This paper has two purposes: (1) to examine whether Puerto Ricans, non-Puerto Rican Hispanics, and Blacks suffer substantial wage discrimination relative to comparable Whites; and (2) to examine the extent to which employers in the Federal and non-Federal sectors discriminate by race or ethnicity in making wage offers. After a discussion of…

The standardization method of determining differential item functioning (DIF) is not acceptable for detecting biased items because of its methodological limitations. The main problems with the standardization index by N. J. Dorans and E. Kulick (1983) are: (1) it does not detect as DIF all items with large or aberrant group differences; (2) it…

Factors affecting the motivation of high school students to learn to use computers were examined in this study. The subjects were 160 students enrolled in a large city high school, 89 females and 71 males who represented five ethnic groups--White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian. The majority of subjects had prior computer coursework…

A research design, decision support system, and results of a comparative analysis of enrollment and financial strength (of private institutions granting masters and doctoral degrees) are presented. Cluster analysis, discriminant analysis, multiple regression, and an interactive decision support system are used to compare the enrollment and…

Instructional leadership studies are plentiful but have many shortcomings, including lack of definition of key variables, problems of causality, overrepresentation of exemplary schools, and lack of validity and reliability in research design and implementation. Definitions of "leadership" and "instruction" are needed. There is…

Approximately 1200 Danish school children aged 8, 11, and 14 participated in a questionnaire study under the caption, "Why I like to read." Data from Denmark formed part of an international study, in which 12 other countries used the same questionnaire to explore various functions of reading and to compare them over different countries.…

The cultural bias of the Adult Performance Level Assessment, Form AA-l (APLA) was examined. The potential influence of cultural differences on scores of a major ethnic group, Acadians or Cajuns, was investigated. Assessment items most prone to produce differences in scores were isolated and administered to selected groups. No significant…

Two studies are reviewed to determine their relevance to proposed legislation (H.R. 2620) concerning athletic scholarships. The review was conducted at the request of U.S. Representative James J. Howard who proposed the bill. H.R. 2620 would require colleges to graduate at least 75% of their scholarship athletes within 5 years in order for…

This study examined the difficulty level of essay topics used in the large-scale assessment of writing in relation to five different scoring models, and sought to determine what effects the scoring models would have on passing rates. In model one, examinee's score is the direct result of a score assigned by the reader or the sum of scores assigned…

A set of weighting factors on student credit hour production by discipline was developed so that instructional productivity could be equitably compared across disparate disciplines and within disciplines. The new statistical methodology was applied to 3 years of teaching load data from 21 major public universities (the Southern University Group…

This book, second in a series dealing with scientific programing in the BASIC language, provides students, engineers, and scientists with a documented library of subroutines for scientific applications. Subjects of the eight chapters include: (1) least-squares approximation of functions and smoothing of data; (2) approximating functions by series…

A case study of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination (FTCE) program was described to assist others launching the development of large scale item banks. FTCE has four subtests: Mathematics, Reading, Writing, and Professional Education. Rasch calibrated item banks have been developed for all subtests except Writing. The methods used to…

This paper examines the grading policies and practices of about 300 teachers from seven high schools in the San Francisco Bay area. Three questions are addressed: (1) Who or what determines grading policies? (2) How do teachers actually calculate grades, that is, what kinds of performances factors are taken into account by teachers? (3) How do…

A manual on sampling is presented to assist audit and program reviewers, project officers, managers, and program specialists of the U.S. Office of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA). For each of the following types of samples, definitions and examples are provided, along with information on advantages and disadvantages: simple random sampling,…

Efficient methods of using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data files are discussed. One error in the NAEP SPSS file is discussed, and another error (which may be system-dependent) is mentioned. In addition, purely mathematical methods are used to address the…