William B. Michael

An Experimental Determination of the Optimal Scoring Formula for a Highly-Speeded Test Under Different Instructions Regarding Scoring Penalties

IT was the purpose of the study to determine experimentally whether there are differential effects upon the level of performance of young adult male subjects, on a highly-speeded clerical aptitude test of homogeneous two-choice items, relative to the use of a number of different scoring formulas, when varied instructions are given to examinees concerning the scoring procedure to be employed. Specifically, answers were sought to the following questions:

The Predictive Validities of Selected Aptitude and Achievement Measures and of Three Personality Inventories in Relation to Nursing Training Criteria

FOR a sample of one hundred freshman trainees in student nursing for the academic year of 1964-1965, the two-fold purpose of this investigation was (1) to obtain additional cross-validation data on a number of cognitive and non-cognitive predictor variables that had been employed during previous years in the selection of candidates for participation in a nursing training program at the Los Angeles County Hospital and (2) to derive new information concerning the predictive validities of scales in the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) and in Cattell’s Sixteen Personality Factor (16 PF) Questionnaire relative to both academic and clinically oriented criteria. In addition, it was also desired to check out the predictive validities of the previously employed Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) scales with respect to certain items on the Ward Performance Scale that had been designed to represent operational statements of several of the constructs in the EPPS and in the 16 PF Questionnaire. The constructs selected were judged to reflect personal needs thought to be important by supervisory staff to success in day-to-day nursing activities in the wards of any large metropolitan hospital.

Measurement and Prediction in the College Admissions Process: Some Possible Directions for Future Research∗:

and theoretical matters on campus; (b) community-a friendly, cohesive group-oriented campus with a supportive and sympathetic atmosphere in contrast to one of personal autonomy and cool detachment; (c) awareness-an emphasis on self-identity and self-understanding and on an idealistic and esthetic concern for the condition of man in contrast to a lessened interest in soul searching; (d) propriety-a polite and considerate environment in contrast to an assertive, demonstrative, free-wheeling, individualistic one; and (e) scholarship-a highly competitive scholastic and academic environment in contrast to a lessened emphasis on intellectual endeavor for its own sake. These scales along with carefully prepared biographical data inventories which are geared to the requirements of a theoretical framemork such as the one set forth by Fishman may add substantially to the prediction of college success within the specificity of a given institutional context. Interpersonal Perception of Faculty and Students. Again within the sort of theoretical structure furnished by Fishman there is an opportunity to exploit dimensions of interpersonal perception held by faculty and students concerning their respective intellectual and social goals. There is also the possibility of developing items in some type of inventory which will pick out the student who is especially receptive to the particular requirements that individual professors set for the awarding of high marks. An examination of both Fishman’s model and of the contents of social behavior t o be found in Guilford’s structure of intellect could be helpful. The Guilford model provides for nonverbal characteristics involved in human interactions in which an awareness of the thoughts, needs, intentions, and attitudes of other persons and of one’s self may afford an opportunity for defining what the writer believes to be an academic savoir-faire factor. The student who is high in this dimension can quickly adapt to changing environmental requirements within one classroom or from classroom to classroom within a given institution despite the presence of any relatively consistent pattern, or communality, of environmental influences making up the campus climate. 10 EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT This factor of academic shrewdness may not be too unlike several of the behaviors suggested in a recent article in Time (Time, 1963) in which students employing what might be called behavioral manifestations of a psychopathic deviant syndrome attempt to “con” their professors into giving them high marks. For example, a perceptive student may keep abreast of the most recent articles that a professor has written, may ask questions calculated to please the professor, may sit toward the front of the room and look admiringly at the professor-eye to eye, may wear previously earned or borrowed scholastic honor keys a t strategic times, may make sure that the professor learns his name early in the course, may assume a contrary position on an issue and most respectfully and tactfully disagree with the professor in order to arouse the professor’s interest, may flatter the professor in highly subtle and non-obvious mays as in taping his lecture or in asking him to speak to a student group, may go out of his way to have fellow students tell the professor how intellectually proficient their friend (the student) is, may make an appointment to show the professor an outline for the assigned term paper in order to insert the professor’s ideas into the paper, may systematically gather samples of previous examinations and term papers in order to meet the expectations of the professors, may offer a t a strategic moment to assist a professor with his research or laboratory work, may make use of her sex appeal and personal charm when i t is deemed appropriate, may play on the sympathies of professors in a variety of ways, and may exploit any opening that allows the furthering of an impression that he is a dedicated stud e n t s person deeply interested in higher learning, in knowledge for its o m sake, and in the early publication of the truly significant work which his esteemed professor is doing to win the reprint race.

Validation of Three Tests of Cognitive Style in Verbalization for the Third and Sixth Grades

ALTHOUGH there exists a history of research in qualitative styles of thinking and verbalization-abstract, functional, and concretethere are still many research needs in this area. Investigations of qualitative levels of thinking may be traced to Piaget’s theoretical work on developmental sequences in concept formation. Russell and Saadeh (1962) summarized the research through 1961 and Lundsteen (1966b) through 1964. From these two articles the following needs for research were implied: (1) the desirability of ascertaining the nature and degree of relationship or congruent validity between experimental measures of qualitative levels of verbalization and other measures purporting to represent verbal abilities-typically standardized tests used in schools; and (2) the development of stimulus material in the form of paragraphs or stories that would

An Ibm 1401 Computer Program for Item and Test Analysis

IT is the purpose of the writers to describe an IBhI 1401 Computer program for item and test analysis that has been found to be particularly useful for multiple-choice examinations of 75 or fewer items. The program has afforded a means for college instructors to obtain very rapidly information about item and test characteristics that has been highly useful both in the evaluation of student performance and in the editorial revision and modification of individual test items.

Of What Use Is the Concept of Bone Age

Of what use is the concept of bone age? The impact of this question became apparent when the writers reviewed a recent article (Hansman and Maresh, 1961) describing the results of a longitudinal investigation of skeletal maturation. After demonstrating in samples of 27 boys and 36 girls the considerable range that exists in measures of skeletal maturation -an important observation, the authors pointed out how their findings were related to growth in height and weight and to the age of appearance of secondary sexual characteristics. Although these longitudinal data may be of some taxonomic interest in mapping the changes in selected developmental characteristics during childhood and adolescence, their value is considerably limited when their potential relationships to important dimensions of biological and psychological function in the maturational process are overlooked. Two questions are suggested:

Intellective and Non-Intellective Predictors of Success in Nursing Training

a recent study for the 1961-1962 freshman class reported by Haney, Michael, and Gershon (1962) as well as in prior investigations cited in the bibliography of the same recent study. Several of the predictor variables of interest which were described in the recent study mentioned are listed in Table 1 (numbers 1 through 16) along with eight criterion variables which constitute grades in key courses (numbers 17-24) and along with two sets of ratings in five items on the Ward Performance Scale. Only those MMPI scales are reported for which validation findings in previous studies revealed

Shifts in Measures of Attitudes of Medical Students Toward Those of Their Professors Relative to the Doctor Image and the Doctor-Patient Relationship: Implications for Prediction of a Clinically Oriented Criterion

IN two previous studies, the writers (Pollack and Michael, 1965; 1966) investigated changes in the attitudes of medical students toward psychological characteristics of the doctor image and the doctor-patient relationship on four empirically derived factor scales in Blum’s (1957) Patient Attitude Test (PAT)-three scales-and in the Doctor’s Opinion Questionnaire (DOQ)-one scale. Although only the mean changes on the dimension concerned with fee-setting practices could be judged as statistically significant, there were, at that time, no available data concerning the attitudes of doctors as measured on the three dimensions of the PAT, against which the attitudes of medical students could be compared.

Predictive Relationships Between Items on the Revised Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (SBIS), Form L-M, and Total Scores on Raven's Progressive Matrices (PM), Between Items on the PM and Total Scores On the SBIS, and Between Selected Items on the Two Scales

ALTHOUGH Raven’s Progressive Matrices (PM) test was originally developed in England, it has been widely used in America for a number of years. Relatively little systematic research has been conducted concerning its relationship to well known scales of intelligence developed in the United States. In his review of literature pertinent to the PM, Burke (1958) noted that only a few studies had been concerned with the validity of the scale or with its item characteristics. Two other studies which reported correlations between scores on the PM and scores on parts of other intelligence tests were those of McLeod and Rubin (1962) and Martin and Wiechers (1954). EDUCATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ~TEASLREI4iENT VOL. XXVI, No.2. 1966

The Predictive Validity of a Battery of Diversified Measures Relative to Success in Student Nursing

FOR a sample of 118 freshman trainees in a student nursing program at the Los Angeles County Hospital during the 1963-1964 academic year, it was the primary objective of this investigation to determine indices of predictive validity for both cognitive and noncognitive variables relative to 12 criterion measures. The secondary purpose was to obtain what amounted to crossvalidation data for several of the predictor variables that had been employed in two previous studies by Haney, Michael, and Gershon, (1962) and by Michael, Haney, and Gershon (1963) as well as in other previous investigations reported in the bibliographies of these two studies. Most of the predictor variables cited have been described in these two previous articles-especially in the earlier paper. The criterion variables, many of which have also been described in these same two