The intraclass reliability of an oral examination administered during a clinical clerkship was analyzed in three ways: by traditional estimation, by faculty evaluation of taped examinations, and with use of a new evaluation form. A noticeable increase in reliability was found with the new form's use. (MSE)

Investigates differences in the performance of Spanish-speaking children on alternate forms of the Oral Vocabulary Subtest of the Inter-American Test of General Abilities (Manuel, 1967) in Spanish and English that may be attributed to the factors of practice effect, language level, and chance errors of measurement. (Author)

The authors describe their own investigation into how the ability to differentiate emotions verbally, an important element in a child's emotional development, is influenced by factors of age, sex and social class. (Author/RK)

Findings indicate that (1) development of probability reasoning can be shown by an increasing monotonic trend with age, (2) verbal tests assess different aspects of this development than do nonverbal tests, (3) Piaget's ontogenetic age brackets are accurate, and (4) sex and intelligence are not significant variables. (MH)

A field study is reported in which the discrepancy between verbal and nonverbal skills among 150 adjudicated male delinquents was assessed by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, and evaluated with regard to three interpretations of the observed differences. (Author/GK)

Children, 9-11 years old, solved subtraction problems in the form of M-N=..., then gave a verbal report on the thought processes used, analysis of which utilized a model based on analyses of reaction times, and resulted in a more detailed process model. (AN)

Discusses the generalizability of critical thinking and the disposition to think critically. Argues that verbal reports of examinees' thinking on multiple-choice tests can explain the reasoning behind their answers and, thus, can be used to assess the inability to make credibility judgments. (FMW)

Obtained Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale intelligence quotient (IQ) data from 64 patients with cortical neoplasms confined to one brain quadrant. Indicated significant effect for lesion laterality for verbal IQ scores and verbal IQ-performance IQ difference scores. Found no significant main effect for gender or lesion site (anterior-posterior)…

Describes methodology for using verbal reports of thinking to develop and validate multiple-choice tests of critical thinking. Procedure includes devising normative models of thinking for each item; collecting verbal reports of thinking from samples of subjects; using normative models to rate quality of thinking; comparing quality of thinking to…

Investigated the construct validity of the implied and theoretical structures of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III). Results using the standardization sample of 2,450 adults and adolescents indicate that the WAIS-III provides an excellent measure of the four-factor model and a general factor, but they do not support the construct…

The present study used well-defined traumatic brain injury (TBI) and mixed neurological (other than TBI) and psychiatric samples to examine the specificity and sensitivity to Malingered Neurocognitive Dysfunction (MND) of four individual California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) variables and eight composite CVLT malingering indicators. Participants…

The K-ABC purports to be a fresh alternative to standardized measures of intellectual functioning, by virtue of separating measurement of acquired factual knowledge from measurement of the ability to solve novel problems. Some researchers have questioned this claim to the capability of distinguishing aptitude and achievement. By analyzing the…

The process of developing, piloting, and refining an oral proficiency test as part of the Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR) test battery is described. The test was designed to fill a need for an oral interview-type measure adapted for fifth to seventh grade students. The test was produced first for Spanish immersion students, then…

This research investigated the effect on estimated lower asymptotes of the instructions to Graduate Record Examination (GRE) examinees about how the test would be scored. This effect was assessed for four different verbal item types (analogies, antonyms, sentence completion, and reading comprehension) using a two-way, unweighted means analysis of…