It is proposed that many concepts of personality structure and structural development are of primary relevance to one of three general orientations, here called the "classical," "differential," and "ipsative" views. Certain theoretical and methodological features of each approach are reviewed. The discussion emphasizes differences and similarities among the views and points out some implications for research. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT AND CONCEPTS OF STRUCTURE Walter Emmerich Educational Testing ServiceA number of recent studies of personality development have considered the question of structural consistency and change. While much of this work has been inspired by theoretical considerations~i t is often difficult to determine whether a particular operational concept of structure is of greater relevance to one theory than to another. One reason for this interpretive gap is that traditional theories of personality development typically are couched in broad terms that do not specify translations required at the operational level. Nevertheless, it is possible to discern theoretical lines of similarity and dissimilarity among concepts of structural development found in the literature. The present thesis is that such concepts are of primary relevance to one of three views. Stated in brief, these are: classical developmental theory, positing an invariant sequence of personality stages; differential analysis, which considers how in the course of development individuals become "sorted" into subgroups differentiated according to status and behavioral attributes; and the ipsative approach, which looks at intra-individual consistencies and change in the organization of attributes over time. These three views will be examined in some detail, with emphasis upon differences in how each characteristically deals with certain problems of conceptualization and methodology.The discussion will be limited in several respects. The primary concern is with structural development; i.e., with developmental consistency and change in the organization of personality attributes. Little attention -2-is given to other issues in developmental personality theory, such as the nature of the environmental determinants of attribute acquisitions. Because they raise distinct questions requiring separate treatment, the concepts of "fixation" and "regression"· are mentioned only in passing. Finally, the intent is to present only the main outlines of the three structural views; not considered are many possible refinements of conceptualization, measurement, and analysis within each approach.The Classical Developmental View Concept of StructureThe main prototypes of classical developmental analysis are psychoanalytic developmental theory (A. Freud, 1965;S. Freud, 1905; Rapaport, 1960) and Piaget's theory of cognitive development (Flavell, 1963; Kessen & Kuhlman, 1962;Tanner & Inhelder, 1956;. Although they differ in important respects (Wolff, 1960), these theories share the view that individuals pass through a series of qualitatively different le...

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The aim of this research was to identify, develop, and evaluate empirically new reasoning item types that might be used to broaden the analytical measure of the GRE General Test and to strengthen its construct validity. Item types were identified that varied in the aspects of reasoning they measure. Six item types were selected for empirical evaluation, including the two currently used in the GRE analytical measure. All of the experimental item types were developed in a 3‐option multiple‐choice format, and four of them also were developed in a multiple‐yes/no format. Two experimental batteries were assembled, one using the 3‐option format and the other using the multiple‐yes/no format. Two samples of approximately 370 examinees each, all of whom had recently taken the GRE General Test, were administered one or the other experimental battery. Item analyses and analyses of sex differences, criterion‐related validity, and relationships of the experimental item types to the current GRE measures were conducted. All but one of the experimental item types exhibited promise for strengthening the GRE analytical measure, and even the one exception appeared to be a possible item type for the GRE verbal measure. Evidence for interactions between item type and item format suggested that varying the format may result in the assessment of a different aspect of reasoning for some but not all reasoning item types. Different combinations of the experimental item types were evaluated in a series of confirmatory factor analyses, supplemented by correlational analyses and an exploratory factor analysis. Findings indicated that the convergent validity of the GRE analytical measure probably can be strengthened by selectively adding or substituting some of the experimental item types. However, such alterations of the GRE analytical measure probably would not improve the measure's discriminant validity. The study also provided evidence suggesting that the reasoning domain consists of two major subdomains: informal reasoning and formal‐deductive reasoning. This outcome has implications both for understanding the structure of the reasoning domain and for predicting the impact of different combinations of reasoning item types on the construct validity of the GRE analytical measure.

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