A standard method for exploring item bias is the intergroup comparison of item difficulties. This paper describes a refinement and generalization of this technique. In contrast to prior approaches, the proposed method deletes outlying items from the formulation of a criterion for identifying items as deviant. It also extends the mathematical…

Learning to communicate is important for today's foreign language student, and it is important to provide meaningful communicative experiences in writing as well as speaking the language. A letter exchange between peers can provide a meaningful and exciting writing experience for lower-level students. While not entirely without problems, arranging…

In most item response theory models a particular mathematical form is assumed for all item characteristic curves, e.g., a logistic function. It could be desirable, however, to estimate the shape of the item characteristic curves without prior restrictive assumptions about its mathematical form. We have developed a practical method of estimating…

A scale was developed and tested to measure metaphoric complexity in order to aid teachers in the selection and sequencing of young adult (YA) novels in the English curriculum. The development and testing of the scale involved two stages: (1) the development of a questionnaire to determine if differences in the metaphoric complexity of examples…

This study assessed the effect of six weeks of sentence-combining activities on the syntactic maturity of first-year university students. The Syntactic Maturity Test (SMT) and a free writing exercise were used as pre/post instruments to determine words-per-T-unit and words-per-clause ratios. Significant results favoring the experimental group were…

Intra- and crossmodal performance of normal and retarded third-grade readers were compared in a reaction-time task. Results suggest that the demands of stimulus complexity within the visual modality rather than the demands of crossmodal shifting were related to reading ability. (Author/ED)

Research supported by a grant form the U.S. Office of Education, Bureau of Research

This study examined a proposed procedure for constructing theoretical descriptions of mechanics problems, in particular, to determine if the procedure led to explicit and correct descriptions of the motion and interaction of systems and if the resulting theoretical descriptions facilitated generation of correct constraint equations and, hence,…

Within aptitude areas (Mechanical, Administrative, General, or Electronic) in the Air Force, some technical schools require higher levels of aptitude for admission than do others (for example, there are G10 schools, G60 schools, and G80 schools based on General test scores in th 10th, 60th, and 80th percentiles respectively). The schools, however,…

Recent investigations have demonstrated that white middle-class preschoolers are sensitive to temporal order, understand that causes precede consequences, and can identify the causes and consequences of events. The present study is an attempt to extend these recent investigations of temporal order understanding to a non-middle-income, non-white…

Effects of item arrangement (easy-hard, uniform, and random), test anxiety, and sex on a 48-item multiple-choice mathematics test assembled from items of the American College Testing Program and taken by motivated upper level undergraduates and beginning graduate students were investigated. Four measures of anxiety were used: the Achievement Test…

One hundred twenty-eight undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions formed by crossing two levels of task difficulty (computationally easy or difficult problems) with two modes of calculation (solving by hand or calculator). When solving problems by hand, there was a large increase in state anxiety between easy and…

This paper assesses the effectiveness of readability indices, standard cloze procedure, and the matching cloze procedure as determinants of the readability of supplementary English materials for elementary ESL students in a Pacific Island context. A review of readability indices and the standard cloze procedure indicated that neither procedure is…

To replace traditional methods of minimum competency testing in personnel selection, a two stage cutting score procedure is proposed. The Angoff procedure is modified so that only a subset of test items, which assess essential job related skills, are used to determine the cutting score and to identify qualifed applicants. As a measure of item…

The learning machine described in this paper acquires concepts representable as conjunctive forms of the predicate calculus and behaviors representable as productions (antecedent-consequent pairs of such conjunctive forms): these concepts and behavior rules are inferred from sequentially presented pairs of examples by an algorithm that is probably…