As a result of a recent College Board Admissions Testing Program Achievement Test scaling study, L. L. Cook and others recommended that the practice of sampling only high school juniors taking the achievement tests in June might be expanded to include sophomores and that a two-stage scaling procedure be evaluated. The two-stage procedure would…

This paper shares the findings of an inquiry that evaluated 50 survey articles published in a refereed journal, "Educational Administration Quarterly," by examining the 53 sample designs reported in the articles. The paper presents a typology of the sample designs identified, discusses the problems of sample selection and estimation…

Norm-referenced tests yield information regarding a student's performance in comparison to a norm or average of performance by similar students. Norms are statistics that describe the test performance of a well-defined population. The process of constructing norms, called norming, is explored briefly in this paper. Some of the most widely reported…

Bayesian methods for estimating dose response curves in quantal bioassay are studied. A linearized multi-stage model is assumed for the shape of the curves. A Gibbs sampling approach with data augmentation is employed to compute the Bayes estimates. In addition, estimation of the "relative additional risk" and the "risk specific…

Not infrequently, investigators assume that reliability for groups is greater than reliability for persons, or that the error variance for groups is less than that for persons. Using generalizability theory, it is shown that this "conventional wisdom" is not necessarily true. Examples are provided from the course-evaluation and the…

Item response theory (IRT) model parameter estimates have considerable merit and open up new directions for test development, but misleading results are often obtained because of errors in the item parameter estimates. The problem of the effects of item parameter estimation errors on the test development process is discussed, and the seriousness…

Statistics used to estimate the population correlation ratio were reviewed and evaluated. The sampling distributions of Kelly's and Hays' statistics were studied empirically by computer simulation within the context of a three level one-way fixed effects analysis of variance design. (Author/RC)

A test of the concept of horizontality was devised to examine the performance of a sample of 861 Australian school children in grades 1 to 6 tested in their classrooms. (Editor)

An argument has been developed suggesting that a research model appropriate to open education evaluation could be systematically developed out of the writings of Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Robert White, and M. Brewster Smith. (Author)

This study has focused on the use of language in the United Republic of Cameroon and on individual bilingualism with consideration of the social and political repercussions of social practices and educational policy. (RK)

A historical perspective on and substantive review of the concept of invariance are provided. Progress made toward solving measurement problems related to invariance is also assessed. Two major classes of invariant measurement are described: (1) sample-invariant item calibration; and (2) item-invariant measurement of individuals. The work of S. S.…

Replication is important to viable scientific inquiry; results that will not replicate or generalize are of very limited value. Statistical significance enables the researcher to reject or not reject the null hypothesis according to the sample results obtained, but statistical significance does not indicate the probability that results will be…

Reported are preliminary data from a study of the relationship of three family systems dimensions to three measures of adolescent health extracted from the RAND Health Assessment Questionnaire: the Health Index, General Well-Being, and Symptom Checklist. Three hypotheses were tested: (1) perceived family organization, perceived family privacy, and…

Since the last comprehensive museum survey was conducted in 1971-72, no current data has been gathered about the museum field. Because the field has not remained static it has become difficult to apply the 1971-72 survey findings to current museum situations. Because of this, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) was requested to…