Researchers at the Coast Guard Academy have designed and tested a series of exercises for assessing the development of intellectual skills in an interdisciplinary context and providing career-related motivation for continued learning. These exercises are based on realistic situations that cadets might encounter as commissioned officers in the…

The purpose of this study is to incorporate adaptive ontology into ubiquitous learning grid to achieve seamless learning environment. Ubiquitous learning grid uses ubiquitous computing environment to infer and determine the most adaptive learning contents and procedures in anytime, any place and with any device. To achieve the goal, an…

In the mid to late 1970s, considerable research was conducted on the properties of Rasch fit mean squares, resulting in transformations to convert the mean squares into approximate t-statistics. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the trend seems to have reversed, with numerous researchers using the untransformed fit mean squares as a means of…

RESGEN is a computer program designed to generate simulated latent trait distributions and then dichotomous or polytomous item responses based on item response models. The latent trait distributions can be univariate or multivariate normal, log-normal, uniform, or gamma. The item response models utilized in this program may have characteristics…

The effects on Rasch measurement of both response underfit (noise) and overfit (mutedness or superuniformity) are described and illustrated. Misfit is identified by mean-square fit statistics. Person separation and reliability are shown to be deceptive indicators of measurement effectiveness when some items exhibit marked overfit. Theoretical…

F. Samejima (1973) proposed a continuous response model in which item response is on a continuous scale rather than some discrete levels. This model has potential because in many psychological and educational assessments, the responses are on a conceptual continuum rather than on some fixed levels. As a first step toward studying the applicability…

How common patterns of rater errors may be detected in a large-scale performance assessment setting is discussed. Common rater effects are identified, and a scaling method that can be used to detect them in operational data sets is presented. Simulated data sets are generated to exhibit each of these rater effects. The three continua that depict…

This paper investigates methods that avoid using multiple groups to represent the missing data patterns in covariance structure modeling, attempting instead to do a single-group analysis where the only action the analyst has to take is to indicate that data is missing. A new covariance structure approach developed by B. Muthen and G. Arminger is…

This report describes a classroom project that groups sophomore biology students into "companies" bidding for a "contract" to build a self-sufficient, enclosed city by producing a manual and model of their version of a biosphere. Students must develop technological support systems, social and economic parameters, and systems…

Recent research has demonstrated that knowledge about specific instances may be of more relevance to reasoning than has previously been assumed. Students can rely on principles they have learned, or they can recall something similar previously experienced, and base the new prediction on it in an instance-based approach. Instance-based (or…

Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference (HSD) procedure (J. Tukey, 1953) is probably the most recommended and used procedure for controlling Type I error rate when making multiple pairwise comparisons as follow-ups to a significant omnibus F test. This study compared observed Type I errors with nominal alphas of 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10 compared for…

Multiple-hypothesis testing in the context of a correlation matrix is used to compare the statistical power of the original Bonferroni with six modified Bonferroni procedures that control the overall Type I error rate. Three definitions of statistical power are considered: (1) the ability to detect at least one true relationship; (2) the ability…

Using computer simulated data, the Type I error rate and statistical power were empirically estimated for several pairwise multiple comparison strategies for situations where population variances differ. Focus was on comparing modified Bonferroni procedures with Dunnett's solutions, and determining whether or not J. P. Shaffer's suggestion of…

The research summary is based on studies reported in "Computer Assisted Instruction in Higher Order Skills for Mildly Handicapped Students: Programmatic Research on Design Principles" by Douglas W. Carnine. Overall, results indicated that well-designed computer-assisted instruction (CAI) can be an effective instructional medium for students with…

SIMPAR, a simulation game designed to allow participants to play out assigned roles which parallel some of the real life aspects of parent-child relationships, is presented. SIMPAR is a game about workers (children) and foremen (parents) in a handicapped work setting in a company called PARLINK, Inc. The following topics are covered: (1) an…