Ralph Hoepfner

Predicting Achievement in Ninth-Grade Mathematics From Measures of Intellectual-Aptitude Factors

a great variety of new intellectual-aptitude factors, such as Thurstone called &dquo;primary mental abilities&dquo; (Guilford and Hoepfner, 1963). A natural implication from these findings is the question whether or not these unique abilities have significant relationships to areas of intellectual functioning in everyday life. Although the factors and their organization in the structure-of-intellect model have lent themselves to the development of psychological theory (Guilford, 1961, 1962, 1964), claims to social usefulness require other kinds of support. Factor analysis may be said to have demonstrated construct validity for the factors, thus satisfying the theoretical use of the factor concepts; information in the form of predictive validity is needed to satisfy suggestions of social signifi-

Comparisons of Varimax Rotations with Rotations to Theoretical Targets

IT is well known by those who factor-analyze, and by some of those who do not, that one of the most serious difficulties is the rotation problem. It should be agreed that the aim of those who apply factor analysis for the purpose of discovering scientific constructs in psychology should be to achieve psychologically significant factors, which can be replicated, which fit into systematic psychological theory, and which can be investigated meaningfully by other methods. Only in this way can there be general agreement upon factorially discovered constructs and thus the unambiguous communicability that science requires. As one important step toward this goal, Thurstone proposed his criterion of simple structure. In doing so, Thurstone implied considerable faith in the expectation that whatever collection of empirical variables is reasonably used in a factor analysis, those variables would tend to cluster when represented as vectors in factor space, with areas of greater density, separated by areas of lower density. This general principle has been rather generally accepted, although it can be questioned whether, even when stated in this rough form, the principle applies to all factor-analytic data and is a safe guide as to where psychologically meaningful axes should

Six Semantic-Memory Abilities1

As defined in the SI theory, &dquo;memory&dquo; pertains to the retention of information or retentivity. It is to be distinguished from the individual’s memory store, which pertains to the quantity of information of all kinds that has been retained mostly over long terms. Memory ability is to be determined for each of a group of individuals by giving all of them equivalent exposure to information, with much the same cognitions, and testing later to obtain evidence that there has been retention, by means of stand-

Information-Transformation Abilities

THE major objective of this study was to continue the investigation of abilities predicted by the structure-of-intellect (<Sf) model, particularly those dealing with the intellectual process of changing, revising, or redefining information. The 81 model is a logical classification of the known and expected primary intellectual abilities. The intellectual abilities differ on three parameters, making the model a three-dimensional affair. The basic dimension of the model

The Cognition, Production, and Memory of Class Concepts.

WHEN trait variables in a factor analysis are broadly sampled from the universe of human behavior, in such a way that each trait logically has little in common with any other in the analysis, if each trait is sufficiently represented, even in an orthogonal solution, we may expect to obtain reasonably clear simple structure. Factor analyzing measures of factors in diverse personality modes, e.g., carefulness, mechanical interest, word fluency, and anxiety, or even different factors of the same mode, e.g., verbal comprehension, perceptual speed, spatial visualization, and originality, is at present little more than an exercise. A really demanding task is to see whether such trait variables that are narrowly sampled from the trait universe can be demon-

Published Tests and the Needs of Educational Accountability.

A match was made between consensual indexes of elementary education goal priorities and the availability of published tests that held promise for their assessment. A Q sort was utilized to obtain priority ratings on 106 pre-established goals from a nationwide sample. Independently, published tests for the elementary level were sorted into the same 106 goal categories. Results of the matching techniques indicated that most goals, whether high or low in priority, are measured by few or no published tests. This failure on the part of test publishers to respond to the needs of education is seen as an important contributor to the current popularity of criterion-referenced instruments.

A "Construct Item Analysis" of Some Aptitude Tests

a shorter and possibly more reliable and valid test have been obtained generally in research concerned with predictiveand concurrent-validity problems. Tiffin and Hudson (1956) found that the validity and reliability estimates of a test, item analyzed by two methods to reduce the number of items, were not meaningfully lowered, even when only 56 per cent of the items were retained. Webster (1956; 1957) reviewed procedures developed for item analyzing tests to maximize their internal-consistency reliabilities and total-score correlations with a criterion. He presented applications wherein his methods succeeded in increasing test validity and homogeneity. When the immediate objective is to improve the construct validity of a test, however, item-analysis techniques have been applied only indirectly. For example, it could be stated that factor-analyzed interest and temperament inventory scales have undergone item analysis-those items hypothesized to measure the construct (trait) that do cohere upon a factor defined by other items hypothesized to measure the construct are incorporated into the scale for that trait. Items that are not loaded upon the factor in question, or items displaying complexity, are not incorporated into the scale. Several investigators have approached construct item analysis