Four age groups between 7 and 15 listened to a prose passage delivered at a slow or fast speech rate and structured to join or separate related pieces of information. A recall test followed immediately. Performance was correlated to subjects' age and sex. Implications for classroom teaching are considered. (Author/SJL)

White and Gagne's method (EJ 180 555) for formatively evaluating learning hierarchies does not require participants to be taught the content prior to testing them for their knowledge of the skills in the hierarchy. By simply determining the percentage of students achieving each skill, the researcher obtains approximately the same information.…

Phonemic awareness tasks are identified: sound-to-word matching, word-to-word matching, rhyme recognition, isolation segmentation, counting sounds, blending, deletion, and substitution. Methods for teaching segmentation and blending, the most cortical tasks, are discussed. (Author/CP)

Five indices are discussed that should logically discriminate between situations in which: (1) the linear equating method (LEM) adequately adjusts for difference between score distributions of two approximately parallel test forms; or (2) a method more complex than the linear equating method is needed. (RL)

The computational difficulty of the word problem sections of eight standardized achievement tests was analyzed with respect to the variety of computational procedures and the number of digits per whole number computation. Analysis reveals considerable variation among the current tests in terms of computational procedure and difficulty. (Author/MK)

The relationship between students' study processes and the structural complexity of their learning is examined. Study processes are viewed in terms of three dimensions and are assessed by a questionnaire. Learning quality is expressed in levels of a taxonomy. A study that relates taxonomic levels and retention to study processes is reported.…

Three problem-solving strategies--working backward from the unknown, forward from the given, and mixed--were applied to interrelated algebra equations. The mixed strategy was most popular and most efficient with grouped variables. Memory load or information-processing load differences among the strategies were evident. (CP)

The clearest writing style is one in which the grammatical structures of a sentence most redundantly support the perceived semantic structure; a textured style is one in which the syntactic complexity invests a sentence with distinctive force. (DD)

The level of difficulty of reading instruction materials was examined along with the relationship between the material difficulty-student ability level difference scores and classroom adjustment. Students tended not to receive instruction in material at a level of difficulty equal to their tested ability. Classroom behavior improved as the…

Analyzed factorially various theoretically derived measures of conceptual systems functioning and several proposed measures and correlations. (Author/RK)

Investigates how adolescents spent their time in high school and the conditions under which they reported being engaged. Participants experienced increased engagement when the perceived challenge of the task and their own skills were high and in balance, the instruction was relevant, and the learning environment was under their control.…

An alternating treatments design was used to evaluate the effects of the interspersal procedure on an elementary student who was referred to a school psychologist for high rates of off-task behavior during independent seatwork. Results showed that the procedure increased the student's on-task levels during classroom mathematics assignments.…

Content characteristics of 1,400 Graduate Record Examination (GRE) analytical reasoning items were coded for item difficulty and discrimination. The results provide content characteristics for consideration in extending specifications for analytical reasoning items and a better understanding of the construct validity of these items. (TJH)

Defines the Cognitive Difficulty Level (CDL) as number of schemes required for solution (NS) times the required learner's resources (Problem Solving Taxonomy [PST] level). Describes the validation procedures of the CDL index in high-school level electronics. (Author/YP)

Classroom activities used in acting courses that can be useful in developing French second language skills are described. Appropriate adaptations for variety, different purposes, and different skill levels are discussed. (MSE)