The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) uses item response theory (IRT) based scaling methods to summarize information in complex data sets. The necessity of global scores or more detailed subscores, creation of developmental scales for different ages, and use of scale anchoring for scale interpretation are discussed. (SLD)

Assessed infant temperament at 2 days and 5 months of age, attachment to mother at 14 months, and behavioral inhibition at 24 months. Distress at pacifier withdrawal at two days was related to insecure attachment. Reactivity to frustration and novelty at five months was related to high vagal tone. Attachment classification was related to inhibited…

Measurement scales developed using Thurstone and item-response theory (IRT) methods of scaling achievement tests for the same single-level data were compared for approximately 4,000 high school students taking the Iowa Tests of Educational Development in 1975. Results of both approaches indicate that variability increases as grade level increases.…

The PARallELogram Analysis (PARELLA) model is a probabilistic parallelogram model that can be used for the measurement of latent attitudes or latent preferences. A method is presented for testing for differential item functioning (DIF) for the PARELLA model using the approach of D. Thissen and others (1988). (SLD)

Begun in 1977, British efforts toward school improvement through monitoring and accountability have failed, partly because of the failure of school self-evaluation and teacher resistance to monitoring and concern about professional autonomy. However, inspectors, researchers, and teachers have increased our understanding of school effectiveness.…

Pedagogical changes proposed in Scotland's Primary Memorandum of 1965 were not widely implemented because they were incompatible with the enveloping social structure and impeded transmission of the prevailing cognitive style. A macrosociological methodology committed to "structural perception" is proposed for analysis of teacher…

Reports on experiments to determine effects of overt speech on children's use of inner speech in short-term memory. Word length and phonemic similarity had greater effects on older children and when pictures were labeled at presentation. Suggests that speaking or listening to speech activates an internal articulatory loop. (Author/GH)

Uses reading responses of a ninth grade class and a teachers' study group to examine the social memberships and constituencies that reading and discussion disclose through the response process. Maintains that teachers should base reading lists on an understanding of their own and students' memberships rather than on some abstract notion of…

An extension is proposed for the network algorithm introduced by C.R. Mehta and N.R. Patel to construct exact tail probabilities for testing the general hypothesis that item responses are distributed according to the Rasch model. A simulation study indicates the efficiency of the algorithm. (SLD)

A test theory using only ordinal assumptions is presented, based on the idea that the test items are a sample from a universe of items. The sum across items of the ordinal relations for a pair of persons on the universe items is analogous to a true score. (SLD)

A study found that differences in children's ability to regulate their emotional responses, and in their social and cognitive development, are implicated in developmental differences in children's strategies for influencing others' mood states. (BB)

Analysis of mealtime conversations of 37 families revealed qualitative differences in mothers' use of internal state words to children with Down's syndrome, compared to speech to nondisabled children matched for adaptive functioning. Results suggest that speech to Down's syndrome children calibrated to mean length of utterance may underestimate…

Fifth- and sixth-grade students without disabilities and with mild learning disabilities and seventh- and eighth-grade students with more severe disabilities participated in an instructional program about the concept of themes in stories. The program improved comprehension of theme and identification of a specific theme that had been used in…

Quantitative data based on an analysis of an in-depth survey of 247 basic second-language (English-as-a-Second-Language and foreign language) writers' responses to feedback conventions used by their composition instructors are presented. The findings provide insight into teacher behaviors that function positively and negatively as apprentice…

The use of cinema in a French literature class can help students become more aware of their role as receivers in the reading process. "Le retour de Martin Guerre" and "Entre Nous" helped develop students' awareness of gender's importance in a variety of literary texts. (16 references) (LB)