A discussion of oral language testing looks at the role of student attitudes, student and interviewer gender, and interviewer social status in the reliability of student assessments. Three small-scale studies investigating these factors are described. The first two involved only Arab students. In the first, it was found that students (all male)…

Research in the area of social cognition has suggesed that actual stimuli don't predict later judgments and responses as well as cognitive representations of and cognitive responses to those stimuli, in the form of attitudes, impressions, or causal attributions. To identify the factors most important in predicting adolescent smoking, a 4-year…

Health care providers have become increasingly interested in involving individuals in health promotion activities and programs. To investigate those variables which might predict an individual's interest in becoming involved in health promotion, 84 male and 125 female undergraduates were administered paper and pencil measures to assess their…

Measures of family interaction from the preschool and early adolescent periods are examined as predictors of competence in late adolescence. Data on which this report is based are drawn from a longitudinal study initiated by Jack and Jeanne Block almost 20 years ago which included 51 males and 52 females. Measures of competence include an…

One approach to test bias has focused on identifying the potential variables or factors that may be responsible for bias in a particular test for a particular subgroup. This approach was employed in this study to determine variables which may relate to differential test performance by Anglo and Hispanic students. The test materials used in this…

A survey of 112 teachers working in 26 schools in six districts within a regional area was conducted to investigate microcomputer use by teachers. The survey instrument included items on personal characteristics, years of teaching experience, current use of computers in the classroom, confidence in personal ability to use computers, and perception…

Focusing on the achievement and motivational effects of analogies of varying enrichment levels when used with abstract, unfamiliar, and difficult content, this study examined their effects on instruction at the recall and application levels using content consisting of both concepts and principles. The subjects were 123 eighth-grade science…

During the 1978-1979 academic year, seventh- and eighth-grade students at 13 junior high schools in Southern Illinois participated in a study which provided data on mathematics achievement, student career interests, and parent attitudes toward their children as learners of mathematics. During the 1982-1983 academic year, these students (N=415; 196…

Students enrolled in formal continuing education classes were studied to determine if their motivations were similar. Eighty-six percent of the students were enrolled in formal credit courses. Students were also compared to graduates who did not continue their education. Included in the analysis were college graduates (23-62 years old) from 46…

This study attempted to determine if the Judeo-Christian tradition, when part of an individual's religious background and when incorporated into school philosophy, influenced the level of decision-making of high school seniors (N=130) in sociomoral and environmental issues. Subjects, attending four public and private schools in the Columbus (Ohio)…

A two-dimensional model proposing three predictor dimensions (cognitive, noncognitive, and combined) and four criterion dimensions (grade point average (GPA), enrolled or not, graduate or not, and less traditional criteria) is presented. Preliminary results of a study using the model to examine both white and minority student predictors of…

This paper provides results of a study which characterized women in science, aimed at identifying those factors thought to discriminate among males and females in the humanities, biological sciences, and physical sciences. The areas of spatial ability, attitude toward science, and rate of maturation were chosen as possible discriminating…

The performance of the University of Arizona College of Medicine's graduating class of 1976 on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) Parts I and II was analyzed in a structural equation model. Although the primary emphasis of this paper is toward model development, the effects of several background and demographic variables such as age,…

This study attempted to identify maternal variables within social class which were predictive of child status over time. Data on patterns of mother/child interactions were collected for the experimental and control groups of poverty mother/child dyads at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center and a group of general population high…

This study investigated the value of the Advanced Placement English course in New York State secondary schools, the college performances of former Advanced Placement and Non-Advanced Placement English participants, the best predictor of accelerants' performances in the first college English course, and which predictors, when combined, stabilized…