Students' attitude towards science (SAS) is often a subject of investigation in science education research. Survey of rating scale is commonly used in the study of SAS. The present study illustrates how Rasch analysis can be used to provide psychometric information of SAS rating scales. The analyses were conducted on a 20-item SAS scale used in an…

A strategy for systematic analysis of the contribution of each component of an instructional program to a prescribed outcome is described. The strategy is based upon a multiple baseline experimental design. (Author)

The term "problem" has been poorly defined in the literature on the research process. The author has attempted to define the term more specifically than as an instance of indeterminacy. It can be determined as one of four instances of indeterminacy: anomaly, unverified facts, uncharted areas, or conflicting evidence. In each of these…

This paper identifies and describes three distinct variables on which prose passages can differ, from a linguistic point of view. Each of these variables relates to the way in which the content of prose is organized to convey meaning to the reader. The first variable is the position of information in a structure representing a passage's…

Guidelines for research in educational programs for the deaf, in response to a Conference of Executives of American Schools for the Deaf resolution (June 1979), are presented. (PHR)

This study involved an investigation of the use of Pearson r, tetrachoric r, phi, phi/phi maximum, and Kendall Tau-B coefficients as measures of association for the incomplete principal components analysis of simulated Likert scale attitudinal data, based on a known factor pattern and possessing different types of severe departures from normality.…

Concludes that if we do find ourselves in a situation of multiple paradigmatic perspectives on educational research, then it is not appropriate to think in the near future of there being a 'ground synthesis' of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. If the two major paradigms do exist as outlined here, and neither finds its present framework…

A discussion is presented concerning variables associated with children's representation of certain addition and subtraction problems. Problem components are classified as physical, pictorial, sensual, verbal-spoken, verbal-written, symbolic, or internal. Problems are discussed as abstract (symbolic) or nonsymbolic. Three problem components are…

Research studies on how adults learn and develop second-language reading competence were considered in the context of a componential theory of reading. In particular, C. A. Perfetti's Verbal Efficiency Theory (VET) was used as a framework in which to organize and evaluate the studies' contribution to the field of second-language reading. The…

Although spelling instruction has traditionally treated almost every spelling word as requiring a separate learning act, recent research indicates that over 90% of American-English orthography actually is determined by a set of rules for unit phoneme-grapheme relationships, based with decreasing productivity upon three levels of…

A review of the concept of complex instructional treatments demonstrates that componential analysis is needed to properly identify the effective elements of an instructional system. Research should focus on both the system and the effectiveness of its parts. Research on teaching also requires that the complex interaction of the teacher's behavior…

Protosynthex III (PSIII) is a language processing system developed as an (as yet inadequate) experimental vehicle for testing student responses, with a view to constructing a model of an automated tutor. A version of the PLANIT system was modified so that a human tutor could be used to make instructional decisions in response to students'…