Shorter Notices

Jarman , Christopher, (1979) The Development of Handwriting Skills, A Book of Resources for Teachers Youth Libraries Group (1979) Practical Guides: Storytelling.     

New Perspectives on the Correlation of SAT Scores, High School Grades, and Socioeconomic Factors

In studies of the SAT, correlations of SAT scores, high school grades, and socioeconomic factors (SES) are usually obtained using a university as the unit of analysis. This approach obscures an important structural aspect of the data: The high school grades received by a given institution come from a large number of high schools, all of which have potentially different grading standards. SAT scores, on the other hand, can be assumed to have the same meaning across high schools. Our analyses of a large national sample show that, when pooled within-high-school analyses are applied, high school grades and class rank have larger correlations with family income and education than is evident in the results of typical analyses, and SAT scores have smaller associations with socioeconomic factors. SAT scores and high school grades, therefore, have more similar associations with SES than they do when only the usual across-high-school correlations are considered .     

Factors associated with successful and unsuccessful intervention with child abusive families

The authors conducted a treatment outcome study on 79 patients engaged in a program for maltreating parents. Treatment modalities included individual psychotherapy and counseling, group therapy, home visiting, and telephone advocacy with the duration of treatment ranging from 6 sessions to 36 months. On the basis of ratings by the primary therapist consensually validated by other staff, $\text{2}\text{3}$ of the sample demonstrated at least symptomatic improvement, whereas 28% improved significantly. Overall improvement was highly correlated with more subtle indices of childrearing, perception of the child, object relations, insight, and capacity for self-observation. The profiles of those maltreating parents who improved and those who did not emerged with respect to the impact of critical demographic, psychological, and therapeutic variables. Favorable outcomes were unlikely among parents who themselves had a history of maltreatment, who inflicted the more severe injuries, who entered the program involuntarily or who terminated against advice; while positive results were more prevalent in those parents with a less abusive childhood experience and who perceived a need for involvement in the program. Home visiting and advocacy appeared to enhance the potential for improvement.     

A Method for Studying Differential Distractor Functioning

A method of analyzing test item responses is advocated to examine differential item functioning through distractor choices of those who answer an item incorrectly. The analysis, called Differential Distractor Functioning, uses log-linear models of a three-way contingency table to examine whether there is an interaction of population subgroup and option choice when ability is held constant. The analysis is explained and is exemplified in an analysis of the Verbal portion of a recent Scholastic Aptitude Test.     

Dimensions influencing students' judgments of classroom test items

Sixty-eight graduate students made general and specific ratings of the quality of 12 classroom test items, which varied in difficulty and discrimination. Four treatment combinations defined two additional factors: group discussion/no group discussion of test items and exposure/no exposure to an instructional module on test item construction. The students rated the items differentially, depending not only on item difficulty level but also on item discriminative power. The group discussion and exposure to module factors had significant effects on the general item ratings only. Implications of the research were discussed.