Simulation and real data studies are used to investigate the value of modeling multiple-choice distractors on item response theory linking. Using the characteristic curve linking procedure for Bock's (1972) nominal response model presented by Kim and Hanson (2002), all-category linking (i.e., a linking based on all category characteristic curves…

The aim of the study was to empirically test whether grouping people according to their general beliefs, combined with positional factors, can explain environmental concern, and whether there are country differences in this respect. The study is based on the United States, Canadian, Norwegian, and Swedish parts of The International Social Survey…

The overall purpose of this study was to explore the alcohol consumption patterns of adolescents by beverage type. A total of 705 primarily 9th grade students were recruited to participate in this study in the spring of 2002. Alcoholic beverage use differed significantly across gender and ethnicity on a number of beverage-specific drinking…

This study examined the effects of systematic instruction emphasizing phonological awareness using three groups of readers (single deficit, double deficit and no deficit) aged 6:6 to 9:3. Twenty nine subjects identified with language-based learning deficits were assigned to a group based on assessment of phonological core deficit areas. After nine…

Background: Research on individual learning approaches (or learning styles) is split in two traditions, one of which is biased towards academic learning, and the other towards learning from direct experience. Aims: In the reported study, the two traditions are linked by investigating the relationships between school-based (academic) and work-based…

Recent approaches to empirical derivation and validation of alcoholic subtypes which involve cluster analysis wihin a single multivariate assessment domain have been questioned. To investigate more clinically meaningful subtypes in a sample of 245 male alcoholics, cluster analysis was performed on a combination of variables from four assessment…

Compares two basic variants of the sorting method: single-sort and multiple sort. The nature of individual differences in sorting, as well as sex differences, were also investigated. Stimulus materials were the 15 mutually exclusive kinship terms selected by Wallace and Atkins (1960). (RC)

The author presents a communications-content domain model to assist educational planners create a graphics communications cluster which can better prepare students for a future of change. The concept of clustering is explored, especially in its applicability to graphics communications. (AJ)

Career education is probably best described as a group of concepts and processes, including career awareness, career exploration, infusion of career-oriented material with traditional educational resources, hands-on involvement, and participation in education by people normally employed in the world of work. Vocational education is simply one…

This report reviews the personnel literature on the development of job families to illustrate and provide examples of varied approaches to the taxonomic issues of objective, content, and method in job family construction. This booklet first examines the definition of job families and then briefly discusses the potential utility of job families.…

This paper reviews a variety of analytic procedures that can be applied to network data, discussing the assumptions and usefulness of each procedure when applied to the complexity of human communication. Special attention is paid to the network properties measured or implied by each procedure. Factor analysis and multidimensional scaling are among…

ONE OF THE PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED IN CLUSTERING TECHNIQUES AS APPLIED TO DOCUMENT RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS USING BIBLIOGRAPHIC COUPLING DEVICES IS THAT THE COMPUTATIONAL EFFORT REQUIRED GROWS ROUGHLY AS THE SQUARE OF THE COLLECTION SIZE. IN THIS STUDY GRAPH THEORY IS APPLIED TO THIS PROBLEM BY FIRST MAPPING THE CITATION GRAPH OF THE DOCUMENT COLLECTION…

The method of organization in free recall in the form of either clustering or subjective organization is explored in this study. This is just one of the possible forms of retrieval that may be employed. Other possibilities include serial recall, alphabetization, and imagery. To the extent that subjects employ such other strategies, correlations…

Communication skills classes must prepare students for living and for earning a living. As the postsecondary technical-vocational schools throughout Wisconsin showed great differences in the content of their communication skills courses, both among schools and within various educational programs, a statewide survey was conducted to determine the…

In some educational research studies--particularly longitudinal studies requiring a probability sample of schools and spanning a wide range of grades--it is desirable to so select the sample that schools at different levels (e.g., elementary and secondary) "correspond." This has often proved unachievable, using standard methods of selecting school…