Background: Immersive virtual worlds are one of a range of different platforms that can be grouped under the concept of mediated environments, i.e. environments that create a metaphorical space in which participants can position themselves and be embodied. Synthesising the literatures concerning the various mediated environment technologies…

Despite the general trend to embrace interdisciplinarity in post-secondary education, we remain remarkably unclear concerning what we mean by interdisciplinarity and how it is achieved. Reporting on research conducted in a team-taught interdisciplinary course, I propose a new way of conceptualizing interdisciplinary connections, grounded in…

Federal standards established in 1997 allow respondents to select multiple-race categories. These new standards changed the single-race subgroup definitions that the government has required since 1977. Meta-analysis, research on long-term assessment trends, and other research involving historical comparisons must account for the definitional…

The 1983 definition and classification of mental retardation of the American Association on Mental Deficiency reflects positions of the Council for Exceptional Children's Mental Retardation division by raising the ceiling IQ for classification, abandoning the standard deviation as a measurement criterion, and providing flexibility in IQ scores at…

The article "Thinking About Linking" by Newton (2010) presents a novel philosophical perspective on the way that educational assessments should be linked. Newton starts by describing the linking framework as it was characterized in various publications and identifies a cross-cultural dimension in the definitions and uses of test…

The meaning of the category and concept of mental retardation is explored through the words of a fictional character, and the accounts of real people who have been injured and stigmatized by the label. Examples of the extremes to which people have gone to avoid or escape the term mental retardation are provided. The classification of retardation…

It is argued that English dictionaries currently provide evaluative information in addition to descriptive information about the words they contain, and that this aspect of dictionaries should be developed and expanded on. First, the historical background and distribution of the axiological parameter in English-language onomasiological…

Arguing for a "taxonomic approach" to the determination of the meaning of "rhetoric," this paper first indicates the need for renewed speculation about the ordering of knowledge as a whole. It then indicates the importance of general taxonomies for understanding rhetoric, illustrates its position with a pair of modern taxonomies, and concludes by…

Raises a number of questions about current descriptive definitions of reading. (FL)

Technological literacy is based upon the knowledge and ability to use technological systems, ideas, and words. A basic vocabulary for technological literacy is the foundation for technology education programs. (SK)

In the debate on vocational training in Europe the sectoral approach has been referred to for some time now, as the authorities expect that this will ensure, above all, a greater involvement of the social partners. But it remains unclear exactly what is understood by the term "sector". It is used in discussions as a standard, pragmatic…

"Diagnostic classification models" (DCM) are frequently promoted by psychometricians as important modelling alternatives for analyzing response data in situations where multivariate classifications of respondents are made on the basis of multiple postulated latent skills. In this review paper, a definitional boundary of the space of DCM…

In this dissertation, I develop a definition and regional measure of entrepreneurship that will aid entrepreneurship research and economic development policy. My new indicators represent an improvement over current measures of entrepreneurship. The chief contribution of these new indicators is that they incorporate innovation, which others ignore.…

This document outlines the definitions and the typology now used by Statistics Canada's Centre for Education Statistics to identify, classify and delineate the universities, colleges and other providers of postsecondary and adult education in Canada for which basic enrollments, graduates, professors and finance statistics are produced. These new…

A historical review of theories of persuasion and its relationship to such areas as argument and propaganda indicates a number of inherent weaknesses in the definitions and taxonomies which have been proposed. Definitions and classifications have been sometimes circular in nature, have reflected the special interests of their authors, have been…