This paper describes an investigation of the interaction between teaching method and school locality in aligning student environmental beliefs, attitudes and intentions. Data for this study were collected from 236 adolescent upper secondary school students and chemistry teachers in Indonesia who were completing environmental topics from the local…

This paper develops an empirical methodology for the construction of a synthetic multi-dimensional cross-country comparison of the performance of governments around the world in improving the livelihood of their younger population. The devised "Youth Welfare Index" is based on the nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodology and…

Because initial and unexamined reactions to life-changing events or permanent disabilities are often negative, sometimes even debilitating, factors that help create positive change in the affected individuals' lives need to be examined. In the study presented here, the authors examined the relationship between levels of hope and social support in…

The present study investigated the factorial validity and factorial invariance of the 21-item Exercise Dependence Scale-Revised using 162 Swedish and 269 Portuguese exercisers. In addition, the prevalence of exercise dependence symptoms and links to exercise behavior, gender, and age in the two samples was also studied. Confirmatory factor…

The common approach to scaling, according to Christopher Dede, a professor of learning technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is to jump in and say, "Let's go out and find more money, recruit more participants, hire more people. Let's just keep doing the same thing, bigger and bigger." That, he observes, "tends to…

This study investigates the applicability of Holland's career development theory in cross-cultural settings by examining vocational interests of Chinese college students and the relationship between those interests and their career choices. One hundred sixty five Chinese college students complete a Chinese version of the Self-Directed Search and a…

The effects of nonnormally distributed perceived distance between pairs of objects on the accuracy of recovered configurations of traditional multidimensional scaling were studied via simulation methods. Multidimensional scaling is shown to be robust with respect to violations of the assumption of normality. (Author/JKS)

This study examines the baseline change profiles of academic performance (math and English) trajectories during the high school transition for the students who went from middle school to high school. Using multidimensional scaling growth profile analysis, we identified a no-change group plus 4 other groups with different change profile types: 1…

The purpose of this study was to identify and validate items applicable to evaluating online courses at the postsecondary level. Items were derived from a review of the literature. Four judges rated the similarity of the items by making pair-wise comparisons utilizing multidimensional scaling (MDS). The study consisted of five stages. Stage I…

Personal and Professional Development (PPD) is now key to the undergraduate medical curriculum and requires provision of appropriate learning experiences. In order to achieve this, it is essential that we ascertain students' perceptions of what is important in their PPD. We required a methodological approach suitable for a large medical school,…

This study linked nonlinear profile analysis (NPA) of dichotomous responses with an existing family of item response theory models and generalized latent variable models (GLVM). The NPA method offers several benefits over previous internal profile analysis methods: (a) NPA is estimated with maximum likelihood in a GLVM framework rather than…

In this study, psychometric properties of the test of the three-mathematical minds (M3) were investigated. The M3 test was developed based on a multidimensional conception of giftedness to identify mathematically talented students. Participants included 291 middle-school students. Data analysis indicated that the M3 had a 0.73 coefficient as a…

Comments on P. Arabie's article, "Concerning Monte Carlo Evaluations of Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling Algorithms.", Psychometrika, 1973, 38, 607-8. (RC)

A specific Normative Location Theory procedure, called hyperbolic approximation (HAP), is suggested as a possible "new" initial-configuration strategy for multidimensional scaling in the city-block metric. First, the performance of this strategy was investigated using fourteen simulated data sets. Second, the scaling in Euclidean space…

A procedure for ordering object (stimulus) pairs based on individual preference ratings is described. In conjunction with a nonmetric multidimensional scaling procedure, it provides a vehicle for recovering meaningful object configurations. (Author)