Presents social scientists' claim that IQ scores can determine a person's social, educational, and occupational future at an early age. Echoes the Platonic idea that each individual should be put to the use for which nature intended, and that IQ, which is thought to be hereditary, can effectively predict this use. (58 citations) (EMH)

We describe a simple classroom activity that demonstrated the process of assessing predictive validity. We assessed changes in student understanding of the process, confidence in psychological testing, and enjoyment in participating in the exercise. Students who completed the activity performed better on a test question about validity and reported…

The authors examined the extent to which the Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional scales and 3-point codes of the Self-Directed Search may be considered statistically and practically equivalent across 3 different modes of administration: paper-and-pencil, personal computer, and Internet. Student preferences…

The performance of three equating methods--the presmoothed equipercentile method, the item response theory (IRT) true score method, and the IRT observed score method--were examined based on three equating criteria: the same distributions property, the first-order equity property, and the second-order equity property. The magnitude of the…

Much research has suggested that those who stutter are likely to be anxious. However, to date, little research on this topic has addressed the role of expectancies of harm in anxiety, which is a central construct of anxiety in modern clinical psychology. There are good reasons to believe that the anxiety of those who stutter is related to…

The "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" have evolved in the breadth and depth of coverage of issues in educational testing and measurement since their first publication in 1954. There were a number of substantive changes in the 1999 revision that addressed validity, fairness, accommodations, and compliance with the…

A sense of direction (SOD) computes the body's facing direction relative to a reference frame grounded in the environment. The authors report on three experiments in which they used a heading-recall task to tap the functioning of a SOD system and then correlated task performance with self-reported SOD as a convergent test of the task's construct…

Rather than focus on the numerous flaws in the book "The Bell Curve" (Herrnstein & Murray), this discussion focuses on the racism and bigoted beliefs of the pioneers in the mental measurement movement in the United States--beliefs which provided the background and opportunity for the publication of the book. A significant amount of…

Test-retest reliabilities and practice effect magnitudes were considered for nine computer-simulated tasks of everyday cognition and five traditional neuropsychological tests. The nine simulated everyday memory tests were from the Memory Assessment Clinic battery as follows: (1) simple reaction time while driving; (2) divided attention (driving…

The purpose of this book is to provide information about the various psychological assessment procedures that are specifically relevant for practicing counselors and human development professionals. The book deals with the use of such tests in the counseling process and includes illustrative case studies. It emphasizes the selection,…

The hypothesis that free recall curves reflecting effects of serial position, presentation time and delay of recall are attributable to subjects' pattern of rehearsal was explored. Experiments varied the patterns of rehearsal to examine the effects on recall. (CHK)

Short-term retention of temporal and spatial order information were compared using the distractor paradigm. Use of phonemic coding and coding of information about temporal-spatial patterns were interrupted to observe subject's reaction and ability to recall. (CHK)

Suggests that because children of similar intellectual abilities, with different home backgrounds and/or different educational environments, reach different levels of scholastic attainment, that suitable intervention procedures could raise level of school performance. [Available from St. Patrick's College, Dublin 9, Ireland]. (Author/AM)

This study examines the frequency of depression among freshmen through a retrospective inventory completed by 158 randomly selected sophomores. Of these, 75 percent reported having experienced at least mild depression in the preceding year. The study indicates that frequency of depression is generally underestimated. (SJL)

The effect of a helpseeker's sex-role appropriateness on psychological inference was examined. Counselors rated the degree of maladjustment suggested by psychovocational profiles of medical-school aspirants. Greater maladjustment was imputed to the sex-role transgressing female, but not identically-described males, by relatively traditional than…