Four studies involving a total of 150 college students, a junior high school student, and a high school student are presented that evaluate the validity of the Computer-based Academic Assessment system (CAAS) as a diagnostic technique for identifying specific reading disabilities in college students. Results show that the CAAS meets the criteria…

In a longitudinal study following prekindergarten children through first grade, the variables verbal memory, IQ, and speech perception together predicted 26% of growth in and 42% of the final status of phonological awareness. Results also suggest that the effect of speech perception on word decoding is mediated by phonological processing ability.…

Three experiments involving 86 kindergarten, 269 elementary school students, 58 high school students, and 103 college students were carried out to examine the development of knowledge about double letters. Results suggest that even very young children know about simple orthographic patterns. (SLD)

Whether strategy training in the use of rime spelling units was an effective intervention for children with reading disabilities was studied with 36 disabled readers and 20 comparisons. Training in the use of rime spelling units produced generalized achievement gains and transfer to other materials. The superior posttreatment performance of the…

Two experiments involving 46 seventh graders, 28 undergraduates and 28 seventh graders examined developmental and individual differences in students' revising for meaning. Results of both experiments suggested that knowing error location (having it pointed out) may focus less sophisticated writers, like middle school students, too narrowly and may…

Whether reader-generated illustrations are as effective as experimenter-provided illustrations in giving students the ability to understand scientific explanations was studied with 92 college freshmen. Students given illustrations and those who generated their own performed better on a test than students without illustrations, with no significant…

The role of distinctiveness in the differential memory performance of visual and verbal elaboration strategies was studied with 28 undergraduates who learned information about familiar and unfamiliar animals using visual or verbal elaboration strategies. Imagery-using students organized unfamiliar animal information into intact sets more than…

Two aptitude-treatment interaction studies involving 61 college students examined comparative effects of metacognitive strategy training in self-questioning within cooperative group learning and traditional direct instruction on the acquisition of computing competence, learning anxiety, and positive cognition. Results support including cooperative…

The generality of academic self-efficacy judgments was examined among 588 high school students who rated their confidence for problem solving. A first-order model with a separate self-efficacy factor for each school subject displayed the best fit, so that verbal and quantitative self-efficacy were more meaningful than general academic…

A scale to assess the goal of avoiding the demonstration of lack of ability (performance-avoid) was included with scales assessing approach goals for 703 sixth graders. Performance-avoid scales negatively predicted academic efficacy and positively predicted avoiding seeking help and test anxiety. Implications for goal theory are discussed. (SLD)

African American and Latin American elementary school students from low-income urban neighborhoods (n=102) were interviewed about the fairness of four teaching practices. Overall, findings support a sociocultural approach to the study of moral reasoning that is respectful of individual as well as group variability. (SLD)

Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 were examined to study the disidentification of African American and other minority students with academics. African American boys in general remained disidentified through grade 12, but no other group demonstrated significant disidentification, and identification did not appear to vary…

Home and school literacy contexts were connected in a study that involved parents of 28 inner-city primary school children in developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive literacy activities. Pretest and posttest data determined achievement and motivation differences favoring children in the family program over the 28 comparisons not…

About 200 undergraduate classes were evaluated in three consecutive terms with surveys that assessed grades and course workloads. Major features of the covariance structure model developed were that courses giving higher grades were better liked and that courses giving higher grades had lighter workloads, showing effects of instructors' grading…

Reanalysis of the factor analysis of S. Simpson, B. Licht, R. Wagner, and S. Stader (1996) of children's responses to four ability-related self-perceptions shows how applying a construct validity approach leads to conclusions opposed to theirs but still consistent with previous theory and research on academic self-concept. (SLD)