The present study investigated whether computer assisted instruction was more effective than face-to-face instruction in increasing student success in physics. The study was conducted in the spring semester of 2006 at the Department of Science and Mathematics for Secondary Education at Hacettepe University. Seventy-eight freshman students from…

Previous research examining the effects of reducing the number of score groups used in the matching criterion of the Mantel-Haenszel procedure, when screening for differential item functioning, has produced ambiguous results. The goal of this study was to resolve the ambiguity by examining the problem with a simulated data set. The main results…

The theoretical approaches taken by the LOGIST and BILOG computer programs for estimating the parameters of the three-parameter logistic item response model, and their practical consequences, are compared. Guidelines for choosing between the programs for particular applications are offered. (SLD)

A simulation study compared the performance of the Mann-Whitney "U" test, Student's "t" test, and the alternate (separate variance) "t" test for two mutually independent random samples from normal distributions, with both one-tailed and two-tailed alternatives. Type I error probabilities were computed with equal and…

In this paper we discuss an experiment that was carried out with a prototype, designed in conformity with the concept of parallelism and the Parallel Instruction theory (the PI theory). We designed this prototype with five different interfaces, and ran an empirical study in which 18 participants completed an abstract task. The five basic designs…

Performance in 2 versions of a computer-animated task was compared. Participants either indicated the time of arrival of a target that rolled off a horizontal surface and fell--hidden from view--onto a landing point (production task) or judged flight time on a rating scale (judgment task). As predicted, performance was significantly better in the…

In two experiments, we found that college students' pronunciations of vowels in nonwords are influenced both by preceding and following consonants. The predominance of rimes in previous studies of reading does not appear to arise because readers are unable to pick up associations that cross the onset-rime boundary, but rather because English has…

The production and operations management class offered at California State University, Fresno underwent a transformation from being a four-unit, face-to-face course to a hybrid course. This hybrid course, which is required for all students in the Craig School of Business, includes two units of face-to-face instruction each week, with some coverage…

Physical activity participation rates in the United States have been in steady decline for the last 25 years, so much so that 60% of youth ages 9-13 years get no physical activity outside of school. This state of inactivity indicates that promoting participation in physical activity at a young age is of importance. For the present study, a…

This repeated measures factorial design study compared the results of two procedures for identifying multivariate outliers under varying conditions, the Mahalanobis distance and the Andrews-Pregibon statistic. Results were analyzed for the total number of outliers identified and number of false outliers identified. Simulated data were limited to…

The predicted scores produced by regression with (1) single best predictor, (2) two best predictors, (3) all predictors with observed values, and (4) all predictors with or without observed values were compared with variable means as estimates of missing values. The study was conducted in a simulation mode on nx8 data matrices using various levels…

Comparisons are made between BILOG version 2.2 and LOGIST 5.0 version 2.5 in estimating the item parameters, traits, item characteristic functions, and test characteristic functions for the three-parameter logistic model. Speed and accuracy are reported for a number of 10, 20, and 40-item tests. (Author/GDC)

A Monte Carlo simulation was used to compare the Mahalanobis "D" Squared and the Comrey "Dk" methods of detecting outliers in data sets. Under the conditions investigated, the "D" Squared technique was preferable as an outlier removal statistic. (SLD)

A variety of paired comparison, triple comparison, and ranking experiments are discussed as generalized linear models. All such models can be easily fit by maximum likelihood using the GLIM computer package. Examples are presented for a variety of cases using GLIM. (SLD)

Results of a Monte Carlo study with 4 populations (3,072 conditions) indicate that when distributions depart markedly from normality, nonparametric analysis and parametric analysis of transformed data show superior power to parametric analysis of raw data. Under conditions studied, parametric analysis of transformed data is more powerful than…