Book reviews

Northeastern University     

Cooperative development of locally oriented achievement tests in chemistry

The authors describe a cooperative effort to produce reliable tests with high content validity for the schools involved.     

Informationssysteme in der Medizin

Zusammenfassung  Die Medizin ist gepr?gt sowohl durch ihren besonderen unmittelbaren und existenziellen Bezug zu Menschen als auch durch ihre zunehmende ?konomische Bedeutung. Ein Medizinisches Informationssystem ist das umfassende System aller Informationsverarbeitung einer medizinischen Einrichtung oder Region. W?hrend die Architekturprinzipien des rechnerbasierten Teils solcher Informationssysteme wenige Besonderheiten aufweist, bündelt das Management dieser Informationssysteme viele Herausforderungen und Probleme, die wegen der besonderen Bedeutung der Medizin besondere Priorit?t bei der L?sung haben müssen. CR subject classification  C.2.4 ; J.3 ; J.1 ; K.4.3 ; K.6     

Orthographic processing and visual sequential memory in unexpectedly poor spellers

Does unexpectedly poor spelling in adults result from inferior visual sequential memory? In one experiment, unexpectedly poor spellers performed significantly worse than better spellers in the immediate reproduction of sequences of visual symbols, but in a second experiment, the effect was not replicated. Poor spellers were also no worse at the immediate recognition of symbol sequences. Overall, the results indicate that inferior visual memory is not characteristic of unexpectedly poor spellers. However, they do have less efficient orthographic processing skill: they were significantly slower and more error prone than better spellers at classifying both regularly and strangely spelt words, as well as at detecting letter transpositions in long words. They can thus be considered as subtly worse word readers than better spellers. While the findings question the notion of unexpectedly poor spelling in relation to normal adults, they provide confirmation of the intimate relationship between reading and spelling processes.     

Children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship and their school adjustment: the mediating role of attention difficulties

This study examined the role of attention difficulties as a mediator of associations between children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship and their school adjustment in a sample of two hundred and sixteen 6-year-old children. Consistent with hypotheses, findings from structural equation models indicated that observer ratings of children's insecure representations of interparental relationships in a story completion task predicted computerized task assessments and parent reports of children's attention difficulties 1 year later. Children's attention difficulties, in turn, were associated with concurrent levels of school problems and increases in school problems over a 1-year period as indexed by teacher reports. Attention difficulties accounted for an average of 34% of the association between insecure internal representations and school problems.