Though ubiquitous, Likert scaling's traditional mode of analysis is often unable to uncover all of the valid information in a data set. Here, the authors discuss a solution to this problem based on methodology developed by quantum physicists: the state multipole method. The authors demonstrate the relative ease and value of this method by…

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is often conducted with ordinal data (e.g., items with 5-point responses) in the social and behavioral sciences. These ordinal variables are often treated as if they were continuous in practice. An alternative strategy is to assume that a normally distributed continuous variable underlies each ordinal variable.…

Many students struggle with statistical concepts such as interaction. In an experimental group, participants took a paper-and-pencil test and then were given training to establish equivalent classes containing four different statistical interactions. All participants formed the equivalence classes and showed maintenance when probes contained novel…

A counseling service follow-up questionnaire was constructed to include both process and outcome measures. The questionnaire was mailed to students who had been counseled at a university counseling centre. The follow-up results from 207 students provided global evidence of students' satisfaction with treatment. In order to refine and shorten this…

Points out three difficulties with the Munz-Smouse test anxiety classification scheme. Describes an alternative procedure and illustrates its advantages over the Munz-Smouse procedure. (RL)

A bank of psycometrically sound scaled behavioral incidents of college classroom teaching behavior was developed for use in devising performance evaluation scales, teacher training devices, and policy evaluation questionnaires. Using a combination of the critical incident and retranslation methodologies a set of 720 incident descriptions was…

This paper reports on a large-scale project of research and evaluation of a program for disadvantaged minority group students conducted by the Center for Educational Opportunity at the Claremont Colleges. The Program of Special Directed Studies for Transition to College (PSDS), a five-year experimental project, is aimed at providing a four-year,…