Is There Rest for the Test Weary?

This commentary raises questions and concerns about psychological employment tests. The author recounts her husband's exhausting experience as an applicant to numerous companies and agencies that required psychological tests. To be faced with testing day after day can create a very negative attitude on the part of the applicant, especially when the only evaluation he receives is either a positive or negative reply concerning the job. Also, one cannot help but meet a certain type of test over and over. If there are a great many test-wise people on the market, how does this affect industrial testing? The author suggests some standardization of industrial testing--a central clearinghouse for test scores, references, and general information where an industrial applicant could present his resume, professional qualifications, and references, and take a good battery of tests. The anonymous letter is followed by brief comments by Lee J. Cronbach. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Statistical tests for moderator variables: Flaws in analyses recently proposed.

A procedure offered by Morris, Sherman, and Mansfield (1986) for testing hypotheses about interactions ("moderator variables") is unacceptable. A related proposal by Bobko (1986) is also problematic. One can appropriately test such hypotheses by stepwise regression, comparing an equation in the simple predictors with an equation that also includes the product of their deviation scores. There is, however, reason to believe that methods with greater statistical power can be found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond the two disciplines of scientific psychology.

Aptitude * Treatment interactions are demonstrated with reference to G. Domino's studies (1968 and 1971) of instructor demand and student personality and J. K. Majasan's (1972) study which found that achievement in college psychology was greatest when the student's position on a scale of beliefs regarding behaviorism and humanism were similar to his instructor's. Further evidence on interactions in social psychology, personality, learning, and experimental psychology is cited. It is suggested that higher order interactions make it unlikely that social scientists will be able to establish generalizations applicable beyond the laboratory or that generalizations established in the field work will be maintained. Social research should be less concerned with hypothesis testing and more concerned with interpreting findings in local contexts. (59 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robert R. Sears (1908–1989).

Presents an obituary for Robert R. Sears. Robert Richardson Sears, David Starr Jordan professor of psychology at Stanford University, chair of the Department of Psychology, 1953-1961, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, 1961-1970, and organizer and first head at Stanford of the Boys' Town Center for Youth Development, now known as the Center for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families, died at his home in Menlo Park, California, on May 22, 1989. Born in Palo Alto on August 31, 1908, he was 80 at the time of his death. During a period of failing health in his last year, he continued with his professional writing as best he could. He is survived by his wife, Pauline Snedden Sears, following 57 years of married life, and two grown children, David O. Sears and Nancy Sears Barker, plus six grandchildren. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Decision processes.

A summer seminar in 1952 brought together economists, mathematicians, psychologists, and a few representatives of other fields, all concerned with some aspect of choice behavior. Each participant communicated the ideas in his field which he regarded as likely to benefit the others, and some of them were stimulated by the interchange to start new research. The 19 heterogeneous papers comprising Decision Processes were prepared during the subsequent year. The book makes evident the difficulties in this area and discourages any expectation of early pay-off for the psychologist. This volume seems more a memorandum among the participants than a presentation for other readers. These reports do not represent substantial, consolidated advances, as all concerned recognize. There is much use of the single-case experiment, or of the tentative mathematical formulation involving assumptions unsatisfactory to the author. The papers are difficult to read, as mathematics and as English. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Between-class and within-class effects in a reported aptitude * treatment interaction: Reanalysis of a study by G. L. Anderson.

Reanalyzed a study by G. L. Anderson (1941) which found an interaction of drill and meaningful methods of arithmetic instruction with student ability and achievement. Drill was superior for "overachievers" and meaningful instruction for "underachievers" in 18 4th-grade classrooms. Pretest measures were the Minnesota School Ability Test and the Compass Survey Test. In a reanalysis to separate between- and within-class components of the outcome on aptitude regression, the Aptitude * Treatment interaction finding disappeared. An apparent interaction in the between-class analysis was dismissed as unreliable. No interaction was found within classes. The importance of separating class, individual, and individual-within-class interaction effects is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The two disciplines of scientific psychology.

"No man can be acquainted with all of psychology today." The past and future place within psychology of 2 historic streams of method, thought, and affiliation—experimental psychology and correlational psychology—is discussed in this address of the President at the 65th annual convention of the APA. "The well-known virtue of the experimental method is that it brings situational variables under tight control… . The correlation method, for its part, can study what man has not learned to control or can never hope to control… . A true federation of the disciplines is required. Kept independent, they can give only wrong answers or no answers at all regarding certain important problems… . Correlational psychology studies only variance among organisms; experimental psychology studies only variance among treatments. A united discipline will study both of these, but it will also be concerned with the otherwise neglected interactions between organismic and treatment variables. Our job is to invent constructs and to form a network of laws which permits prediction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Five decades of public controversy over mental testing.

Discusses the conflict over the validity of intelligence testing, using it as an example of what happens when scientists and academicians enter the area of public policy-making. Political and social aspects of Arthur Jensen's 1969 article and resulting controversy are examined, and some possible generalizations (e.g., the zeitgeist and the media, how the scientist conducts himself in public, and the consequences of knowledge) are discussed. (62 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Update on the Terman project (and Dahlstrom).

Corrects W. G. Dahlstrom's (see record 1993-31800-001) misidentification of L. J. Cronbach as the current director of the Terman study of persons of superior ability. The history of the project since the death of L. Terman in 1956 is reviewed. Cronbach could have been described as a coinvestigator, as studies were never "directed." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)