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The article comments on papers presented by economists John Hause and Eric Hanushek during a panel discussion focused on school achievement and the effect of achievement or ability on earnings. The author commended Hause's effort to seek out and refine longitudinal data for the study of ability and income. Furthermore, the excesses in Hanushek's conceptual model of school achievement were emphasized and assessed. Moreover, despite the relatively significant arguments and theses of Hanushek, William T. Garner criticized several issues in the research wherein Hanushek failed to measure the actual utilization of inputs, and to specify the technology in which the utilization takes place. Roger Alcaly on the other hand suggested that the role and nature of the educational system in society must be addressed before a study regarding the equity and efficiency of that educational system is undertaken. Charles Z. Wilson believed that Hause and Hanushek made major contribution to the development of educational production functions using historical or time-oriented data.

The article discusses some basic concepts related to skill acquisition with practical applications to teaching. The first part of the paper which is organized into three sections identifies the motor patterns to which this working model of skill acquisition is pertaining. The second section presents the nature of skill acquisition and in the last section, application is made to teaching strategies. During early stages of skill acquisition, some aspects of teacher behavior, such as the added complexity of structuring open skill environments are affected by the type of movement involved. However, during stage two, the type of movement to be learned determines the nature of teacher behavior. Therefore, the analysis of the nature of the skill to be learned is required for the effective teaching.

This paper discusses a utility function estimation procedure developed to provide curriculum planning information to elementary school principals. Both theoretical and empirical studies were performed to evaluate the procedure. The results of the use of this approach to obtain data from a national sample of principals are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent paper published in this journal (Poole & Kuhn, 1973) has reported that ‘a relatively large family appeared to be no impediment to the educational achievements of middle-class children’. This finding, however, is based upon an analysis which fell into a relatively unknown statistical trap. Poole & Kuhn are only the latest in a long line of victims of this trap and some of their predecessors are reviewed below. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper summarizes research with the American College Testing Program (ACT) at one university over a 3-year period. Subjects were 4.597 freshmen divided into 5 groups by college and sex. General positive conclusions were that the ACT (a) is a good measure of general scholastic aptitude, (b) has definite administrative advantages to the university by providing scores prior to a student's admission, and (c) aids prediction for certain subgroups of students. However (a) the tests are probably not difficult enough and have a restricted range of scores, (b) the battery is inefficient in terms of student time, and (c) the subtests do not have differential validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents several factors that may be related to a child's intelligence test scores and academic achievement. Among the various factors that may be related to a child's intelligence test scores and academic achievement are the size of the family and the ordinal position of the child among siblings. A number of investigations have been conducted to study the nature of this relationship. The present study was designed to study the relationship through a different set of data collected from the Indian environment. Data regarding family size and ordinal position among siblings were collected with the help of a questionnaire. In determining the size of a family, only those persons who were dependent on and were actually living with the head of the child's family were included as family members. Intelligence testing is not one of the routine activities of schools in India; consequently no data for intelligence were readily available. For annual promotion and other examinations, essay-type question-papers are prepared by the class teachers, and the answer books are also evaluated by them.

The findings reported upon in this paper relate to the structuring of educational programs for public health nurses. We would seem to be dealing with a rather heterogeneous group of specialized nurses within professional nursiné. The ranges in learning characteristics found here may have more meaning now in relation to nursing, than in the future as nursing moves toward the homogeneity of other professional disciplines. In view of these findings, an experimental approach, increased flexibility of teaching relation-ships, and objective evaluation of achievements should offer some concrete evidence as to the programs best suited to nursing needs. The knowledge that there are such differences in verbal intelligence within a public health nursing group, and the comparison of Groups A and B points out the need to study the reactions to and applications of new knowledge, particularly in relation to mental health. Since verbal intelligence has a bearing on the use of conceptual material other means may have to be improvised-tempo, emphasis, change of content, to suit a wider range of learning capabilities. The Study of Values Test further augments the need for flexibility and adaptation in working with sub-groups within the public health nursing population. Those nurses more psychologically "oriented" as indicated by their TAS scores, being more concerned with knowledge and its applications are also those who seem more able to acquire and utilize mental hygiene concepts. Similarly, those nurses with less conservative personal attitudes appear to make significantly better use of mental health education. Al- though the results here point in the direction of being able to predict nursing reaction to mental health education, further work will be necessary in order to outline the kinds of educational procedures and consultation techniques that may make mental health education more effective for a larger group of public health nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary concern of this paper is the question of whether or not) and under what conditions, the ascriptive factor of social origins influences career mobility. Effects of social origins, academic achievement, work-place size, and occupational values on post-college career mobility of two samples of engineering graduates are considered. Findings indicate no relationship between social origins and career mobility after adjustment for intervening variables of grade; value; and degree level. Grades, educational level, and work values are related to selected mobility measures- College selectivity is introduced into the analysis to examine its role upon career mobility for a national sample of engineering graduates. In general, grades and school selectivity are directly related to mobility, but social origins are directly related to career mobility only among engineers with high grades from highly selective colleges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last two decades most of the Western world has experienced a striking marriage boom. The annual number of marriages and marriage rates have been at a higher level than before in the United States, most of Northwestern Europe, and among the European populations in the countries of the British Commonwealth. Many features of the sharp fluctuations in marriage rates can be explained by reference to events of the period. Thus all the belligerent countries had a conspicuous peak in marriages in the early postwar years. The decline in the age at marriage has been very rapid, and the marriage pattern revealed in recent data for several Western countries is unprecedented in the period for which statistical records exist. The extent to which different socio-economic groups have participated in this change in marriage patterns may give important clues to its significance. The present paper deals with the contrasts between urban and rural areas and with analysis by level of education.

This article provides an overview of the Negro academic motivation and performance. The attempts to eliminate racial differences in academic performance must consider both the personal characteristics of the Negro students and the characteristics present in the educational system which discriminate in favor of some characteristics and against others. The results imply that programs designed to produce changes in students will have little effect on the academic achievement of either Negro or white disadvantaged students if they do not, at the same time, attempt to change the educational environment. Thus, the changes in the educational environment of Negro students will prove more effective than programs designed to change the personal characteristics of students.

This paper examines differences in level of educational attainment as reported for the same individuals in two questionnaires administered at approximately a three-year interval. The use of education as a research control variable and major indicator of socioeconomic status needs no amplification. Because of the importance of respondents' educational achievement in surveys and polls, this paper is presented as a contribution to the understanding and possible improvement of interview data reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]