores on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test and the Cooperative English Test and varying levels of standing on ACT English and Social Studies and SAT Verbal Tests, by race and gender, controlling for high school grade-point…

Cognitive style research is hindered by a variety of poorly described measures and style classifications and the use of small samples. This study described and compared three group measures of impulsivity/reflectivity, internal/external locus of control; and field dependence/independence to determine the distribution characteristics, psychometric…

Test application and implementation of techniques and methods developed in the planning model, A Policy Information System for Vocational Education, are described in this report. (The computer planning model and policy information system designed for use in planning at the local level brings variables of student interest, manpower demand,…

Examines six areas of controversy surrounding testing--test validity, the role of affective objectives, criterion-referenced tests, test bias, IQ tests, and the effect of competition. (IRT)

The four papers in this collection were drawn from a symposium convened to review the state of the art in speaking and listening assessment at all educational levels and to suggest strategies for addressing the technical issues, particularly those relating to test bias and the use of rating scales, that speaking and listening assessors often face.…

This study evaluated the procedures and results of the identification of children with Perceptual-Communicative Disorders (PCD) in Colorado. The process of identification includes referral, assessment, staffing and placement. The number of children identified as PCD by current procedures is large and growing. Variations in the prevalence of PCD…

Based on the premise that teaching basic writing involves first understanding what tends to go wrong when students write, a computer assisted system of error prediction and analysis was designed to improve college students' writing skills in both English and French. Students were to complete a sequenced series of writing assignments first in…

The unprecedented development of self-help groups confirms their importance, but few studies have focused on prevention and self-help groups. Two methods for investigating preventive potential are outcome studies and process analysis. To assess the presence of helping processes in self-help group meetings, a process analysis was developed to…

This report is a summary of the review of the Defense Language Institute (DLI) that was made by the General Accounting Office (GAO) at the request of a member of Congress. The objectives of the study were to identify and analyze significant internal DLI problems that diminish the overall effectiveness of the language training provided there.…

The efforts of researchers to produce a pool of approximately 30 validated and field-tested topics for use in future administrations of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination in writing are reviewed in this paper. Various sections of the paper (1) describe the procedures followed; (2) explain the reasons for making certain important…

Results are summarized of research on a program instituting graded objectives and tests in French. The research project was conducted during the 1979-80 school year by the Language Teaching Council at York, England. Two experimental groups and two control groups were formed of students aged 13 and over. Pupils, parents, and teachers completed…

Biometric communication research is defined as research dealing with the information impact of a film or television show, photographic picture, painting, exhibition, display, or any literary or functional texts or verbal stimuli on human beings, both as individuals and in groups (mass audiences). Biometric communication research consists of a…