Five experiments were conducted to explore trial order and retention interval effects upon causal predictive judgments. Experiment 1 found that participants show a strong effect of trial order when a stimulus was sequentially paired with two different outcomes compared to a condition where both outcomes were presented intermixed. Experiment 2…

The Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE) is a widely used multiple-choice test battery of basic skills in reading, language, and mathematics. The Test of Applied Literacy Skills (TALS) is an applied literacy battery consisting of document, prose, and quantitative literacy tests. The central issue in this study was the relationship of the TABE and…

This study compared critical thinking skills of 98 college freshmen as measured by the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal instrument during their first week in the course with their final grades in a freshman course. Results indicated that there were significant differences among the three groups on the three subtests of Inference,…

The predictive power of the Split-Half version of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised (WISC-R) Object Assembly (OA) subtest was compared to that of the full administration of the OA subtest. A cohort of 218 male and 49 female adolescent offenders detained in a Texas juvenile detention facility between 1990 and 1992 was used. The…

Each year the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) publishes a pocket summary of their "Projections of Education Statistics." This summary reviews data on U.S. education from 1980-81 and provides predictions of educational data until 2002-03. Included are tables summarizing population trends and tables of elementary school and…

A study investigated the roles of general ability and specific abilities as predictors of several job performance criteria for Air Force enlistees in eight jobs. Subjects were 1,545 Air Force enlistees entering from 1984 through 1988 who had tested with the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) parallel forms 11, 12, or 13. Subjects…

In the State of Florida, the percentage of tenth grade students passing the Statewide Student Assessment Test-Part II (SSAT-II) Mathematics has declined one or two percentage points each year since 1985. Early, accurate identification and placement of these students for remedial instruction should help reverse this Florida trend. Accurate…

This paper reports the results of using a three-layer backpropagation artificial neural network to predict item difficulty in a reading comprehension test. Two network structures were developed, one with and one without a sigmoid function in the output processing unit. The data set, which consisted of a table of coded test items and corresponding…

Two studies that compare the use of analysis of patterns in time (APT) (formerly non-metric temporal path analysis) and the linear models approach (LMA) are reported. In the first study, scores on the College Entrance Examination Board French Achievement Test (CEEBFAT), number of years of study of high school French (YHSF), and course achievement…

A major model to forecast requirements for health professionals, which is currently used by the Division of Health Professions Analysis of the U.S. Public Health Service, is described. Specifically, technical documentation is provided for the projections to 1990 that are presented in "A Report to the President and Congress on the Status of…

The criterion most frequently used in studies designed to assess the predictive validity of measures used in college admission has been the freshman-year grade point average (GPA). It is not self-evident that the first-year GPA provides either a sufficient or a representative sample of a student's academic performance. Questions have been raised…

In 1989, Cochise College (CC) conducted a study to determine if a positive relationship existed between grade placement scores on the Nelson-Denny or Nelson reading comprehension examination and academic performance. The study population consisted of new or first-time CC students who were tested after May 1989. Placement scores for students who…

In 1987, Santa Barbara City College, California, received a grant to develop valid and culturally fair assessment procedures for placing students into appropriate level courses. Specifically, the project sought to: (1) determine faculty and student perceptions of the skills needed to succeed in entry-level college classes; (2) examine the…

A study examined whether non-disabled and disabled readers could be differentiated significantly on specifically stated criteria. The more than 70 variables for investigation included personal data, genetic predisposition, developmental milestones, medical history, psycho-social history, and educational background. Subjects were 302 central…

The conference program and the texts of 24 papers presented at the conference are provided in this document. Selected papers include: "The Use of the College Student Experience Questionnaire in Policy and Program Development" (Karen Bauer and Dale Trusheim); "Predicting Freshman Performance as Admissions Criteria" (David Zubrow); "Has the Middle…