Highlights the types of inferences four students in grades 2-5 drew while constructing meaning from expository passages. Includes an analysis of their think alouds and recommendations for comprehension instruction. Explores what factors contribute to successful inferencing. Sheds new light on the range of strategies elementary grade students use…

Two studies showed preschoolers have little knowledge and awareness of inner speech. Study 1 showed that, compared to 6- to 7-year olds and adults, 4-year olds usually did not infer that persons silently engaged in verbal mental activities were saying things to themselves. Study 2 demonstrated that 4- and 5-year olds are much poorer than adults at…

Conditions under which interaction effects estimated from classical total scores, rather than item response theory trait scores, can be misleading are discussed with reference to analysis of variance (ANOVA). When no interaction effects exist on the true latent variable, spurious interaction effects can be observed from the total score scale. (SLD)

Five experiments examined whether young children believe a lie tellers' implausible statement about a misdeed when the statement violates their developing knowledge of the reality- fantasy distinction. Findings suggested that 5- and 6-year-olds tended to report that the individual making the implausible statement actually committed the misdeed; 3-…

Discusses some key statistical concepts in probabilistic and non-probabilistic sampling to provide an overview for understanding the inference process. Suggests a statistical model constituting the basis of statistical inference and provides a brief review of the finite population descriptive inference and a quota sampling inferential theory.…

Discusses concept learning research and theory, and examines the relationship with models of instructional design. Topics discussed include how concepts are learned; how concepts are measured; instructional design for concept learning; inferences; teaching with analogies; use of learning strategies; and new strategies for classification…

A 2-facet measurement model is identified, and its coefficient of generalizability (CG) is examined. Three other multifaceted measurement models and their CGs are identified. An empirical investigation of all four procedures is conducted using data from a study of the psychopathology of 71 prison inmates. (SLD)

Investigates the relationship between employee perceptions of communication behaviors and satisfaction with communication that occurred during a performance appraisal interview. Finds that perceptions of understanding and the quality of communication are significant predictors of satisfaction with communication during the appraisal interview. (KEH)

Data from 6-, 8-, and 11-year-old children revealed that the tendency to make personalized inferences of appraisals was more clearly associated with sociometric status than with cognitive capacity measures. Findings provide clues to the development of children's reasoning about emotions. (RH)

Describes a recursive transition network model that analyzes and represents a story as a causal network of categorized clauses and labeled relations. Reports on two experiments using procedural criteria to identify inferences and the assumptions that inferences operate over distances in the text and are transitive, resulting in a network…

This article discusses the uses of production function models and describes the role of inferential statistics for making predictions in school finance. Specifically, the analysis evaluates types, suggests uses, explains the advantages and disadvantages, and lists the statistical complexities of production functions. (JAM)

Four-year-olds' and adults' inferences based on shared conceptual properties, category labels, and perceptual information were assessed in four experiments. Stimuli included novel and familiar animals. Found that children made attribute-based inductions as well as category-based inductions, and that perceptual similarity consistently influenced…

Discusses the use of natural language captions versus content analysis for retrieving multimedia data such as pictures. Topics addressed include using caption syntax; additional inferences from captions; supercaptions; integrating content analysis; and results of experiments on an expert system with pictures. (Contains 11 references.) (LRW)

Describes a system based on a probabilistic inference network retrieval model that was used to study the retrieval effectiveness benefits of combining types of document and query information that are found in typical commercial databases and information services. Multiple document representations, multiple index representations, and multiple query…

Reports five experiments that challenge the view that young children's understanding of race is based primarily on superficial differences in appearance. Found that young children's inferences about human racial variation involved domain-specific reasoning that parallelled, but were distinct from, common sense understanding of naive biology. (DR)