Student accounts of the Ontario Secondary School literacy Test: a case for validation

The Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT) is a cross-curricular literacy test issued to all secondary school students in the province of Ontario. The test consists of a reading and a writing component, both of which must be successfully completed for secondary school graduation in Ontario. This study elicited 16 first language and second language student accounts of their OSSLT test-taking processes immediately after the March 2006 test administration. The analysis of these students’ accounts provided valuable information about the validity of the inferences drawn from the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. These accounts suggest the complexity of the processes that the students engaged as they attempted to demonstrate their reading and writing skills on the test. The study has implications for test developers and test users regarding the interpretation of student test performance on the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test

Solubility prediction in octanol: A technical note

The purpose of this work was to derive an equation for the rapid estimation of octanol solubilities of organic compounds. Solubilities ranging over 4 orders of, magnitude were predicted with an average absolute error of 0.39 logarithmic units using melting point alone. The greatest error in prediction occurred for strongly bonded compounds