Background: This study seeks to identify the cornerstones of personal bests (PBs) in the educational setting. Aims: The study proposes a multidimensional PB model in which students are most likely to attain PBs on tasks/goals that are (1) specific, (2) challenging, (3) competitively self-referenced, and (4) self-improvement based. Sample: The…

Social support from intimate and confiding relationships has received a great deal of attention; however, the study of the community as a relevant source of support has been comparatively lacking. In this article, we present a multidimensional measure of community support (Perceived Community Support Questionnaire, PCSQ). Through exploratory and…

Multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis were used to describe and categorize tasks from six graduate disciplines including academic psychology, applied psychology, English literature, journalism, physics, and electrical engineering. A sample of task descriptions was constructed through interviews with four or five graduate students from each…

The concept of a user-specified validity sector is discussed. The idea of the validity sector combines the work of M. D. Reckase (1986) and R. Shealy and W. Stout (1991). Reckase developed a methodology to represent an item in a multidimensional latent space as a vector. Item vectors are computed using multidimensional item response theory item…

Relations among students' cognitive structures, instruction, and course achievement were studied for 102 undergraduates in three courses. An aim of the study was to integrate expert-novice research with investigations of cognitive-structure change. Experienced instructors identified concepts central to the different courses. Students were asked to…

Factor analyses of student evaluations of teaching effectiveness were conducted for 24,158 courses at the University of Southern California and for each of 21 different subgroups derived from the total group. All classes evaluated by six or more students were included in the study. The subgroups were designed to differ in terms of instructor level…

In item response theory (IRT), preequating depends upon item parameter estimate invariance. Three separate simulations, all using the unidimensional three-parameter logistic item response model, were conducted to study the impact of the following variables on preequating: (1) mean differences in ability; (2) multidimensionality in the data; and…

Order Analysis is a multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique for determining order among items. This paper reviews articles by different authors describing various components of ordering theory. A common nomenclature is constructed to link together the various ideas and is applied to a fairly simple set of data. Topics discussed include a more…

This research compares the Snyder (1974) and Lennox and Wolfe (1982) self-monitoring scales. The data indicate that the Snyder scale is multidimensional. The factors of the Snyder scale correlate dissimilarly with important characteristics of self-monitors. Only the other-directedness factor is significantly related to behavioral cross situational…

A sociometric survey examined the informal faculty development network existing within the School of Nursing at East Tennessee State University. During the fall 1983 semester, all 25 nursing faculty members at the school were asked to complete a self-report instrument dealing with patterns of seeking and providing advice regarding their role as a…

Many multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models have been proposed. A comparison is made between the so-called full information models and the models that use only pairwise information. Three multidimensional models described are: (1) the compensatory model of R. D. Bock and M. Aitken (1981) using the computer program TESTFACT; (2) a model…

Arguing that relevance judgments are fundamental to the design and evaluation of all information retrieval systems, and that a consensus on the definition of the central concept of relevance has not been reached, this paper begins by critically reviewing four approaches to the problem of defining relevance: (1) the system-oriented approach…

In 1976, the Association of American Medical Colleges developed a map-like model to describe the global picture of the U.S. medical school similarities with respect to two loosely defined concepts: an institutional emphasis on research and an emphasis on clinical and graduate medical training. This study is an attempt to replicate the results of…

This paper examines the current state of voir dire procedures (the process in which prospective jurors are questioned about possible prejudgment or bias) used to detect racial attitudes in court cases involving black defendants and compares voir dire questions allowed and disallowed by the court. Data based upon an assessment of racial attitudes…

One of the major assumptions of latent trait theory is that the items in a test measure a single dimension. This report describes an investigation of procedures for forming a set of items that meet this assumption. Factor analysis, nonmetric multidimensional scaling, cluster analysis and latent trait analysis were applied to simulated and real…