This research follows up a study conducted in 1998 by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to investigate teachers' and students' views on the factors affecting students' choices of whether or not to apply to Oxford and Cambridge universities. It identifies what has changed since 1998 and areas in which the universities could…

Our research question was whether we could develop a feasible technique, using Bayesian networks, to diagnose gaps in student knowledge. Thirty-four college-age participants completed tasks designed to measure conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and problem-solving skills related to circuit analysis. A Bayesian network was used to model…

Using oral survey methods, this study examined potential language maintenance or loss of Mayan languages among the Guatemalan-Maya communities of Southeast Florida. Among dislocated immigrants and their children, the language of the dominant socio-economic forces often displaces other languages (Fishman, 1967). A Guatemalan community in Los…

Explains a new way of viewing Bayes' formula. Discusses the revision factor and its interpretation. (YP)

Included are probability models for various strategies that contestants on the television game show, "Let's-Make-a-Deal," might use when given the option to stick with their original choice of three unopened doors or switch to the unopened door after one of the other two doors has been opened. (JJK)

Illustrates some applications of elementary probability and statistics to epidemiology, the branch of medical science that attempts to discover associations between events, patterns, and the cause of disease in human populations. Uses real-life examples involving cancer's link to smoking and the AIDS virus. (MDH)

Explores the potential utility of Bayesian statistical methods in determining the predictability of multiple polls. Compares Bayesian techniques to the classical statistical method employed by pollsters. Considers these questions in the context of the 1992 presidential elections. (HB)

Presents two statistical topics and examples of their use in natural resource monitoring. The first topic deals with use of correlated observations in calculations of variance estimates for a regional mean, required sample size determination, and confidence intervals. The second topic concerns the use of Bayesian techniques in hypothesis testing.…

As states continue to develop school-to-work programs following the federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA), a critical question regards the causal effects of school-to-work programs in achieving their goals. Rather than relying on published studies that would appear only with long lags, and which would be unlikely to focus on particular…

Background: The impact of speech therapists' conceptual frameworks on their clinical methods tends to be ignored or taken for granted by today's practitioners. One way to show the importance of such frameworks is to study how they were used previously. John Thelwall, a 19th-century elocutionist, offers a rich source for studying the influence of…

Two procedures were developed to determine whether examinees in a given test center were affected by a testing irregularity on the Listening Comprehension section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). One approach employed analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) on Listening Comprehension (Section 1) means using scores on Structure and…

Hierarchical Bayes procedures were compared for estimating item and ability parameters in item response theory. Simulated data sets from the two-parameter logistic model were analyzed using three different hierarchical Bayes procedures: (1) the joint Bayesian with known hyperparameters (JB1); (2) the joint Bayesian with information hyperpriors…

Diagnostic score reports linking assessment outcomes to instructional interventions are one of the most requested features of assessment products. There is a body of interesting work done in the last 20 years including Tatsuoka's rule space method (Tatsuoka, 1983), Haertal and Wiley's binary skills model (Haertal, 1984; Haertal & Wiley, 1993),…

SCORIGHT is a very general computer program for scoring tests. It models tests that are made up of dichotomously or polytomously rated items or any kind of combination of the two through the use of a generalized item response theory (IRT) formulation. The items can be presented independently or grouped into clumps of allied items (testlets) or in…

Large-scale educational assessments such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) sample examinees to whom an exam will be administered. In most situations the sampling design is not a simple random sample and must be accounted for in the estimating model. After reviewing the current operational estimation procedure for NAEP, this…