This report describes an in-depth analysis of the errors made by users of SOLO, a programming language written for Open University students studying cognitive psychology. The study was designed to (1) determine the effectiveness of SOLO's current error-handling routines by evaluating how often SOLO produced "sensible" messages or…

The nature and extent of corrections made to their records by zero/low income applicants to the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG) program was investigated. Behaviors of zero/low income applicants and the total pool of applicants were also compared. It was found that zero/low income applicants and all applicants who were rejected displayed…

Three statistical problems related to criterion-referenced testing are investigated: estimation of the likelihood of a false-positive or false-negative decision with a mastery test, estimation of true scores in the Compound Binomial Error Model, and comparison of the examinees to a control. Two methods for estimating the likelihood of…

Two studies are presented in this report. The first is titled "Empirical Studies of Multilevel Approaches to Test Development and Interpretation: Measuring Between-Group Differences in Instruction." Because of a belief that schooling does affect student achievement, researchers have questioned the empirical and measurement techniques…

Twenty-two college students in science education were given an adjunctive computer-assisted instruction (CAI) program by means of typewriter consoles and computer-controlled colored slide presentations of critical information. Students were pretested, told how to respond at the student console, taught by the Harvard CAI System, and posttested. The…

This report reviews some ostensibly conflicting empirical findings which have been reported in conjunction with Elkind's (1967) conjecture that Piaget's conservation problems tap two distinct concepts. The discrepant findings which report on the order of emergence of identity conservation and equivalence conservation are discussed. An analysis of…

Four Negro children's (two average and two slow readers) oral reading was taped at eight regular intervals during their second and third year of reading instruction in order to analyze their oral reading miscues and to discover any developmental changes. Retelling of stories read was also taped to measure comprehension. The miscues were analyzed…

In the context of pass/fail decisions, using the Bock multi-nominal latent trait model for moderate-length tests does not produce decisions that differ substantially from those based on the raw scores. The Bock decisions appear to relate less strongly to outside criteria than those based on the raw scores. (Author/JAZ)

A study compared subjective and objective methods of evaluating college students' second-language communicative competence as expressed in their writing. (MSE)

An overall schema of interpretation for programming instructors is given, so that the misconceptions students develop in programming can be determined more readily. Types of language-independent and -dependent bugs, how they can be identified, and how to help students overcome them are addressed. (MNS)

Analyzes the editing behavior of skilled and less skilled writers. Results show that while the more skilled writers almost always corrected more errors than the less skilled, the two groups performed similarly on their own essays where neither corrected many errors at all. (SRT)

A test of logic using implicational and disjunctive sentences was given to Chinese and English speakers. No differences were found on "if-then" sentences, but differences were found on "or" sentences. (MNS)

Reports a study that examined sixth- and 10th-grade students' ability to generate orthographic and phonetic derivatives for three predominant vowel-alternation patterns characteristic of internal derivational morphology. Results support the hypothesis that a productive knowledge of these patterns in orthography precedes a productive knowledge of…

Reports a study that compared the spelling performance of a 17-year-old developmental dysgraphic of normal intelligence to that of an acquired dysgraphic. Findings indicate that both make phonologically valid errors and spell regular words better than irregular words. These performances reflect a phonological routine corresponding to that used by…

Advantages and disadvantages of joint maximum likelihood, marginal maximum likelihood, and Bayesian methods of parameter estimation in item response theory are discussed and compared. (Author)