This paper intends to construct a survey data quality strategy for institutional researchers in higher education in light of total survey error theory. It starts with describing the characteristics of institutional research and identifying the gaps in literature regarding survey data quality issues in institutional research. Then it is followed by…

The purpose of the study was to determine whether students had knowledge of the extension rule (the conjunction of two or more events cannot be greater than the probability of any one of those events) and understanding of conjunction by giving a test of multiplicative probabilities. Involved were 598 students enrolled in introductory psychology…

During the 1975-76 academic year student response data were saved for a group of 17 freshman music majors as they worked through 15 units of harmonic dictation exercises delivered on the University of Delaware's Graded Units for Interactive Dictation Operation (GUIDO) system. Analysis of the student data base led to the identification of seven…

The Sato Caution Index takes into account the number and difficulty of items gotten wrong by a student within his or her ability, as well as the number and difficulty of items gotten right beyond his or her ability. Sato subtracts the two components to define a single Caution Index. In this study, the components are kept separate, defining a…

Two experiments investigated the effectiveness of reading backwards as a proofreading technique. Experiment 1 examined the general usefulness of backwards vs. forwards proofreading strategies and the effects of these strategies for two types of typographical errors: misspellings and contextual errors. Subjects, 36 undergraduate students at a…

Common problems encountered in teaching Chinese that involve classical, intentional malapropisms (learned errors) are discussed. Three aspects unique to Chinese are addressed: (1) since Chinese writing is logographic, some malapropisms occur because of similar graphs; (2) since many expressions come from classical Chinese, and instruction in…

The use of error pattern analysis can reduce the time and money spent on editing and correcting manuscripts. What is required is noting, classifying, and keeping a frequency count of errors. First an editor should take a typical page of writing and circle each error. After the editor has done a sufficiently large number of pages to identify an…

A study was conducted to explore the generality of reconstructive processes of memory for social information. Sixty college students divided evenly into six experimental and control groups were asked to read one of two versions of a story: one in which a couple happily agreed not to have children, the other in which the man's desire to remain…

There are two types of errors made in feeling-of-knowing (FOK) studies: a commission error occurs when a subject answers a question incorrectly, and an omission error occurs when a subject fails to provide an answer for a given question. A subject makes a commission error if he or she responds to the following question, "In which city does…

A study examined the information processing construct of the speech rating error paradigm. Specifically, it tested the hypotheses that (1) attitude valence and dogmatism would interact in such a way that low dogmatic raters would show a positive trait error on the content traits material and analysis; (2) low dogmatic raters would evaluate a…

Verbal protocols were collected from math-anxious and math-comfortable college students while they solved algebra problems. These protocols were then examined for differences in problem-solving processes. Differences occurred in the use of two basic strategies: generating values and symbolic transformations. Math-anxious students generated more…

This report includes data on the cognitive and affective behavior of college students who were given the tasks of interpreting and formulating Boolean search statements. Two versions of written point-of-use instructions on Boolean searching, affectively elaborated and unelaborated, were given to investigate comprehension, self-confidence, and…

The effect that student ability level has on receiving feedback following classroom tests was studied. Forty-four undergraduates enrolled in four educational psychology classes were assigned to low or high ability groups based on their total score from the first four exams. Two classes were trained in a feedback technique, and the remaining two…

Solving equations in elementary algebra requires knowledge of the permitted operations, and knowledge of what operation to use at a given point in the solution process. While just these kinds of knowledge would be adequate for an ideal solver, human solvers appear to need and use other kinds of knowledge. First, many errors seem to indicate that…

A multi-faceted Rasch measurement (MFRM) model was used to analyze a clinical skills assessment of 173 fourth-year medical students in a Midwestern medical school to investigate four types of rater errors: leniency, inconsistency, halo, and restriction of range. Each student performed six clinical tasks with six standardized patients (SPs), who…