In an attempt to influence students' appreciation of the value of research, the authors introduced a multidimensional scaling activity in a section of introductory psychology. In two consecutive 80-minute classes, 32 students worked in pairs, categorizing 20 crimes on the basis of similarity and coding their partner's responses, and then worked in…

The ability to purposefully access, reflect, and use evidence from educational research (Educational Research Literacy) is expected of future professionals in educational practice. Based on the presented conceptual framework, a test instrument was developed to assess the different competency aspects: Information Literacy, Statistical Literacy, and…

The statistical assessment of dimensionality provides evidence of the underlying constructs measured by a survey or test instrument. This study focuses on educational measurement, specifically tests comprised of items described as multidimensional. That is, items that require examinee proficiency in multiple content areas and/or multiple cognitive…

The "Revised Learning Process Questionnaire" has been part of the development of a conceptual understanding of how students learn and what motivates them to engage in particular tasks. We obtained responses from 329 student volunteers at a mid-sized public university in the southeast USA. We first investigated whether the psychometric…

The process of constructing assessment scales for performance testing is complex and multi-dimensional. As a result, a number of different approaches, both empirically and intuitively based, are open to developers. In this paper we outline the approach taken in the revision of a set of assessment scales used with speaking tests, and present the…

Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate whether smoking affects the quality of life of the students at Medical Documentation and Secreteriat Program (MDS) of Health Services Vocational Colleges. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the questionnaire has been applied to 147 (73,5 %) students out of 200 MDS students. As data collecting…

The aim of this study was to describe the hexagonal person-environment fit for the Holland personality types for a Greek sample of 156 university students. The statistical analysis followed both exploratory--such as multidimensional scaling--and confirmatory methods--such as covariance structure models. These methods were employed in an…

What aspects of spatial relations influence speakers' choice of locative? This article presents a study of static spatial descriptions from 24 languages. The study reveals two kinds of spatial terms evident cross-linguistically: specific spatial terms and general spatial terms (GSTs). Whereas specific spatial terms--including English…

Combining diverse methods in a single study raises a problem: What should be done when the findings of one method of investigation conflict with those of another? The authors illustrate this problem using an example in which three study phases--quantitative, qualitative, and intervention--are applied. The findings from the quantitative phase did…

This paper is concerned with the development of a measure of the precision of a multidimensional euclidean structure. The measure is a precision index for each point in the structure, assuming that all the other points are precisely located. The measure is defined and two numerical methods are presented. (Author/CTM)

A gradient method is used to obtain least squares estimates of parameters in constrained multidimensional scaling in N spaces. Features and constraints of the method and two applications of the procedure are presented. (Author/JKS)

To avoid reduction in observational data resulting from correlational techniques for analyzing interpersonal interactions, a data-transformation method based on multidimensional scaling techniques was applied to the Family Interaction Coding System. Two resulting dimensions, prosocial-deviance and high-low involvement, were applied to observations…

Probabilistic assumptions are added to single and multidimensional versions of the Coombs unfolding model for preferential choice (Coombs, 1950) and practical ways of obtaining maximum likelihood estimates of the scale parameters and goodness-of-fit tests of the model are presented. A Monte Carlo experiment is discussed. (Author/RC)

The role of conditionality in the INDSCAL and ALSCAL multidimensional scaling procedures is explained. The effects of conditionality on subject weights produced by these procedures is illustrated via a single set of simulated data. Results emphasize the need for caution in interpreting subject weights provided by these techniques. (Author/JKS)