TEACHING INDUCTIVE THINKING TO HIGHLY ABLE CHILDREN

Two criteria were used to identify highly able kindergarten children: assessment by teachers and an IQ ≥ 115 on Raven's Progressive Matrices. In this way, 16 highly able children were found, matched pairwise according to age and IQ, and then randomly allotted to two treatment conditions. In one condition the children were trained using a program for fostering inductive thinking, whereas the children in the other condition continued their normal kindergarten activities. Based upon a new theory of inductive reasoning, the training was expected to have a positive effect on intelligence test performance. Results showed that all of the trained children outperformed their matched counterparts. It was concluded that, even with highly able children, the level of cognitive functioning can be improved, and that training of inductive thinking is an effective means to this end.     

The effects of POWERSOURCE© assessments on middle-school students’ math performance

This paper describes results from field testing of middle-school math formative assessments alongside professional development and instructional resources. We employed a randomised, controlled design to address the question: Does using our formative assessment strategies improve student performance on assessments of key mathematical ideas relative to a comparison group? This study also provided data on the instructional sensitivity of the assessments, which is part of the validation needed for formative assessments. Teachers were recruited from two districts and seven middle schools. Nineteen treatment and 17 comparison group teachers and their students were included in study analyses. Scores on extended response and short-answer questions indicated that students in the treatment group performed better than students in the comparison group who received the formative assessments alone. These findings demonstrate both the feasibility and value of including performance task-types in a brief assessment context.     

Alternative models of entrance exams and access to higher education: the case of the Czech Republic

The study compares the potential effects of a university admission exam model based on program-specific knowledge and an alternative model relying on general study aptitude (GSA) in the context of a strongly stratified educational system with considerable excess of demand over supply of university education. Using results of the Sonda Maturant 1998 survey, we show that in the specific context of the Czech Republic, displaying the above characteristics in the given period, an admission exam model based on general study aptitude tests may improve the access of talented individuals with lower socioeconomic status to university education. Our simulations show that with the GSA model (provided the model assumptions are met), the relative chances of an applicant with a university-educated father would be only by one-fourth higher than the relative chances of a student with a less educated father, as compared to the more than a one-third difference in case of the model emphasizing program-specific knowledge. The odds ratio for the GSA model is by 28% points lower for mother’s education.     

Meetings of Directors of the National Libraries in the socialist countries held in, 1967–1968

Abstract

The years 1989–91 saw tremendous changes in the political map of Eastern Europe. These changes have resulted in varying degrees of acquisition difficulties for Slavic and Eastern European language collections in Western libraries. The following is an early assessment of the difficulties and the resultant damage done to Slavic collections in the West. Preliminary results show that, on the whole, book receipts are down considerably, prices are up considerably, and inconsistency is the only consistency. The data discussed here were gathered by means of a survey of certain aspects of Slavic¹ acquisitions. These data are supplemented throughout by qualitative material gleaned from comments made by vendors and librarians at the 1993 Slavic Librarians' Workshop held at Urbana, Illinois.     

A Study of Sensori-Motor and Conceptual Thinking in Children between the Ages of Nine and Eighteen

In this research, the author addresses whether the application of unidimensional item response models provides valid interpretation of test results when administering items sensitive to multiple latent dimensions. Overall, the present study found that unidimensional models are quite robust to the violation of the unidimensionality assumption due to secondary dimensions from sensitive items. When secondary dimensions are highly correlated with main construct, unidimensional models generally fit and the accuracy of ability estimation is comparable to that of strictly unidimensional tests. In addition, longer tests are more robust to the violation of the essential unidimensionality assumption than shorter ones. The author also shows that unidimensional item response theory models estimate item difficulty parameter better than item discrimination parameter in tests with secondary dimensions.