Some research and ideas about learning, which are of interest to elementary school counselors, deal with individual differences and classroom environment. Studies find girls markedly superior to boys in language skills, with boys better in analytic thinking and transfer of learning. However, no sex differences in intellect have been found. There…

Sex role typing in the preschool child is the subject of this research report. Specific topics considered are sex differences, awareness of sex differences, sex role preferences, parent preferences, sex role identification, and family variables related to sex role typing. This summary of research studies in the field reports experimental and…

Programed instruction may be more efficient and effective when an individualized, fixed pace is chosen for the student. Three studies done in the Pittsburgh city schools to determine the relative merits of instruction at a fixed pace versus a self-adopted pace and several results. In the first experiment, one in which students paced themselves,…

This project was designed to follow up a group of 163 mothers and their 4-year-old children, who were subjects in a study of the differential effects of middle class and lower class cognitive environments on Negro urban preschool children. The objectives of the followup project were: (1) the expansion of the investigation of cognitive input…

The differences between edumetric and psychometric uses of tests were described and the relevance of the edumetric dimension for measuring student learning gains, especially in the context of individualized instruction involving multiple learning mode options, was clarified. Also, the procedures for edumetric reliability and validation assessment…

Measures of consistency and completeness of order relations derived from test-type data are proposed. The measures are generalized to apply to incomplete data such as tailored testing. The measures are based on consideration of the items-plus-persons by items-plus-persons matrix as an adjacency matrix in which a 1 means that the row element…

The purpose of the present study was to empirically investigate the stability and accuracy of one suggested method for matching test difficulty to examinee ability level. Students' answers to traditional classroom tests were rescored by computer as if the examinations had been flexilevel tests. The scores thus obtained were found to correlate…

This study investigated the differential effectiveness of two instructional techniques for field-dependent and field-independent fourth graders. Instruction consisted of eight worksheets and two tests. For one group worksheets contained perceptual structuring while for the other they contained both perception and cognitive structuring. This…

Using 280 5th graders as subjects, an experiment was carried out to answer the following questions: (1) do certain indentified television formats have effects on cognition? (2) Is mastery of various cognitive skills correlated with extraction of knowledge from a television message which employs the corresponding format? It was hypothesized that:…

The purpose of this study was to determine what relationships exist between course and instructor evaluations and student/instructor preferences regarding classroom instructions. The specific null hypothesis explored was: The congruencies on ratings of the personal preferences of students and the personal preferences of instructors will not be…

Biased tests systematically favor some groups over others as a result of factors not part of what the test is said to measure. Bias is basically a problem of differential validity. Validity can be discussed in terms of either the procedures for establishing it or test use. Both ways clarify bias in any test. For content and construct validity, the…

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…

Data were collected from 213 interviewees to determine their perceptions of how the television program, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," serves the affective needs of handicapped children and of professionals who work with them. The interviews included questions about items used to describe the actual and an ideal program, actual and ideal…

Despite the traditional problems posed by word pronunciation and etymology, a system of spelling instruction which takes into account some of the following suggestions should prove helpful to teachers at both the elementary and secondary school levels: (1) make children word-conscious--anything which makes the pupil look at and think about a word…

Heart rate change was used as the index of the orienting response (OR) of 102 kindergarten children. Heart rate change was measured by recording heart rate upon the presentation of tones. 15 similar tones followed by a different, 16th tone, were used. From this data the children were divided into high, medium, or low orientors. Following the…