Most institutions of higher education allow students to drop or add courses in the first 2-3 weeks of each term (D&A). Arguing that course cancellation is not merely an administrative issue involving enrollment trends but represents complex decision making processes taken by students, this study investigated antecedents and correlates of course…

Schools are implementing new and effective strategies in an effort to graduate 90 percent of students and to ensure that graduates are prepared to succeed in college, advanced training and work. This newsletter describes how schools have redesigned their schedules, organizational structures and cultures in an effort to graduate 90 percent of…

At the conclusion of their study on home pregnancy test kits, Valinas and Perlman (1982) suggested that the instructions accompanying the kits be revised to make them easier to read. A study was undertaken to determine the readability of the printed instructions accompanying five home pregnancy test kits (Daisy II, Answer, Acu-Test, Predictor, and…

In this study, the number of alternatives for an extended arm swing was varied in order to test two memory drum predictions regarding movement refractoriness. (JS)

This study investigated the relationship between task difficulty and ability level as a factor in producing imitative behavior in infants. A total of 28 toddlers, ranging in age from 14 to 28 months, participated in the study. (Author/JMB)

This paper compares two methods of estimating component difficulties for dichotomous test data. Simulated data are used to study the effects of sample size, collinearity, a measurement disturbance, and multidimensionality on the estimation of component difficulties. (RB)

This study was made to determine the effects of stride length variations on ratings of perceived exertion in experienced recreational runners. Results are presented. (Author/MT)

Easy and difficult tasks were presented to three year olds and their responses of shame and pride were observed. Subjects showed more shame when they failed easy tasks than difficult tasks, and more pride when they succeeded on difficult tasks than easy tasks. Girls showed more shame than boys. (BC)

Have you ever sat through an observation and wondered what in the world you could do to improve the instruction taking place? I have. Sometimes it's because the teacher is so polished that I have difficulty identifying any shortcomings. But sometimes it's because there are so many things wrong with the lesson that I have no idea where I should…

The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the advantages of adopting an external focus would be seen primarily for relatively challenging (postural stability) tasks but not less demanding tasks. To examine this, the authors used balance tasks that imposed increased challenges to maintaining stability. The present results support the…

Content balancing is an important issue in the design and implementation of computerized adaptive testing (CAT). Content-balancing techniques that have been applied in fixed content balancing, where the number of items from each content area is fixed, include constrained CAT (CCAT), the modified multinomial model (MMM), modified constrained CAT…

The influence of social and information-processing demands on eye-gaze avoidance in individuals with fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, or typical development were examined by manipulating those demands in a structured-language task. Participants with fragile X syndrome exhibited more gaze avoidance than did those in the comparison groups, but no…

This study examined college students' awareness of difficulties in learning class content and selection of study strategies to address the perceived challenges. Data consisted of responses by 94 students to two survey questions on 11 weekly monitoring worksheets. Data analyses, using the constant comparative method and Chi-Square tests, revealed…