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THE RESULTS OF NATIONAL STUDIES on students' completion of homework, literacy rates, and school dropout rates indicate alarming figures. Employers are increasingly unable to hire significant numbers of young Americans [...]

A rank-free method of calculating Kendall's [Tau] is described. Derived from Daniels' 1944 general treatment of correlation, it is based on the signs of all possible paired comparisons in a data set. Unlike the 1975 alternative methods of Cooper and those of 1977 by Stuart, it allows for ties and thus yields the same coefficient as that of Kendall's original method. The execution is simpler, however, because it does not require ranking of data.

In this study, we sought preliminary information about the relationships among measures of self-efficacy, self-regulation, collaborative learning behavior, and grades. The collaborative verbal behavior of 20 students in a computer course was observed. Also, students responded to a questionnaire to assess their academic self-efficacy. A teacher rated each student's self-regulated learning behaviors. The measures were taken at various points throughout the school year, and the data were analyzed using path analysis. Although students scoring higher on self-regulation tended to score higher also on the measures of collaborative verbal behavior than did those who scored lower on self-regulation, scores on self-regulation rather than on verbal engagement were correlated with grades. The findings were discussed in the light of social cognitive theory and recommendations were made for further study.