Do people with different kinds of bodies think differently? According to the "body-specificity hypothesis," people who interact with their physical environments in systematically different ways should form correspondingly different mental representations. In a test of this hypothesis, 5 experiments investigated links between handedness and the…

The participation of large numbers of countries in current international assessments involving reading literacy--40 in PIRLS 2006 (administered to students in Grade 4 in primary schools) and 57 in PISA 2006 (administered to 15-year-olds in post-primary schools)--suggests that governments and other bodies find the outcomes to be useful. This…

Objective: Investigated the relationship between selective and sustained attention and social behavior in children with different degrees of attentional disturbance. Method: Participants were 101 6- to 12-year-old children, including 18 who were diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), 61 who were clinically referred for…

The "Saf" (threshold) exam is the entry exam taken by approximately 40% of the students enrolled in teacher training colleges in Israel. Students with learning disabilities may apply and be granted testing accommodations on this exam. This study examines the percentage of students with testing accommodations among the testees and those…

The aim of the present study was to assess mental flexibility and set maintenance of a group of individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) (N = 13; mean age 16,4), as compared with a matched group of typically developing children and adolescents (N = 13; mean age 15,6) on the computerized version of the Wisconsin Card…

Exhibits in informal science institutions, like science centers and museums, are often designed to help people learn, but research showing the immediate impact of experiences with exhibits on understanding is limited. This dissertation tested the hypothesis that the value of first-hand experience with an exhibit is not necessarily in its immediate…

In recent years, scores on the annual state reading and mathematics tests used for accountability have gone up in most states. These trends in state test scores do not always coincide, however, with trends on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the federally sponsored assessment that is administered periodically to…

The purpose of the present explanatory mixed-method design is to examine the effectiveness of a developmental intervention, Embedded Metacognitive Prompts based on Nature of Science (EMPNOS) to teach the nature of science using metacognitive prompts embedded in an inquiry unit. Eighty-three (N = 83) eighth-grade students from four classrooms were…

Robert Coe has claimed that three broad conceptions of comparability can be identified from the literature: performance, statistical and conventional. Each of these he rejected, in favour of a single, integrated conception which relies upon the notion of a "linking construct" and which he termed "construct comparability".…

The relationship between the philosophical orientation of a high school citizenship education program and the kinds of competencies that students exhibit on a nationally administered civics knowledge assessment was investigated. The researcher imposed a philosophical paradigm of political perfectionism on the citizenship education curriculum in…

Studied the impact of using five different exposure control algorithms in two sizes of item pool calibrated using the generalized partial credit model. Simulation results show that the a-stratified design, in comparison to a no-exposure control condition, could be used to reduce item exposure and overlap and increase pool use, while degrading…

Proposes two new methods for item-exposure control, the Progressive method and the Restricted Maximum Information method. Compares both methods with six other item-selection methods. Discusses advantages of the two new methods and the usefulness of combining them. (SLD)

Used Monte Carlo simulation to compare the relative measurement efficiency of polytomous modeling and dichotomous modeling under different scoring schemes and termination criteria. Results suggest that polytomous computerized adaptive testing (CAT) yields marginal gains over dichotomous CAT when termination criteria are more stringent. Discusses…

This study explored the impact of individual versus two-person group testing on graduate students' achievement and motivation to learn while enrolled in a 16-lesson educational research methods course. Students in two sections of the course were exposed to the same content and instructional methods, with one exception: students in one section took…