James M. Royer

Theories of the transfer of learning

This paper reviews theories of transfer from the perspective of whether they contain guidelines for generating educational approaches to the production of facilitative transfer. Two classes of theories are described. The first class of theories are based on the notion that the conditions for transfer are established when an original learning event and a transfer event share common stimulus properties. The second class of theories takes the position that facilitative transfer is a product of a successful memory search process. These two classes of theories are compared, and their potential for providing guidelines for educational practice is examined.

Testing Accommodations for Examinees With Disabilities: A Review of Psychometric, Legal, and Social Policy Issues

The provision of testing accommodations for examinees with disabling conditions has become an important topic in recent years. This review presents a summary of the relevant issues. The first section traces the history of legislation related to the testing of individuals with disabilities and presents a brief summary of guidelines issued by relevant testing organizations. The second section provides a description of disabilities typically accommodated in large-scale examinations and highlights the ever-increasing role of learning disabilities in testing practice. Summaries of legal cases concerning testing accommodations are then presented. Next, psychometric issues are described, and results and ideas for future research are presented. The review also examines the emerging role of learning disabilities in the area of testing accommodations and addresses the intensely debated social policy questions related to equity and fairness in educational assessment.

On the Theory and Measurement of Reading Comprehension.

Abstract This paper suggests that reading comprehension must involve an interaction between the readers world knowledge and the incoming linguistic message. We call this the minimal comprehension principle. After examining the measurement of reading comprehension from the perspective of the minimal comprehension principle, we conclude that most existing tests of reading comprehension are likely to be unsatisfactory for the purposes of assessing educational gain and diagnosing reading difficulty. We suggest several techniques which might be more suitable for these purposes.

The nature and effectiveness of learning disability services for college students.

This article summarizes the research literature that describes the nature and effectiveness of services that are provided to college students with learning disabilities. Six categories of services are described: assistive technologies and programs, program modifications, therapy and counseling, strategy training, direct academic assistance, and interventions designed to strengthen weak academic skills. Nearly all of the literature that was examined fell within the first 5 categories, with only 3 studies describing efforts to directly improve the academic performance that identified a students learning disability. In addition, there is almost a total lack of evidence showing that any of the first 5 categories of services resulted in improved academic performance. There was, however, evidence that attempts at improving academic skills resulted in improved academic performance. The article concludes with a discussion of the role that learning disability services should play in a college environment.

Development of Cognitive Component Processing Skills That Support Skilled Reading

The purpose of the present study was to examine the differences in component processing skills of students of different ages and the developmental changes that occurred over 1 year. The subjects in Experiment 1 were 112 students in Grades 2-5 from a school district in western Massachusetts. They were administered a computer battery of tasks designed to measure speed and accuracy of processing on a number of component reading skills. The component skills measured were letter processing, word naming, pseudoword naming, concept activation, and syntactic and semantic processing. Of the original 112 students, 59 were located 1 year later and were given parental permission to participate in a follow-up experiment. The 2 experiments trace the development of component processing skills and discuss the implications for a theory of development of component skills.

A cognitive theoretical approach to reading diagnostics

After a brief review of current reading diagnostic practices, the article presents a cognitive developmental theory and indicates how the theory can be used to identify potential sources of reading problems. Four criteria for a reading diagnostic system based on cognitive developmental theory are then identified: (1) the system must provide reliable and valid assessments, (2) performance on the diagnostic system must be consistent with cognitive developmental theory, (3) the diagnostic procedures must provide specific information about the nature of the reading difficulty the student is experiencing, and (4) diagnoses provided by the procedures must lead to prescriptive procedures that alleviate to a demonstrable degree the reading problems the student is experiencing. The Computer-based Academic Assessment System (CAAS) is then introduced, and evidence from three studies is used to examine the extent to which the CAAS system can satisfy the four requirements for a theory-based reading diagnostic system. The article closes with a discussion of the empirical evidence and with suggestions for future research.

The Role of Comprehension in Learning Concrete and Abstract Sentences.

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effect of comprehension on the recognition of meaning and wording changes with concrete and abstract sentences. One group was presented the sentences embedded in a context paragraph designed to increase comprehension. Recognition for meaning changes in abstract sentences was significantly higher for the paragraph-embedded group than for a group presented the sentences without the paragraphs. There was no appreciable differences between the groups in recognition for wording changes in abstract sentences, nor in recognition for both meaning changes and wording changes in concrete sentences. The results of the experiment were discussed in light of recent models which propose different storage mechanisms for concrete and abstract sentences.

Memory Effects for Test-Like-Events during Acquisition of Foreign Language Vocabulary

3 groups of Ss learned a 20-item Turkish-English vocabulary list under the following conditions: Group T was instructed to use a self-test procedure while learning the list and to study the list until they felt they had mastered all of the words. Group S was given the same amount of time to learn the list as was Group T bat studied the list under conditions which made it difficult to use a self-test technique. Group SM studied the list under the same conditions as did Group S but was instructed to study the list to mastery. The results of the experiment suggested that the self-testing technique provided more efficient learning of the list than did the study-alone procedures. The findings were interpreted as providing support for the hypothesis that test-like-events encourage memory search activity during learning, and that this activity leads to more rapid and thorough learning.

Using the Sentence Verification Technique To Assess the Comprehension of Technical Text as a Function of Subject Matter Expertise

We report four studies that are concerned with the construct validity of the Sentence Verification Technique (SVT) as a measure of reading comprehension. The studies proceed from the assumption that readers with greater subject matter expertise should comprehend technical text in their area of expertise better than readers with less subject matter expertise. Experiment 1 had graduate students in psychology, advanced undergraduate psychology majors, and undergraduates who had never had a psychology course, read and take an SVT test on technical psychological text and/or nontechnical book reviews. Experiment 2 measured text comprehension of the technical and nontechnical text at the beginning and end of a semester psychology course. Experiment 3 evaluated whether the text comprehension of readers who varied in level of expertise would be influenced by Kintschian text structure variables. Experiment 4 tested whether the SVT was a measure of sentence comprehension or a measure of passage comprehension. The results of these studies were consistent with the interpretation that the SVT is a measure of text comprehension.

Patterns of Individual Differences in the Development of Listening and Reading Comprehension.

Abstract The purpose of the study was to trace the development of listening and reading comprehension over the period of a year. The study entailed administering Sentence Verification Technique (SVT) tests to 151 third- and fourth-grade students on three occasions (in May at the end of the school year, in September of the next school year, and in May of the same school year). An analysis of variance revealed a significant modality of test by time of test administration interaction. The nature of this interaction was that listening comprehension performance showed relatively steady gains across the three test occasions while reading comprehension performance showed no significant gain on the second administration after a summer, but did show significant gains on the third administration, after a school year. The results are interpreted as indicating that reading and listening comprehension can be measured with SVT tests and that the two comprehension modalities develop independently with reading comprehension being more sensitive to instruction.