Confluence theory was developed to explain the negative effects of birth order on intelligence. Using aggregate, between-family, within-family, and paired-sibling data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, tests the mathematical form of confluence theory and finds no support for it. Suggests that statistical methods used to fit the model to the…

An activity designed as an introduction to High School geometry empowering students to see relationships and make geometric connections. A list of student generated relationships based on student constructed and manipulated diagrams is included. Discussion guidelines are suggested. (DE)

Presents an activity for introducing probability by investigating the Chinese policy of having one child per family and a one-son policy of some rural Chinese. Discusses features of the problem, including counterintuitiveness, multiple options for analysis, and thought experiments. (MKR)

Discusses an activity which models the building of a tunnel by ants using the definitions of derivative and indefinite integral from calculus. Includes a discussion of reasonableness and interpretation of the problem. (MKR)

A detailed investigation is provided of Stout's statistical procedure (the computer program DIMTEST) for testing the hypothesis that an essentially unidimensional latent trait model fits observed binary item response data from a psychological test. Three refinements achieve greater power. The revised approach is validated using real data sets.…

Builds a model explaining the behavior of the supply and demand for education at U.S. liberal arts colleges. A statistical analysis of 1990-91 data for 338 private liberal arts institutions suggests a perfectly competitive market. Student quantity, costs, test scores, class size, and college rankings help explain tuition variations. Contains 27…

Estimates a fixed-effects model of pay determination for five Ph.D.-granting departments of economics in large midwestern state universities. Departments' reward structures vary widely. Second sabbatical leaves are associated with higher pay. In estimating rewards for research, returns to quality overwhelm returns to quantity at four universities.…

This special issue was inspired by Greg Duncan and Saul Hoffman's 1981 article on the "incidence and wage effects of overeducation." These researchers used a Mincer earnings equation to determine that a substantial number of American workers were over- or under-educated for their chosen occupations. (MLH)

Describes the construction of an exponential decay graph that can be used in a science class to support discussions about the uses of radioactivity, its risks, limitations, and advantages. (WRM)

A major cause of the difficulty undergraduate mathematics majors have with the transition from elementary to advanced mathematics courses is that advanced courses require students to understand how mathematics is created. Describes a course whose main purpose is to introduce students to the creative process in mathematics. The course consists of…

Explores whether state policies encouraging the consolidation of rural school districts to improve efficiency through economies of scale are substantiated in the research literature. Reviews three decades of research on education economies of scale involving cost and production-function studies. Finds little program-evaluation research on school…

Computes rates of return to education in Singapore for 1980-1994, using the cost-benefit approach. Rates of return varied with education level. Although remaining higher than return rates for secondary education, those for tertiary education were declining. Polytechnic education enjoys the highest social/private return rates. (Contains 40…

Some aspects of biology, for example the Hardy-Weinberg simulation of population genetics or modelling heat flow in lizards, have an undeniable mathematical basis. Students can find the level of mathematical skill required to deal with such concepts to be an insurmountable hurdle to understanding. If not used effectively, spreadsheet models…

This article discusses issues in measuring lexical diversity, before outlining an approach based on mathematical modelling that produces a measure, D, designed to address these problems. The procedure for obtaining values for D directly from transcripts using software (vocd) is introduced, and then applied to thirty-two children from the Bristol…

The mechanisms of perceptual learning are analyzed theoretically, probed in an orientation-discrimination experiment involving a novel nonstationary context manipulation, and instantiated in a detailed computational model. Two hypotheses are examined: modification of early cortical representations versus task-specific selective reweighting.…