Describes an exercise for college and high school students that relates descriptive statistics to the regional climatic classification. The exercise introduces students to simple calculations of central tendency and dispersion, the construction and interpretation of scatterplots, and the definition of climatic regions. Forces students to engage…

In the context of the discipline of quality control, this paper identifies many of the tools which may reinvigorate the statistical and graphical toolkits in higher education. Certain statistical and graphical issues are discussed by means of examples and hypothetical situations, and techniques are introduced that have application for the pursuit…

A visual display is introduced that enables one to compare the predictive validities of all possible non-negatively weighted sums of two predictors. This two-predictor validity curve assesses the level of predictability of a criterion from composites of two predictors. Derivations are presented for the general case. For illustrative purposes, the…

A procedure for developing a nomogram that depicts expectancy of success on a criterion from performance on two predictors is presented. Data from 574 medical students attending Michigan State University College of Human Medicine's classes of 1979 through 1984 were used to develop a model for predicting the expectancy of success on Part I of the…

Discusses how to examine and evaluate claims of improved academic performance in advertisements for computer-assisted instruction. Highlights include the proper use of comparison groups; types of statistical analyses; the Hawthorne effect; the interpretation of scores; interpreting graphic presentations; tests of significance; and cost…

Illustrates, through text and graphs, that many striking variations are submerged beneath overall figures of poverty rates. The substantial differences in poverty rate according to race and ethnicity are, in large part, the consequences of major differences in family types and work situations. (SLD)

Evaluates the validity of the test used to place students in the comprehension-based courses offered by the Second Language Institute of the University of Ottawa. The test is described in the context of the target student population and the comprehension-based courses. Different factors of evaluating the concurrent and predictive validity were…

Findings of this report indicate that, since an earlier 1994 study, the number of Americans that own computers has increased by over 50% and the number of households using e-mail has quadrupled. Nevertheless, access to the Information Superhighway is still beyond the grasp of many Americans. While the nation-wide telephone penetration rate remains…

This learning unit on using graphs is one in the Choice Series, a self-learning development program for supervisors. Purpose stated for the approximately eight-hour-long unit is to enable the supervisor to look at the usefulness of graphs in displaying figures, use graphs to compare sets of figures, identify trends and seasonal variations in…

This paper discribes the analysis of data in the Management Implications of Team Teaching Project (MITT). It touches on the interviews conducted with teachers and principals, presents the breadth of information obtained in the questionnaire, and explains how the data were aggregated and how issues were grouped. Information collected in the…

This study explores the effectiveness of using graphic illustrations with written text in promoting learning in social studies by junior high students. Two groups of experimental reading materials, one group composed of three narratives with related graphic illustrations and the other composed of three narratives alone, were prepared and…

This is a tongue-in-cheek rendering of an imaginary linguist's attempt to prove that a grammatical rule is not in fact optional, but conditioned. Through manipulation of the data, use of computers, etc., he succeeds in "proving" this. He also "proves" that this conditioning is contextual; that the rule which exhibits it is…

An analysis of salary differentials shows that although women and racial or ethnic minorities in the federal Civil Service science and engineering workforce earn less than their male and white counterparts, the differentials are much less than those shown by other studies for other occupations in the economy. These results show that: (1) salary…

Examination of data from four General Social Surveys (1976, 1977, 1980, 1982) focuses on questions related to intellectual freedom, especially library censorship. Responses are analyzed together with selected demographic variables to determine which broad segments of society give majority support to censorship and which do not. (7 references) (EJS)

This research discusses the relationship between the migration of skilled professional and managerial workers from Canada to the United States, the so called "brain drain," and seeks to determine if and how the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (F.T.A.) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may have affected bilateral flows…