The authors of this article comment on "Construct Maps as a Foundation for Standard Setting," by Adam E. Wyse (this issue) in which Wyse presents construct maps, a visual display of a variety of sources of evidence that support standard-setting decisions, and shows how this approach could be used with a variety of existing…

The structure of contents by any of the multidimensional scaling methods, including Smallest Space Analysis, and comparisons of such structures cannot be meaningfully studied without reference to the investigated item contents. Except in rare cases, methods that focus only on the spatial distribution of points are not appropriate. (RL)

Comments on the preceding article include "Slicing the Vocational Interest Pie One More Time" (Borgen, Donnay); "Lost in Space" (Harmon); "Alternative Dimensions of the Tracey-Rounds Interest Sphere" (Prediger); "Prestige in Vocational Interests" (Gottfredson); "What Goes around, Comes around"…

The paper is a critique of the traditional mode of interpreting factor analyses; it is not a criticism of factor analysis per se. Instead, the author proposes a statistical procedure based upon stepwise regression (SRP). The traditional mode focuses on the largest factor loadings (FL). A factor is both described and named by these heavily weighted…

The Galileo System, a variant of metric multidimensional scaling, is used in this paper to analyze over-time changes in social networks. The paper first discusses the theoretical necessity for the use of this procedure and the methodological problems associated with its use. It then examines the air traffic network among 31 major cities in the…

Describes the use of ALSCAL, a computer program for multidimensional scaling, to map enrollment in 49 electives at Drexel University's College of Information Studies during two time periods. The results for this department are presented, and the explanatory power of this evaluation technique for any curriculum is discussed. (6 references) (CLB)

This article offers a reflective view of five articles published in this Special Issue of the "International Journal of Disability, Development and Education." The 5 articles address various aspects of indigenous healing practices in different cultures. In distilling a number of pertinent themes, the author presents the view that…

Arguing that relevance judgments are fundamental to the design and evaluation of all information retrieval systems, and that a consensus on the definition of the central concept of relevance has not been reached, this paper begins by critically reviewing four approaches to the problem of defining relevance: (1) the system-oriented approach…

Limitations of the confirmatory factor analysis conducted by H. W. Marsh to demonstrate the multidimensionality of a rating form to assess student evaluation of teaching effectiveness are discussed. A secondary analysis suggests that dimensionality is not stable across solutions and a global factor can be retrieved. (SLD)