The paper aims at elaborating a strategy regarding students' admission at the colleges of technology in the western region of Saudi Arabia. Purposely, the study surveys the opinion of the students attending the Jeddah College of Technology (J.C.T) and reports on seven socio-economic factors, specifically, the "J.C.T. evaluation system,"…

We apply collaborative filtering (CF) to dichotomously scored student response data (right, wrong, or no interaction), finding optimal parameters for each student and item based on cross-validated prediction accuracy. The approach is naturally suited to comparing different models, both unidimensional and multidimensional in ability, including a…

This study examined the evolution of student responses to seven contextually different versions of two Force Concept Inventory questions in an introductory physics course at the University of Arkansas. The consistency in answering the closely related questions evolved little over the seven-question exam. A model for the state of student knowledge…

Understanding what children know is paramount to planning effective science instruction; however, in any classroom, the students hold a variety of ideas. Representing these differences in ways that also acknowledge the common trends among students might facilitate the process of differentiation. To exemplify one such possible process of…

Sampling tasks and sampling distributions provide a fertile realm for investigating students' conceptions of variability. A project-designed teaching episode on samples and sampling distributions was team-taught in 6 research classrooms (2 middle school and 4 high school) by the investigators and regular classroom mathematics teachers. Data…

The purpose of this study is to apply the attribute hierarchy method in an operational diagnostic mathematics program at Grades 3 and 6 to promote cognitive inferences about students' problem-solving skills. The attribute hierarchy method is a psychometric procedure for classifying examinees' test item responses into a set of structured attribute…

The purpose of this study is to describe how the attribute hierarchy method (AHM) can be used to evaluate differential group performance at the cognitive attribute level. The AHM is a psychometric method for classifying examinees' test item responses into a set of attribute-mastery patterns associated with different components in a cognitive model…

It is important to use rich problem-solving tasks to develop students' understanding of important mathematical ideas (NCTM 2000). Rich tasks are complex, nonalgorithmic, and nonroutine, requiring reasoning, problem solving, and communication of thinking. Evidence has shown that using rich tasks in student-centered classrooms is especially…

In building intelligent tutoring systems, it is critical to be able to understand and diagnose student responses in interactive problem solving. However, building this understanding into a computer-based intelligent tutor is a time-intensive process usually conducted by subject experts. Much of this time is spent in building production rules that…

In this study, the author examined the relationship of probability misconceptions to algebra, geometry, and rational number misconceptions and investigated the potential of probability instruction as an intervention to address misconceptions in all 4 content areas. Through a review of literature, 5 fundamental concepts were identified that, if…

Background: Through classroom preparation and exposure to past papers, textbooks and practice tests students develop expectations about examinations: what will be asked, how it will be asked and how they will be judged. Expectations are also involved in the automatic process of understanding questions. Where a question and a student's expectations…

This report presents results of the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics at grades 4 and 8. The results from the 2009 assessment presented in this report are compared to those from previous years, showing how students' performance in mathematics has progressed over time. Results for students in the nation, the 50…