Mathematical modeling occupies an unusual space in the undergraduate mathematics curriculum: typically an "advanced" course, it nonetheless has little to do with formal proof, the usual hallmark of advanced mathematics. Mathematics departments are thus forced to decide what role they want the modeling course to play, both as a component of the…

In this study, there is an attempt to teach simple mathematical concepts of fractional numbers to Secondary School students in Technical School who, despite their age, had not previously managed to understand these concepts. At the same time, to further the success of this undertaking, we also examined the emotions generated in the students. The…

This study investigated the role of strategy instruction and working memory capacity (WMC) on word problem solving accuracy in children with (n = 100) and without (n = 92) math difficulties (MD). Within classrooms, children in Grades 2 and 3 were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: verbal-only strategies (e.g., underlining…

Large-scale educational surveys are low-stakes assessments of educational outcomes conducted using nationally representative samples. In these surveys, students do not receive individual scores, and the outcome of the assessment is inconsequential for respondents. The low-stakes nature of these surveys, as well as variations in average performance…

Research in the field of Automated Planning is largely focused on the problem of constructing plans or sequences of actions for going from a specific initial state to a goal state. The complexity of this task makes it desirable to find "generalized" plans which can solve multiple problem instances from a class of similar problems. Most approaches…

Software Cost Estimation (SCE) uses labor hours or effort required to conceptualize, develop, integrate, test, field, or maintain program components. Department of Defense (DoD) SCE can use initial software data parameters to project effort hours for large, software-intensive programs for contractors reporting the top levels of process maturity,…

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) provides a highly efficient alternative to the paper-and-pencil test. By selecting items that match examinees' ability levels, CAT not only can shorten test length and administration time but it can also increase measurement precision and reduce measurement error. In CAT, maximum information (MI) is the most…

Apprentice and trainee data are reported by the State and Territory Training Authorities to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) on a quarterly basis, starting at the September quarter of 1994. The set of data submitted that quarter is referred to as Collection 1. The sets of data submitted in subsequent quarters are…

Due to budgetary concerns, the FDOE restructured the Writing portion of the FCAT assessment program for 2010. Among the changes was a difference in how the writing essays were scored. In the past, two people independently judged each essay and each assigned a score from 1 to 6. In the event of a disagreement between judges, the average of the…

This succinct and jargon-free introduction to effect sizes gives students and researchers the tools they need to interpret the practical significance of their results. Using a class-tested approach that includes numerous examples and step-by-step exercises, it introduces and explains three of the most important issues relating to the practical…

Students sometimes have difficulty calculating the result of a voting system applied to a particular set of voter preference lists. Saari triangles offer a way to visualize the result of an election and make this calculation easier in the case of several important voting systems.

Based on a photograph, the density of a watermelon floating in a pail of water is estimated with different levels of simplification--with and without consideration of refraction and three-dimensional effects. The watermelon was approximated as a sphere. The results of the theoretical estimations were verified experimentally. (Contains 6 figures.)

DIMTEST is a widely used and studied method for testing the hypothesis of test unidimensionality as represented by local item independence. However, DIMTEST does not report the amount of multidimensionality that exists in data when rejecting its null. To provide more information regarding the degree to which data depart from unidimensionality, a…

Modern Hindu-Arabic numeration is the end result of a long period of evolution, and is clearly superior to any system that has gone before, but is it optimal? We compare it to a hypothetical base 5 system, which we dub Predator arithmetic, and judge which of the two systems is superior from a mathematics education point of view. We find that…

State-space modeling techniques have been compared to structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques in various contexts but their unique strengths have often been overshadowed by their similarities to SEM. In this article, we provide a comprehensive discussion of these 2 approaches' similarities and differences through analytic comparisons and…