The degree to which the chosen units of analysis are likely to produce spurious findings in staged combinations of multiple linear regression procedures are examined. The effects of grouping variables (e.g., classroom, school, and school district) on Procedures such as Coleman's semipartial regression and Mayeske's commonalities, in light of…

A proposal to formulate nomothetic theories -- general statements or scientific laws -- in a way to allow for an immediate test of individual differences is presented. The need for such a proposal is cited in recent developments in structural model building in the area of memory called information processing and in the concern to bring individual…

This report critiques Herschel Kasper's study on the impact of collective bargaining on public school teachers, a report that found little relation between unionization and average State salary levels. This paper makes three major objections to Kasper's study: (1) its use of State data as the basis for observations in the cross-sectional analysis…

In order to determine whether the kind of process underlying cloze responses is indeed a systematic and exhaustive search, a study was conducted exploring some corollaries to such a search hypothesis. It was assumed that subjects would generate responses representing a number of word types, that some of these word types would be sensible and some…

The purpose of this study was to assess the importance of teacher attitudes, maternal attitudes, and traditional versus Montessori nursery school training on the learning and achievement of the preschool child. Eighty-two middle class children and thirty-eight disadvantaged children who attended either Montessori or traditional preschools…

Studied was the effect of art education on productive changes in perceptual, cognitive, and attitudinal styles, and on the art aptitudes of disadvantaged youth. The study examined the assumption implicit in many school programs that art education is somehow beneficial to poor and minority group students. The research design divided teachers of…

This investigation compares overt judgments about tenable hypotheses to choices in a concept identification task, as a function of stimulus similarity on successive trials. Two mathematical models are tested: (a) A 1-element local consistency version of Restle's concept identification model and (b) the same model with two additional passive states…

For this study, a 5th and 6th grade team taught classroom of 66 children was chosen. Three equivalent groups of 22 children each were matched on the basis of a pretest in math. Each group was given a different noise level treatment: quiet (45-55 decibels), average (55-70 decibels), and noisy (75-90 decibels). A tape recording of actual classroom…

The hypothesis discussed in this article is that positive attention to the creative process with ample opportunity to write and tell stories and ideas will result in more competency in the skills of writing - and considerable more success and joy in the art of writing - than will the teaching of the skills per se in the early years. To nurture…

Marascuilo and Levin's (1970) notion of Type IV errors is extended, with respect to the interpretation of interactions in analysis of variance (ANOVA) designs. To help clarity what an interaction is and what it is not, in terms of the ANOVA model, the following points are made: (i) interactions should be thought of as linear contrasts involving…

To gather data on the effects of different modes of instruction on physician achievement in plotting mean P, O, RS, and T receptiors in electrocardiography, researchers chose a random sample of physicians who had taken a correspondence course on electrocardiography during the previous 5 years from the University of Southern California School of…

We concern ourselves with the hypothesis that two variables have a perfect disattenuated correlation, hence measure the same trait except for errors of measurement. This hypothesis is equivalent to saying, within the adopted model, that true scores of two psychological tests satisfy a linear relation. Statistical tests of this hypothesis are…

A series of studies on observer biases revealed that simply informing observers of experimental hypotheses does not produce observational data consonant with those hypotheses. However, questionnaire responses following an experiment with different induced expectations does produce global data consonant with experimental hypotheses. In addition, if…

The three papers presented in this publication examines in depth the thought and practices that currently prevail in the specialized areas of reading and concept attainment. Two of the papers deal with concept learning and the transformation of this knowledge into instructional guidelines. The third paper considers the importance of concept…

A study was conducted to investigate the impact which certain cognitive styles or structures have in mediating the influence of aggressive television on young boys. The subjects were 143 boys, ranging in age from 5-1/2 to 8-1/2 years, attending elementary school in the Santa Monica area. During the first of two sessions, each child was…