Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) hold significant promise for improving physics education research that uses machine learning. In this study, we compare the application of various models for conducting a large-scale analysis of written text grounded in a physics education research classification problem: identifying skills in…

In accord with structural alignment theory, same-category comparison opportunities within a classification learning task should promote relational category acquisition. However, a straightforward merging of the classification paradigm with copresentation of same-category item pairs does not yield an advantage relative to an equal number of…

Capitalizing on the findings in our preceding study of a purely theoretical model, this paper aims to empirically examine whether and to what extent public universities' institutional missions have transformed in recent years in the States of California and New York by quantifying a degree of functional diversification of universities. We focus on…

We investigated the effect of co-presenting training items during supervised classification learning of novel relational categories. Strong evidence exists that comparison induces a structural alignment process that renders common relational structure more salient. We hypothesized that comparisons between exemplars would facilitate learning and…

The significant growth of charter schools in the United States has brought both praise for the excellent results achieved by some schools and criticism that charter schools may not be serving the most disadvantaged students. In New York City and elsewhere, a significantly smaller proportion of students enrolled in charter schools are classified as…

Barsalou (1985) argued that exemplars that serve category goals become more typical category members. Although this claim has received support, we investigated (a) whether categories have a single ideal, as negatively valenced categories (e.g., cigarette) often have conflicting goals, and (b) whether ideal items are in fact typical, as they often…

Purpose: The study is a descriptive, population-based analysis of birth outcomes in the New York State Finger Lakes region designed to determine whether perinatal outcomes differed across 3 rural typologies. Methods: Hospital birth data for the Finger Lakes region from 2006 to 2007 were used to identify births classified as low birthweight (LBW),…

Background/Context: Evidence suggests that teachers are a critical resource in realizing high-quality educational opportunities for all students. However, many school systems across the country continue to employ large numbers of teachers who, by most indicators, do not fit into the category of "high quality." Although policy makers at…

Score equity assessment is an important analysis to ensure inferences drawn from test scores are comparable across subgroups of examinees. The purpose of the present evaluation was to assess the extent to which the Grade 8 NAEP Math and Reading assessments for 2005 were equivalent across selected states. More specifically, the present study…

This paper presents both a conceptual and empirical investigation of teaching and learning in online courses. Employing both the Community of Inquiry framework (CoI) and the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy, two complete online courses were examined for the quality of both collaborative learning processes and learning…

A number of universities have recently started to add baccalaureate programs in Information Technology (IT) to their existing programs in Computer Science (CS) and (Management) Information Systems (IS). While some have welcomed this development, others have argued that (a) there are significant differences between the baccalaureate programs in IT…

Using decision points from Esther Piercy's "Commonsense Cataloging" as a framework for analysis, this paper compares the opinions of experts on cataloging, classification, and shelf arrangement of audiovisual materials in school libraries, public libraries, and media centers with actual practices in four school and community libraries in…