In contrast to multiple choice, alternative modes of assessment afford varying degrees of openness in the allowable responses. Prominent among the alternatives is the assessment of performance, sometimes in its own right where the issue is the quality of the particular performance per se, but more often as a vehicle for the assessment of…

A conceptual framework is presented for studying the processes of metacognitive regulation involved in complex learning activities such as text composition. A method is demonstrated for analyzing text transformations as a means of making inferences about underlying processes of regulation. Data are from a study of four female sixth graders in…

This paper discusses argumentation and how instruction may facilitate an individual's skill in argumentation. The paper contends that argumentation, defined as the generation and evaluation of arguments is a fundamental tool of reasoning and that skill in argumentation is therefore basic to a person's ability to reason. The paper is divided into…

Concepts in cognitive psychology are applied to the language used in military situations, and a sentence classification system for use in analyzing military language is outlined. The system is designed to be used, in part, in conjunction with a natural language query system that allows a user to access a database. The discussion of military…

Content analysis was performed on the top six core journals for 1990 in library and information science to determine the extent of research in the field. Articles (n=186) were examined for descriptive or inferential statistics and separately for the presence of mathematical models. Results show a marked (14%) increase in research for 1990,…

P. O. Johnson and J. Neyman (1936) proposed a general linear hypothesis testing procedure for testing the null hypothesis of no treatment difference in the presence of some covariates. This is generally known as the Johnson-Neyman (JN) technique. The need for the hypothesis testing step (often omitted) as originally presented and the…

The literature on validity provides much more guidance on how to collect various kinds of validity evidence than it does on which kinds of evidence to collect in specific cases. An argument-based approach to validation redresses the balance by linking the kinds of evidence needed to validate a test-score interpretation to the details of the…

"Six Steps of Argument Analysis" is a model for a critical thinking class which illustrates where and how the teacher can break off from the well-ordered sequence of critical thinking skills in order to provide occasions for each student to realize where he or she is making a judgment. Through use of this model the teacher can encourage…

Sixty-eight undergraduate college students served as subjects in a study that examined the effects of reader-generated map-like representations (spatial organizers) on subjects' delayed recall of a narrative. Of interest were the possible interactions between individual difference measures (verbal and spatial ability) and map generation on…

To study the relationship between inferences made on standardized reading tests and item difficulty, 50 items on the reading comprehension section of the Metropolitan Achievement Test were analyzed independently in this study by two raters using four general categories of inferences: (1) reference inferences, (2) between proposition inferences,…

A total of 70 college students who had a wide range of coursework in physics or music theory read expositions in both domains in a study to determine the relationship between readers' self-assessments of confidence in comprehension (strength of belief) and performance on a test of comprehension. After reading each text, students provided a…

Consistent with the philosophy that reading is an integral aspect of the total curriculum, the objectives listed in this handbook (developed by the Utah State Office of Education as part of a total course of reading study) are related to four dimensions of reading comprehension: literal, inferential, critical, and creative. For each of the listed…

Rated speech phrasality scores of 40 deaf students (ages 4-17) were correlated to their reading comprehension scores according to four oral word groupings: whole sentences, phrases, nonmeaningful fragmented word groups, and single words. Among results was phrasal speaker superiority in comprehending phrased material in response to factual (not…

Describes technological images presented to children through television, movies, and science fiction, and explores the possible effects of these images on meanings derived by young readers. The use of speculative fiction to explore personal and social values is discussed. (Five references) (CLB)

Concludes that a cloze strategy, which induced students to integrate text information with prior knowledge, yielded superior gains in comprehension compared to treatments that did not include the strategy. (FL)