The study summarized in this paper explored policies for improving open online content development projects with respect to growing the development community and improving the quantity and quality of materials developed. The study made use of dynamic feedback simulation and interviews with the members of an established content development…

Virtual teaming has come to stay in the fast developing world of communication as it brings more value to customers, saves costs, accelerates competence, and leverages organizational learning. Therefore, students need to be educated about this new type of team and the tools that are available to facilitate communication and to enhance…

This study investigated the efficiency of item selection in a computerized adaptive test (CAT), where efficiency was defined in terms of the accumulated test information at an examinee's true ability level. A simulation methodology compared the efficiency of 2 item selection procedures with 5 ability estimation procedures for CATs of 5, 10, 15,…

All evening on election night 2000, candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore were deadlocked in the tightest-ever race for the office of President of the United States. As the numbers were reported from each state, the battle for votes in the electoral college swung back and forth from Republicans to Democrats. The next morning, the issue was still…

Since the end of the Cold War, and more recently since September 11, 2001, relations between the United States and Russia have reached new levels of cooperation and accommodation. At the same time, many important developments in Russia remain cloaked by government intrigue or obscured by the complexity of Russia's political and cultural past. This…

Many measures found in educational research are ordered categorical response variables that are empirical realizations of an underlying normally distributed variate. These ordered categorical variables are commonly referred to as Likert or rating scale data. Regression models are commonly fit using these ordered categorical variables as the…

Differential item functioning (DIF) analyses are conducted to investigate how items function in various subgroups. The Mantel-Haenszel (MH) DIF statistic is used at the Law School Admission Council and other testing companies. When item functioning can be well-described in terms of a one- or two-parameter logistic item response theory (IRT) model…

Maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimates of proficiency, typically used in adaptive testing, use item weights that depend on test taker proficiency to estimate test taker proficiency. In this study, several methods were explored through computer simulation using fixed item weights, which depend mainly on the items difficulty. The simpler scores…

Many imputation techniques and imputation software packages have been developed over the years to deal with missing data. Different methods may work well under different circumstances, and it is advisable to conduct a sensitivity analysis when choosing an imputation method for a particular survey. This study reviewed about 30 imputation methods…

This study investigated changes in students' cognitive reasoning as they analyzed the dynamics of a rainforest ecosystem (El Yunque) in the aftermath of a hurricane in Puerto Rico. Students explore the virtual rainforest to study what happened to a type of frog after the hurricane. The culminating event is a simulation in which students manipulate…

This study explored the mental components that are most important for successful problem solving. Four components were studied: cognition, metacognition, noncognitive variables, and justification skills. It was hypothesized that cognition and knowledge of cognition would predict success at solving well-structured problems, which have one correct…

A two-stage design provides a way of roughly adapting item difficulty to test-taker ability. All test takers take a parallel stage-one test, and based on their scores, they are routed to tests of different difficulty levels in the second stage. This design provides some of the benefits of standard computer adaptive testing (CAT), such as increased…

A model for constrained computerized adaptive testing is proposed in which the information on the test at the ability estimate is maximized subject to a large variety of possible constraints on the contents of the test. At each item-selection step, a full test is first assembled to have maximum information at the current ability estimate fixing…

Connectionist models apply various mathematical rules within neural network computer simulations in an effort, among other things, to mimic and describe human memory associations and learning. Learning involves the interaction of information provided by instruction with existing information already in the learner's memory (Ausubel, 1968; Bruner,…

As museums and educators struggle with the challenges of presenting their material in a digital format, many overlook the application that has spearheaded the development of virtual reality for the average consumer: 3D realtime game engines. These 3D game engines offer greater versatility, usability, maturity, simulation, and codebase than most…