In sequential mastery testing (SMT), assessment via computer is used to classify examinees into one of two mutually exclusive categories. Unlike paper-and-pencil tests, SMT has the capability to use variable-length stopping rules. One approach to shortening variable-length tests is stochastic curtailment, which halts examination if the probability…

Animal studies demonstrate that maternal touch and contact regulate infant stress, and handling during periods of maternal deprivation attenuates the stress response. To measure the effects of touch on infant stress reactivity during simulated maternal deprivation, 53 dyads were tested in two paradigms: still-face (SF) and still-face with maternal…

Longitudinal studies are permeating clinical trials in psychiatry. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to study the psychometric properties of rating scales, frequently used in these trials, within a longitudinal framework. However, intrasubject serial correlation and memory effects are problematic issues often encountered in longitudinal data.…

Simulations have long been used in business schools to give students experience making real-world decisions in a relatively low risk environment. The OAKLAND A'S BASEBALL BUSINESS SIMULATOR takes a traditional business simulation and applies it to the sport industry, in which sales of tangible products are replaced by sales of experiences provided…

This paper explores whether the poor mastery of morphosyntax exhibited by second language (L2) learners can be tied to difficulties with non-syntactic processing. Specifically, we examine whether problems with English regular and irregular past tense are related to poor L2 phonological ability and lexical access, respectively. In Experiment 1, L2…

Objective: The authors review the literature about educational programs for teaching sexual history-taking skills and describe novel techniques for teaching these skills. Methods: Psychiatric residents enrolled in a brief sexual history-taking course that included instruction on the Sexual Events Classification System, feedback on residents'…

Finding appropriate interactive exercises to increase students' learning in technical topic courses is always challenging to educators. In this study, several paper plane hands-on simulation exercises were developed, used, and tested in a lean manufacturing course for beginning college students. A pretest and posttest was used to assess the…

LET'S TALK ABOUT IT (LTAI) (Lederman, Stewart, Bates, Greenberg, LeGreco, & Schuwerk, 2007), a scenario-based alcohol prevention simulation, has been used in a curriculum infusion design to promote healthy alcohol-related decision making among college students. Its use offers a unique research opportunity to explore students' beliefs and talk…

There are several strategies, or models, for combining the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) validity indicators to detect malingered psychiatric symptoms. Some scholars have recommended that an elevated F (Infrequency) score should be followed by the inspection of Fp (Infrequency-Psychopathology), whereas a recent…

This study investigated the effectiveness of computer-based video instruction (CBVI) to teach three young adults with moderate intellectual disabilities to push a "request to stop bus signal" and exit a city bus in response to target landmarks. A multiple probe design across three students and one bus route was used to evaluate effectiveness of…

The sample size determination is an important issue for planning research. However, limitations in size have seldom been discussed in the literature. Thus, how to allocate participants into different treatment groups to achieve the desired power is a practical issue that still needs to be addressed when one group size is fixed. The authors focused…

The game of Matching Pennies (MP), a simplified version of the more popular Rock, Papers, Scissors, schematically represents competitions between organisms with incentives to predict each other's behavior. Optimal performance in iterated MP competitions involves the production of random choice patterns and the detection of nonrandomness in the…

A common question in test evaluation is whether an a priori assignment of items to subtests is supported by empirical data. If the analysis results indicate the assignment of items to subtests under study is not supported by data, the assignment is often adjusted. In this study the authors compare two methods on the quality of their suggestions to…

This article explores "Second Life"[TM] (SL) from an educator's perspective. As instructional designers transform instruction from real world to SL, understanding how more traditional forms of teaching and learning transfer to the immersive spaces of virtual life may be critical. This article identifies principles of instruction for virtual worlds…

This paper focuses on the potential of mental simulation (mentally rehearsing an action to enhance performance) as a useful contemporary educational method. By means of a meta-review, it is examined which conditions impede or facilitate the effectiveness of mental simulation (MS). A computer search was conducted using Ovid PsycINFO. Reviews,…