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50
DONALD
HAMMILL
AND
J.
LEE
WIEDERHOLT
this sample of urban children. The two MRT subtests with low reliability involved
the comprehension of meaningful auditory symbols,
ie.,
speech. The reliabilities
of the remaining subtests are apparently adequate (greater than
.70).
These reliabilities, however, should be interpreted in connection with the item
analyses before deciding upon the appropriateness of the measure for this sample.
The items were found to be much too difficult, for only
35%
of the MRT and
21%
of
the MAT items possessed acceptable levels of both difficulty and validity. The
median difficulty of the MRT items was .30; for the MAT items, it was
.19.
Good-
stein, Whitney, and Cawley
(1970)
have reported similar results for
a
sample of
second-grade disadvantaged children. While the MRT was found
to
be an efficient
(ie.,
statistical) predictor of reading achievement, it failed to discriminate to
a
diagnostically useful degree between individual successful and failing readers.
Those authors also concluded that the MRT had too many difficult items.
One may conclude from these data that when attempting to measure the
achievement of urban children, tests other than the Metropolitan should be con-
sidered. Particular attention needs to be paid to item difficulty; for when the test is
too difficult, the children tend to become frustrated, uncooperative and defeatist in
their attitude. While such behavior may not affect the reliability of most subtests
it
is
a factor to consider when selecting measures for school testing programs or
research projects.
REFERENCES
DUROST, W. N., BIXLER, H. H., HILDRETE, G.
H.,
LUND,
K.
W.,
&
WRIQHTSTONE,
J.
W.
Diredims
GOODSTEIN, H. A., WHITNEY, G.,
&
CAWLEY
J.
F.
Prediction
of
perceptual reading disability among
HILDRETH, G.
H.,
GRIFFITHS,
N.
L.,
&
MCGAUVRAN,
M.
E.
Manual
of
directions. Metropolitan
for
administering Metropolitan Achievement Tests.
New
York:
Harcourt, Brace,
&
World, 1959.
second grade disadvantaged children.
$he Reading Teacher,
1970, in press.
Readiness Tests.
New
York:
Harcourt, Brace,
&
World, 1969.
INTERACTIVE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG STUDENT
CHARACTERISTICS AND GROUP COUNSELING METHODS
JACK
A.
HAMILTON
BRUCE
W.
BERGLAND
American Institutes
for
Research
Nordhwestern Unwersib
Counseling research in its design and implementation has been and still is less
than adequate. Little experimental research bearing directly on improved methods
and results of counseling has been conducted. Counselors are at present confronted
with a myriad of complex client problems such as drug abuse, student militancy,
and alienation, yet
as
Thoresen
(1969)
states, “counseling researchers for the most
part continue to survey, to question, and to relate
. .
.
[p.
2641.
A factor possibly related to the lack of concern for experimentally tested
counseling procedures
is
the difficulty involved in maintaining adequate experi-
mental control in research implemented in a field setting. While adequate control
is
more readily attainable in laboratory research, this approach does not always
yield procedures that practitioners find workable. Furthermore, results obtained