Geometric approaches to representing interrelations among tests and items are compared with an additive tree model (ATM), using 2,644 examinees and 2 other data sets. The ATM's close fit to the data and its coherence of presentation indicate that it is the best means of representing tests and items. (TJH)

The ability of 3-way INDSCAL and ALSCAL models to recover true structure in proximity data based on 2-dimensional configurations varying in number of subjects (15 and 20) and stimuli, amount of error, and monotonic transformation is examined. INDSCAL outperformed metric and nonmetric ALSCAL in all conditions. (SLD)

This study by two Ph.D. students in library science reviewed a systematic sample of the research literature in library and information science published in 62 core library journals in 1983 to order to identify substantive articles and compare their findings on research methodologies and trends with those reported in a similar study performed in…

Describes two studies that compared university students' judgments about the readability and studyability of two sets of computer screens: a set of model displays and a set of real screens copied from computer-assisted instruction programs. Relationships among viewers' preferences and field dependence/independence, conceptual style, and gender…

A procedure for interpreting multiple-discrimination indices from a multidimensional item-response theory analysis is described and demonstrated with responses of 1,635 high school students to a multiple-choice test. The procedure consists of converting discrimination parameter estimates to direction cosines and analyzing the angular distances…

A nonmetric multidimensional scaling technique was employed to determine the characteristics of the ideal professor. Subsequently, the results were compared across varying levels of program personnel, including administrators, faculty, staff and students. Centered in a relatively self-contained academic program of a large midwestern university,…

As the several specific applications in this paper demonstrate, multidimensional scaling provides a long-needed means for investigating and describing spatial relationships among speech varieties. It is especially applicable to the relationships among varieties of a single language (or more properly, linguistic "cline"), which, as is…

Since educational statistics, which are relatively easy to obtain, can only attempt to measure "quality," this paper asks how quality in higher education is assessed and how educational rankings, which are defined as benchmarks or attempts to measure, contribute to this process. The paper notes that while attempts to rank institutions of…

This article's goals are to validate the Computer and Information Technology Attitude Inventory (Weinsier and Leutner, 1988), a nontraditional approach to attitude measurement; and to report on a study designed to search for intercultural differences or cross-cultural consistency of attitudes toward computers and information technology. (46…