This book is intended to give animal scientists elementary tools to perform on-farm livestock analysis and to provide crop-oriented farming systems researchers with methods for conducting animal research. Chapter 1 describes farming systems research as a systems approach to on-farm animal research. Chapter 2 outlines some important…

A preliminary study is presented that attempts to define the linguistic needs of minorities in higher education in the State of Massachusetts. In particular, the study focuses on comments and information provided by educators, students, and would-be students, who were interviewed in Spanish and English, in the cities of Lynn, Lawrence, and Lowell,…

Issues that must be addressed in designing procedures for aggregating portfolio data are considered. These issues have profound implications for what is aggregated and how data are collected, combined, and interpreted. Portfolio assessment occurs at the intersection of instruction and assessment; it requires students to collect and reflect on…

Computerized adaptive testing for language teaching and learning takes advantage of two properties of the computer: its number-crunching and multiple-branching capabilities. Adaptive testing has also been called tailored testing because it aims at presenting items that suit the student's competence and that are informative, using an item bank and…

The Netherlands' secondary education system is highly differentiated, with four different school types for four scholastic ability levels. Final examinations must accommodate these four levels, and require a test-independent definition of the intended final ability levels as well as a sample-free evaluation of the range of ability levels at which…

The effectiveness of the Chicago Mastery Learning Reading (CMLR) Program implemented in Ontario's Kettleby Public Schools (KPS) was measured by the students' reading progress and comparisons with the progress of other students in French immersion (FI) and other non-FI programs, including a gifted program. Within six months of CMLR implementation,…

Hypothetical data sets are used to demonstrate how canonical correlation methods subsume other commonly utilized parametric methods. Analysis of variance, analysis of covariance, multiple analysis of variance, and multiple analysis of covariance are heavily used by educational researchers. It is concluded that researchers would do well to consider…

A visual display is introduced that enables one to compare the predictive validities of all possible non-negatively weighted sums of two predictors. This two-predictor validity curve assesses the level of predictability of a criterion from composites of two predictors. Derivations are presented for the general case. For illustrative purposes, the…

Three item response models were evaluated for estimating item parameters and equating test scores. The models, which approximated the traditional three-parameter model, included: (1) the Rasch one-parameter model, operationalized in the BICAL computer program; (2) an approximate three-parameter logistic model based on coarse group data divided…

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of the expectancy-performance relationship for each sex and to determine whether cross-sex comparisons are appropriate. Students' expectancies for academic performance and the relationship of the expectancies to actual grades were examined. Subjects were 331 students (168 women and 163 men)…

This report describes a use study designed to facilitate the selection of books that will be needed and used by identifying heavily used subjects and publishers in an academic library's collection of nursing books. Discussions include the study background and significance, study limitations, and basic assumptions. In addition, the procedures for…

The reliability of item bias estimates was studied for four methods: (1) the transformed delta method; (2) Shepard's modified delta method; (3) Rasch's one-parameter residual analysis; and (4) the Mantel-Haenszel procedure. Bias statistics were computed for each sample using all methods. Data were from administration of multiple-choice items from…

Background information needed to understand the literature on the impact of price on college attendance (i.e. price-response literature) is provided. After briefly introducing price theory and its use in demand studies in higher education, the major expository articles are reviewed, and major analytical methods used by researchers are examined.…

The discovery of disproportionate minority enrollments in special education classes has been a subject of considerable concern to federal, state, and local education officials alike for the past decade. Because the existence of disproportions is frequently thought to result from discriminatory placement practices on the part of local school…

This study was designed to illustrate the use of the Rasch model procedure to equate the Dade County Compensatory Education Skills Test (DCCEST) to the State Student Assessment Test (SSAT) for both mathematics skills and communications skills. The SSAT was a test developed by the Florida State Department of Education to measure students' level of…