An analysis of effect of varying duration of shorthand dictation from 3 to 5 minutes with minimum accuracy requirement constant at 97 percent showed that student achievement is appreciably affected by increasing the duration of the dictation from 3 to 5 minutes. (Author)

The level of difficulty of straight copy, which is used to measure typewriting speed, is influenced by syllable intensity (the average number of syllables per word), stroke intensity (average number of strokes per word), and high-frequency words. (CH)

This study explores 1) the components of rapid automatized naming (RAN) by first analyzing the factorial associations between RAN tasks and various nonword decoding and processing speed measures and secondly, by exploring which of these process latent variables are uniquely associated with literacy in 65 below-average readers and spellers. In…

This study examined adult age differences on five tests of divergent thinking: associational fluency, expressional fluency, ideational fluency, word fluency, and consequences. Our hypothesis was that young adults ( M = 20.53, n = 60) would score higher than old adults (M = 72.10, n = 60) under standard timed test conditions, but old adults would…

The implications of various time limits for tests of a fixed length or number of items seem obvious. If the time permitted is much too short, scores may bunch up at the low end of the potential score range, with a loss of potential variance and a general diminishing of the utility of the variance which is observed. If the time permitted is an…

The use of indices of speededness in tests is reviewed and three possible indices which derive from a model which assumes that rate of work is normally distributed is proposed. Each of these indices is seen as limited by the failure to adequately consider the correlation between speed and power, but they have the advantage that they are derivable…

Beginning typewriting students were administered 3-minute timed writings with a 1.3 syllabic intensity level. During four 9-week periods, the performance of several hundred students suggests that the percentage of errors, 0-3, remained relatively constant for 45 percent of the students. (CH)

This study evaluated 15-min time limits on 10-item multiple-choice quizzes delivered over the Internet. Students in a computer-assisted course in human development spent less time on quizzes and performed better on exams when they had time limits on their quizzes. We conclude that time limits are associated with better learning and exam…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of initial touch speed achievement of fifth grade keyboarding students on their touch keyboarding skill retention in seventh grade. This was a longitudinal study generating quantitative data. The subjects for this study were 132 seventh grade students from a suburban middle school in…

The author considers a latent trait model for the response time on a (set of) pure speed test(s), the multiplicative gamma model (MGM), which is based on the assumption that the test response times are approximately gamma distributed, with known index parameters and scale parameters depending on subject ability and test difficulty parameters. Like…

An abstract is given of a paper concerning the effect of period of apparent inactivity on creative thinking. (DB)

Studied the contribution of mental speed to task performance on reasoning tasks under timed and untimed conditions for 227 participants and for 90 participants working under time conditions. Results suggest that the use of speeded reasoning tests is likely to lead to overestimates of the relation between mental speed and reasoning ability. (SLD)

Eight experienced keyboard operators typed digraphs at high speed on both standard and Dvorak keyboards in 10-second timings. The Dvorak was found to be 4% faster, a margin too small to justify a nationwide switch to this keyboard. (SK)

Testing the hypotheses that reflective timed-essay prompts should elicit memories of meaningful experiences in students' undergraduate education, and that computer-mediated classroom experiences should be salient among those memories, a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods paints a richer, more complex picture than either…

Large-scale writing programs can add value to the traditional timed writing assessment by using aspects of the essays to assess the effectiveness of institutional goals, programs, and curriculums. The "six learning goals" prompt in this study represents an attempt to provide an accurate writing assessment that moves beyond scores. This…