As targeted, single-conception curriculum research becomes more prevalent in physics education research (PER), the need for a more sophisticated statistical understanding of the conceptual surveys used becomes apparent. Previously, the factor structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) was examined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and…

Purpose: Given that prior research has confirmed that students' mathematics values significantly affect their mathematics learning, understanding how students' values form and change, especially during different learning stages, is an important topic. Design/Approach/Methods: This study administered a questionnaire to investigate the values of…

This study explored the Junior Brixton Test (JBT), an executive function (EF) measure for children, in comparison to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) in a sample of 6- to 8-year-olds, all attending the first 2 years of elementary school. Factor analyses indicated two main domains in both measures, namely concept formation and cognitive…

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the psychometric properties of The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS). The 50-item instrument was administered to 311 college students from a public institution in the United States enrolled in General Chemistry I Laboratory. Confirmatory factor analysis and Cronbach's [alpha]…

The present research examined five-year-old children's psychological self-concepts. Non-linear factor analysis was used to model the latent structure of the children's self-view questionnaire (CSVQ; Eder, 1990), a measure of children's self-concepts. The coherence and reliability of the emerging factor structure indicated that young children are…

This study reports a factor analysis of the data resulting from a 3-year longitudinal investigation into conservation of number and related mathematical type concepts. Conservation of number, which represents a subset within the concept of conservation, was measured by use of a 20-item, criterion-referenced testing device. The subjects, who were…

From a factor analysis of 33 variables on 83 first-grade children an animism factor, involving children's conceptions of life, was identified. Animism was found to be relatively independent of operational thought, Piagetian-type problem solving, and the ability to give causal explanations of physical phenomena. (Author)

Twenty-six test variables for psychological differentiation and cognitive abilities were factor analyzed with a view towards replication of certain factors of perceptual and conceptual differentiation and related these factors to cognitive abilities. (Author)

A basic assumption of this study is that the meaning continuum registered by an adjective pair remains relatively constant over a large universe of concepts and over subjects within a relatively homogeneous population. An attempt was made to validate this assumption by showing the invariance of the factor structure across different types of…

When William G. Perry (1968) developed his scheme of nine stages of cognitive development, most of which are experienced during the college years, he did not attempt to quantify it. Subsequently, T. D. Erwin (1983) constructed a scale that attempted to quantify the Perry scheme. His findings supported the overall conception of student development…

This report is part of a general study of Reference Measures for Cognitive and Noncognitive Factors. The main activity being reported is the development of "factor-referenced" or "marker" tests for several recently identified cognitive factors. A secondary activity involves the study of possible relationships to factors already…

Traditionally, studies investigating the relationship between mental abilities tests and performance on learning tasks have attempted to establish a direct relationship between these two domains by use of factor analytic techniques. It is suggested that an alternative approach can be formulated in terms of an information processing analysis of…

The following research projects are described in this annual report: (1) "Concept Learning in Discrimination Tasks," which indicates that kindergarten children are able to discriminate the letters "b,""d,""p," and "q"; (2) "Discrimination of Letter-like Forms," indicating that nursery…

A total of 125 white children from three counties in Georgia (selected as representative of small rural and medium and large industrial urban populations) were administered a battery of tests in three phases of their schooling: (1) during the summer preceding their admission to the first grade, (2) near the end of the first grade, and (3) near the…

A model of conceptual learning and development that provides a framework for studying the course of cognitive development throughout the school years and also studying the learning concepts across short time intervals is discussed in this paper. The theory includes five main propositions. First, children learn four successively higher levels of…