Search engines have been a major factor in making the web the successful and widely used information source it is today. Generally speaking, they make it possible to retrieve web pages on a topic specified by the keywords entered by the user. Yet web searching currently does not take into account which of the search results are comprehensible for…

This paper explores the proposition that teaching of critical thinking (CT) should include: (1) identifying and addressing the many environmental variables acting as barriers to our human thinking, i.e., an open system approach, and (2) utilizing the interrelatedness of the CT building blocks, i.e., creative thinking techniques, levels of…

The presence of outlying anchor items is an issue faced by many testing agencies. The decision to retain or remove an item is a difficult one, especially when the content representation of the anchor set becomes questionable by item removal decisions. Additionally, the reason for the aberrancy is not always clear, and if the performance of the…

The purpose of this design experiment was to research, test and iteratively design a set of taxonomically-organized storybooks that served to scaffold young children's word learning and concept development. Specifically, Phase 1 of the design experiment asked: (1) What are the effects of taxonomic organization on children's ability to acquire…

This dissertation answers three research questions: (1) What are the characteristics of a combinatoric measure, based on the Average Search Length (ASL), that performs the same as a probabilistic version of the ASL?; (2) Does the combinatoric ASL measure produce the same performance result as the one that is obtained by ranking a collection of…

When Item Response Theory (IRT) is operationally applied for large scale assessments, unidimensionality is typically assumed. This assumption requires that the test measures a single latent trait. Furthermore, when tests are vertically scaled using IRT, the assumption of unidimensionality would require that the battery of tests across grades…

The purpose of this study was to determine if teachers who developed lessons based on Bloom's Taxonomy and the "Virginia Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework" saw increased scores on the mathematics benchmark assessment for fourth grade. Two classes taught by different mathematics teachers participated. The mean of the posttest…

When respondents fail to use response scales of survey questionnaires as intended, latent variable modeling of data can produce disordered category thresholds. The objective of this paper is to show the usefulness of the Rasch modeling features to explore different ways of collapsing categories so that they are properly ordered and fit for further…

This document covers the data terms used in the "Students and Courses 2009" publication and its associated data tables. The primary purpose of this document is to assist users of the publication to understand the specific data terms used within it. Terms that appear in the publication are listed in alphabetical order with the following…

Higher-order thinking is an instructional strategy supported by research. Often referred to as critical thinking skills, it is more than simple recall of facts or information. It is a function of the interaction between cognitive strategies, meta-cognition, and nonstrategic knowledge when solving problems. Higher-order thinking is based on the…

A pictured object can be readily detected in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence when the target is specified by a superordinate category name such as "animal" or "vehicle". Are category features the initial basis for detection, with identification of the specific object occurring in a second stage (Evans &…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the variety of approaches to curriculum development for enterprise education developed for schools, further, and higher education under an Entrepreneurship Action Plan in Wales and to consider the sustainability issues for delivery in these sectors. Design/methodology/approach: This investigation adopted a case…

The integration of career and technical education (CTE) and academic curricular content that capitalizes on natural and inherent connections represents a challenge for CTE professionals. The purpose of this study was to employ Bloom's revised taxonomy (Anderson, Krathwohl, Airasian, Cruiskshank, Mayer, Pintrich, Raths, & Wittrock, 2001) to…

The authors examined face perception models with regard to the functional and temporal organization of facial identity and expression analysis. Participants performed a manual 2-choice go/no-go task to classify faces, where response hand depended on facial familiarity (famous vs. unfamiliar) and response execution depended on facial expression…

Neonates prefer human speech to other nonlinguistic auditory stimuli. However, it remains an open question whether there are any conceptual consequences of words on object categorization in infants younger than 6 months. The current study examined the influence of words and tones on object categorization in forty-six 3- to 4-month-old infants.…