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Administrative office technology assessments were delivered via the Internet to 141 vocational students. Compared to 61 who took a paper test, scores for the Internet group were significantly higher; 62% preferred the Internet format. There were few problems with accessing, downloading, taking, and submitting the test. (SK)

Ensuring that children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, start school ready to learn is an important goal. This paper presents lessons learned from the state of Ohio's multi-year program to develop a standards-based assessment system for programs delivering state-funded early childhood education (ECE) through programs receiving public dollars such as the federally funded Head Start and state- funded preschool programs. Its program, called the "Ohio Indicators of Success Initiative" (IOS), was designed to collect data that could be used to improve the quality of state-funded ECE programs in Ohio and to hold these programs accountable for child outcomes. A significant proportion of ECE programs are Head Start programs. (Contains 1 footnote.)

Three studies examined within-ethnic-group variations in the relationship of grade point average and gender to motivation among African American, Hispanic American, and Euro-American students. Survey data revealed patterns of significant within-ethnic-group differences that varied across ethnic groups. In general, males demonstrated more motivation than females, though high-ability African American females showed the most motivation in beliefs about ability, control, and value/importance. (SM)

Natives of India (n=172) completed Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory and job satisfaction measures. The inventory did not exhibit high external validity with this population. Congruence, consistency, and differentiation did not predict job or occupational satisfaction, suggesting cross-cultural limits on Holland's theory. (SK)

The underlying attribution process for cynicism about organizational change is examined with six samples from four different organizations. The samples include hourly (n = 777) and salaried employees (n = 155) from a manufacturing plant, faculty (n = 293) and staff (n=302) from a large university, managers from a utility company (n = 97), and young managers (n = 65) from various organizations who were attending an evening MBA program. This form of cynicism is defined as the combination of Pessimism (about future change efforts) and a Dispositional attribution (why past efforts to change failed). Three analyses support this definition. First, an exploratory factor analysis (from the largest sample) produced two factors, one composed of Pessimism and the Dispositional attribution items and the second of the Situational attribution items. Second, the average correlation (across several samples) between Pessimism and Dispositional attribution is much higher (.59) than the average correlation between Pessimism and Situational attribution (.17). Third, scores on two different trait-based measures of cynicism correlate highest with the Dispositional attribution component of cynicism. A practical implication is that organizational leaders may minimize cynicism by managing both employees' pessimism about organizational change and employees' attributions about it. Specific suggestions for how this might be done are offered.

Goals and related constructs are ubiquitous in psychological research and span the history of psychology. Research on goals has accumulated sporadically through research programs in cognition, personality, and motivation. Goals are defined as internal representations of desired states. In this article, the authors review the theoretical development of the structure and properties of goals, goal establishment and striving processes, and goal-content taxonomies. They discuss affect as antecedent, consequence, and content of goals and argue for integrating across psychological content areas to study goal-directed cognition and action more efficiently. They emphasize the structural and dynamic aspects of pursuing multiple goals, parallel processing, and the parsimony provided by the goal construct. Finally, they advocate construct validation of a taxonomy of goals.

Individuals differ on multiple aspects of their job-role behavior; criteria are measures that attempt to capture these differences. Measures of criteria are used by several constituencies within applied psychology. Among them, researchers used criteria for the evaluation of theories of work behavior, the effective administration of human resources and the provision of feedback to individuals. One index of the importance of criteria is the observation that most, if not all, of the pioneers of industrial-organizational psychology addressed this issue during their careers. This article reviews conceptual and methodological developments pertaining to the criterion problem since 1917, using as an organizing device dimensions, methods of measurement and analysis, and categorizing frameworks. A shift away from an emphasis on brute prediction toward a balanced treatment of both empirical and conceptual issues is highlighted by calls for the validation of criteria and by increased attention to modeling performance, as well as a recognition of multiple perspectives and competing values from which to view performance and criterion measurement. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This article reviews the development of industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology in the United States since its beginnings at about the turn of the century. The history is divided into periods within which are described topics, roles, and forces, with the goal of explaining as well as describing developments. Among the conclusioos are that I-O psychology is a dynamic field that has been making contributions both to the science of behavior and to industrial society and that those contributions have been underestimated by some and possibly overestimated by others. Among the problems still facing the field is the disjunction between science and practice. However, in principle, that and other bipolarities can be made complementary. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Ability, interest, gender, and family socioeconomic status of 13,248 tenth-grade participants in Project TALENT were studied as they relate to occupation attainment by using discriminant analysis. Individuals were classified into 12 broad categories reported 11 years after graduation. Accuracy analyses indicated correct classifications significantly above chance for all except the Technical and Sales categories. Within-category classification percentages were higher for all groups except Construction. Five canonical discriminant functions that jointly accounted for all 96.8% of all the between-group variance were interpreted. The first 2 accounted for 81.9% of the variance. Function 1 was a general ability function; Function 2 differentiated the categories on the basis of mathematical ability and gender. Function 3 through 5 accounted for 14.9% of the between-groups variance. Some implications of these findings are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A critical reanalysis of Barrett, Caldwell, and Alexander's (1985) critique of dynamic criteria. Summarizes and questions Barrett, et al.'s three definitions of dynamic criteria and their conclusion that reported temporal changes in criteria could be explained by methodological artifacts. A greater focus on dynamic criteria as constructs is recommended. (TE)