1

The Teacher’s School Readiness Inventory (TSRI), developed by Marvin L. Simner of the University of Western Ontario, is a five-item teacher rating scale designed to help prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers “make proper referral decisions” (scoring manual, p. 2) for children who are “at risk for school failure” (p. 12). Using a 5-point Likert-type scale, a teacher rates each child on distractibility, attention span, and memory span; verbal fluency; interest and participation; letter-identification skills; and printing skills. These five ratings are then summed to form a total score (the only score Simner recommends for decision making). Children receiving a TSRI total score at or below the established cutoff point are considered to be academically at-risk and, in turn, are referred either for additional testing or for immediate remediation, depending on the child’s score.

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is widely used to screen university applicants for whom English is not their native language. Although the cutoff scores vary, in Ontario those with scores much lower than 550 are rarely admitted to any university. Two exceptions are the University of Western Ontario and its affiliate, Brescia University College, where the TOEFL is required but no cutoff is used. Instead, students are admitted based on their overall prior academic performance along with their TOEFL scores. The outcome of a longitudinal investigation recently undertaken by the Registrar's Office at the University of Western Ontario to evaluate this procedure questions the appropriateness of relying largely on the TOEFL cutoffs in making admissions decisions.

Among the various tests employed in personnel selection, handwriting analysis, or graphology, has enjoyed long-standing international popularity despite being highly contentious. This report contains not only an evaluation of the current published scientific reviews on the use of graphology in personnel selection, but also an evaluation of several additional studies graphologists provided that seemed to have been overlooked. The latter were obtained by contacting nine of the foremost institutes offering graphological training, consulting services, or both to ensure that the graphologists themselves would be fairly represented. Even with this additional information we found no reason to counter conclusions the scientific community has reached, namely that (a) the continued use of graphology in personnel selection could prove harmful to many individuals and firms, and (b) it fails to approach the level of criterion validity of other widely available and less expensive screening devices used for personnel selection. This article ends with a position statement about this matter, which the International Graphonomics Society1 endorsed.

Each spring teachers throughout Canada are required to administer a series of provinciallymandated tests to the students in their classes. Approximately six months later the results are made available to the public. It is now common practice for the press the report the results, to rank the schools according to the results, and to invite the public to engage in a school-by-school comparison of the rankings. It is also common practice for the press, in commenting on the poor performances displayed by certain schools, to place the blame for these performances largely, if not solely, on the schools themselves. Our concern over this practice is with the failure on the part of the press to acknowledge the many other factors aside from schooling that are known to influence test performance. These include, but are not limited to, family stability, parental involvement and expectations for student success in school, early and ongoing home stimulation, and student motivation, student absenteeism, as well as student capacity for learning. Because students are not randomly assigned to schools and because schools have little or no control over the majority of these factors, any attempt to place the blame for poor test performance on the schools alone without giving proper consideration to each of these other factors is problematic at best and misleading at worst. Hence, by taking such a narrow position when dealing with an issue as complex as the cause of students' test performances, we believe the public is being misinformed on a matter that is extremely important to the operation of schools and therefore to the education and well being of children. Our greatest concern, however, is over the possibility that this singular emphasis on the schools as the cause of students' test performances could generate considerable harm by placing unwarranted pressure on teachers, administrators, and ultimately on the students themselves to increase test scores or risk losing status within the community. Indeed, there is growing evidence that such harm is already occurring in the United States from similar comments in the US press concerning the poor performance of certain schools on the state-mandated tests. With the hope of preventing similar situations from occurring in Canada, and in line with the view expressed by the Ontario Education Quality and Accountability Office, which is responsible for the development and scoring of the Ontario exams, it is our position that it is improper for the press to invite the public to compare schools based solely on the outcome of the mandated test results. We also recommend that in any future articles that deal with the results, in order to avoid misleading the public, the press should ensure that the public is fully informed of the various factors, in addition to schooling, that are likely to account for differences that may exist among schools.

Each spring teachers throughout Canada are required to administer a series of provinciallymandated tests to the students in their classes. Approximately six months later the results are made available to the public. It is now common practice for the press the report the results, to rank the schools according to the results, and to invite the public to engage in a school-by-school comparison of the rankings. It is also common practice for the press, in commenting on the poor performances displayed by certain schools, to place the blame for these performances largely, if not solely, on the schools themselves. Our concern over this practice is with the failure on the part of the press to acknowledge the many other factors aside from schooling that are known to influence test performance. These include, but are not limited to, family stability, parental involvement and expectations for student success in school, early and ongoing home stimulation, and student motivation, student absenteeism, as well as student capacity for learning. Because students are not randomly assigned to schools and because schools have little or no control over the majority of these factors, any attempt to place the blame for poor test performance on the schools alone without giving proper consideration to each of these other factors is problematic at best and misleading at worst. Hence, by taking such a narrow position when dealing with an issue as complex as the cause of students' test performances, we believe the public is being misinformed on a matter that is extremely important to the operation of schools and therefore to the education and well being of children. Our greatest concern, however, is over the possibility that this singular emphasis on the schools as the cause of students' test performances could generate considerable harm by placing unwarranted pressure on teachers, administrators, and ultimately on the students themselves to increase test scores or risk losing status within the community. Indeed, there is growing evidence that such harm is already occurring in the United States from similar comments in the US press concerning the poor performance of certain schools on the state-mandated tests. With the hope of preventing similar situations from occurring in Canada, and in line with the view expressed by the Ontario Education Quality and Accountability Office, which is responsible for the development and scoring of the Ontario exams, it is our position that it is improper for the press to invite the public to compare schools based solely on the outcome of the mandated test results. We also recommend that in any future articles that deal with the results, in order to avoid misleading the public, the press should ensure that the public is fully informed of the various factors, in addition to schooling, that are likely to account for differences that may exist among schools.

The current study compared the speed and legibility of handwriting produced by children exposed to either traditional instruction (TI) or whole-language instruction (WLI) in an attempt to determine whether children who received traditional, intensive classroom instruction in handwriting produce more legible andfaster handwriting. Forty-four TI students in lower (4 & 5) and upper (7 & 8) grades were matched with WLI students on the basis of chronological age, sex, grade, and dominant hand. All participants provided three writing samples exemplifying their best cursive writing, their usual cursive writing, and their handwriting under the pressure of speed. Samples were codedfor legibility using the Test of Legible Handwriting (Larsen & Hammill, 1989), and a total word count was computedfor speeded samples. The majorfindings showed that the TI children produced more legible handwriting than did WLI students, were able to write significantly more words under time pressure, and that these differences between the groups did not diminish with increased grade/age. The practical implications of the results are discussed, particularly the findings related to speed of transcription. Specifically noted in the discussion is the relationship between the automaticity of writing and compositional fluency that has emerged in recent research.

Summary: The Canadian Psychological Association recently issued a position statement on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The purpose of the statement was to alert university officials to serious shortcomings in the use of the TOEFL as an admissions screening device for nonnative English speaking applicants. The present report, written in response to reactions from several universities, contains a detailed critique of the evidence cited by the Educational Testing Service in favor of the TOEFL and therefore provides further reason for exercising considerable caution when making admission decisions based primarily on TOEFL scores.

An item analysis was performed on the geometric-form copy tasks used to identify kindergarten children at risk for early school failure. The outcome of this analysis revealed that only eight of the 15 forms found on these tasks and only certain of the scoring criteria applied to these forms were effective in identifying children with potential learning problems. The findings further revealed an important limitation in the use of these eight forms. The implications of this limitation are discussed in terms of a possible unique role that these forms might play in the development of an effective early identification program.

Nearly all Canadian universities employ, as a standard for university admission, the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). In light of considerable evidence indicating only a weak relationship between TOEFL scores and academic achievement, the Canadian Psychological Association recently issued a report containing a position statement that called upon Canadian universities to refrain from employing the TOEFL in this manner. Because the concerns raised in the report are likely to apply to many universities outside Canada, the entire report is reproduced in this article.

This investigation was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of the Test of Legible Handwriting (TOLH) in identifying children who may be at risk of early school failure. One hundred and seventeen children were screened with the TOLH in grade one and then tested with the Comprehensive Inventory of Basic Skills (CIBS). The outcome of a correlational analysis indicated that the children's grade one scores on the TOLH were indeed linked to the children's performances on the CIBS through grade two in the areas of reading, spelling, and arithmetic. Furthermore, the outcome of a predictive validity analysis revealed that the children with the least legible handwriting had the highest probability of obtaining the lowest scores on the CIBS. The implication of these findings for the use of handwriting legibility scales in a screening program to identify children with potential learning difficulties is discussed.