This dissertation examined the effects of academic interventions on the development of reading academic competence in fourth grade students who performed at or below grade level as determined by TAKS reading scale scores. Fifty students in fifth grade were chosen to participate in the study from five elementary schools in the Fort Worth Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas. Only 46 students completed the study. The study was conducted with a control (n = 23) and treatment group (n = 23). The fourth grade students were administered pretests and posttests using the ACES and the fourth grade TAKS reading test. This quantitative study used a quasi-experimental design to answer the research questions. The final data results did not indicate that the implementation of interventions significantly increased TAKS reading scores at the p > .05 level. In addition, there were no significant increases at the p > .05 level between the ACES pretests and posttests. Although there were no significant gains on the TAKS or ACES, there are implications the interventions had a positive effect on teacher perceptions of their students' academic competence and some growth was evident for the treatment groups on both TAKS and ACE.

Scholars have long explored the lack of diversity in gifted-and-talented education and specifically the role that gifted-and-talented test performance plays as a barrier to access. However, there is limited work, particularly quantitative work, examining the ways in which policies perpetuate racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities within the education system.I build upon the extant research by examining each stage of the admissions process, employing quantitative methods, and using a comprehensive sample of longitudinal admissions and enrollment data from New York City. This dissertation explores the diversity of gifted-and-talented programs by addressing two research questions: 1) Do families who request testing, test, apply, and enroll their children in gifted-and-talented programs reflect diverse backgrounds? and 2) Do gifted-and-talented admissions criteria and priorities, specifically test score criteria and sibling priority, advantage certain students? My results suggest that from the onset, families engaging with the first step of the gifted-and-talented admission process are not representative of the student population at large. While a more diverse group of families request testing and test, as families progress further along in navigating the admissions process, at each stage the families look more like one another. The filtering nature of the admissions process leaves far lower proportions of low-income, Black, and Hispanic families enrolling in gifted-and-talented programs. I also find that admissions rules advantage certain students to varying degrees. My findings reveal that test score cutoffs severely exacerbate the lack of diversity in gifted programs, giving the already advantaged families a further advantage. Contrastingly, I find that sibling priority does not exacerbate the lack of diversity to the same extent. Overall, the likelihood of receiving an offer does not vary by most sociodemographic characteristics. However, once a child meets the test score criteria, the score plays a far less important role in determining offers to a top choice program, and sibling preferences give families a strong advantage in receiving an offer to their first choice gifted-and-talented program.

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Testing is the most common way to assess student learning at all ages and grade levels. Testing is traditionally viewed as a measure of knowledge, and not as a way to enhance learning. Nonetheless, a large body of literature demonstrates that testing is actually an effective way to facilitate learning and enhance long-term memory for information. This finding, that retrieval of information from memory leads to better retention than re-studying or re-reading the same information, has been termed the testing effect. The benefit of testing compared to review of material is typically seen after a delay between practice and final test, with review being a better strategy when the test is given immediately or after a short delay. This phenomenon has been shown across a variety of contexts, test formats, retention intervals, and ranges of ages and abilities. However, one domain in which the testing effect has not been shown to work is in the review of student-produced lecture notes. Lecture note-taking is a ubiquitous learning strategy and notes have been shown to be highly correlated with academic outcomes such as test performance and GPA. Note-taking in itself is a cognitively demanding process, and students often struggle to take accurate and complete notes from lecture, thus limiting the benefits of note-taking and review. There is limited research on ways to improve the review function of notes. Thus, this dissertation sought to understand the effect of integrating the testing effect into the context of lecture note-taking on memory for information compared to review of notes and a lecture-only control. A sample of 59 high school students watched a video lecture and took notes on the information. The lecture was divided into three sections with two-minute pauses in between each segment. During each pause, students were asked to either reread their notes from the previous section (review group), recall and write down what they remembered to be the most important ideas from the lecture they were just shown (self-testing group), or complete a distractor word search puzzle for the duration of the pause (lecture-only control group). Participants were given a written recall test of lecture information following a one-day delay. Comparisons were made between lecture groups on test performance and note quantity. Measures of sustained attention and mind-wandering during lecture were examined as covariates. While participants in the self-testing group scored higher on the written recall test, this difference did not reach statistical significance. Self-testing and reviewing notes during lecture pauses were both significantly better than lecture note-taking alone. Results also showed that it was actually the students in the review group who took significantly more notes than those in the lecture-only control. There was a main effect for time, indicating that students in all lecture groups took increasingly more notes as the lecture progressed. Note quantity was found to be a significant predictor of test performance. Examination of attentional variables showed that students who reported lower instances of mind-wandering took significantly more notes and did significantly better on the recall test. Further, students in the self-testing group reported less of an increase in mind-wandering as the lecture progressed compared to those in the control group. Differences between the results of this study and other studies in the testing effect literature are hypothesized to be due several factors, including complexity of lecture information, encoding difficulties, and the presentation of new information at each self-testing time point. Future research should continue to explore the testing effect in conjunction with note taking.

Subjects were 38 computer programers employed in a national food-retailing corporation. A job analysis provided a basis for criteria development and served to guide the selection of predictors. Ratings of each programmer's job performance by his immediate supervisor, and scores on such tests as the Computer Programer Aptitude Battery (CPAB), clerical tests, and supervisory judgment test were obtained. Relationships between tests and criteria were examined to find the best test combination for predicting programming performance. Statistical treatment of data included a principal components analysis of the criteria and a multiple linear regression analysis. A weighted combination of the CPAB Reasoning, a test of clerical ability, and supervisory judgment test was found to be highly correlated with performance (R = .60).

The marketing of personnel assessment services by a variety of individuals and groups has developed into a highly competitive, somewhat unstable, and unusually controversial major American merchandising effort. This study contains a review of the promotional materials and activities of several commercial assessment organizations. Emphasis has been placed upon various "scientific breakthroughs" in the field, including, when possible, the descriptive as well as the predictive utilities that are claimed to result from their use. Three procedures were studied under actual industrial conditions, using tenure and productivity measures as criteria. None of the procedures was found to be significantly predictive in this instance.