Normative databases containing psycholinguistic variables are commonly used to aid stimulus selection for investigations into language and other cognitive processes. Norms exist for many languages, but not for Thai. The aim of the present research, therefore, was to obtain Thai normative data for the BOSS, a set of 480 high resolution color…

Authenticity has been identified as a key characteristic of assessment design which promotes learning. Authentic assessment aims to replicate the tasks and performance standards typically found in the world of work, and has been found to have a positive impact on student learning, autonomy, motivation, self-regulation and metacognition; abilities…

Referential gaze has been shown to benefit language processing in situated communication in terms of shifting visual attention and leading to shorter reaction times on subsequent tasks. The present study simultaneously assessed both visual attention and, importantly, the immediate cognitive load induced at different stages of sentence processing.…

For a multiple-choice test under development or redesign, it is important to choose the optimal number of options per item so that the test possesses the desired psychometric properties. On the basis of available data for a multiple-choice assessment with 8 options, we evaluated the effects of changing the number of options on test properties…

Traditional and online university courses share expectations for quality content and rigor. Student and faculty concerns about compromised academic integrity and actual instances of academic dishonesty in assessments, especially with online testing, are increasingly troublesome. Recent research suggests that in the absence of proctoring, the time…

In this study, the author examined potential mediators of the negative relationship between the absolute difference in items' lengths and their inter-item correlation size. Fifty-two randomly ordered items from five personality scales were administered to 622 university students, and 46 respondents from a survey website rated the items'…

This study investigated the effects of linking potentially multidimensional test forms using the fixed item parameter calibration. Forms had equal or unequal total test difficulty with and without confounding difficulty. The mean square errors and bias of estimated item and ability parameters were compared across the various confounding tests. The…

Different versions of multiple-choice exams were administered to an undergraduate class in human physiology as part of normal testing in the classroom. The goal was to evaluate whether the number of options (possible answers) per question influenced the effectiveness of this assessment. Three exams (each with three versions) were given to each of…

The first-year students join college with several expectations in their mind about their upcoming academic endeavors and their career. The first-year of college is the most crucial year of a students' college career. This dissertation explores first-year students' perceptions/ expectation of academic rigor and academic help-seeking in college as…

A gap in the knowledge of literature was found in that no research had been performed examining the effect different physical learning environments have on cognitive load levels. This is important because high cognitive load levels are known to affect learning. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study is to examine the relationship…

This dissertation proposes to enrich the scope of history education research, and by extension the preparation of history and social studies teachers and the classroom experiences of their students, through the inclusion of autobiography in the study of history. Education research on the teaching of history has typically focused on what scholars…

This study focuses on the reasons why students from private universities who have finished their studies, but not their research work, a requirement to obtain their degree. Several studies agree that the supervision process is a fundamental factor to complete the thesis successfully. Thesis development and successful thesis completion are…

Research has demonstrated that students' learning outcomes and motivation to learn are influenced by the visual design of learning technologies (e.g., learning management systems or LMS). One aspect of LMS design that has not been thoroughly investigated is visual complexity. In two experiments, postsecondary students rated the visual complexity…

Background: Chi and colleagues have argued that some of the most challenging engineering concepts exhibit properties of emergent systems. However, students often lack a mental framework, or schema, for understanding emergence. Slotta and Chi posited that helping students develop a schema for emergent systems, referred to as schema training, would…

Background: It has been established that people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties understanding spoken language. Understanding reflexive and clitic pronouns is vital to establishing reference-based inference, but it is as yet unclear whether such constructions pose specific difficulties for those with ASD. Pronoun…