Research on spatial navigation is essential to understanding how mobile species adapt to their environments. Such research increasingly uses virtual environments (VEs) because, although VE has drawbacks, it allows for standardization of procedures, precision in measuring behaviors, ease in introducing variation, and cross-investigator…

A method for medical screening is adapted to differential item functioning (DIF). Its essential elements are explicit declarations of the level of DIF that is acceptable and of the loss function that quantifies the consequences of the two kinds of inappropriate classification of an item. Instead of a single level and a single function, sets of…

Discusses the need for educational change and ways to achieve it. Topics include problems with testing, the importance of learning by doing, the lack of Internet's educational value, and the possibilities of using computer software to create real-life simulations for students to learn by doing and to design new curricula. (LRW)

Advances have been made in testing optometrists' clinical skills, particularly with the use of simulation techniques. Further research into these techniques will probably receive the most attention, although a shift in research emphasis from correlational studies of test validity and reliability to test development studies is needed. (MSE)