The ability to monitor learning and memory of sentences was investigated in a group of 72 undergraduate students. Some sentences included within-sentence elaborations clarifying subject-verb-object relations and some did not. Results provide insights into subjects' recall and ability to monitor item difficulty and into effects of testing. (TJH)

A survey of first-year students in an association-sponsored management program found students were drawn to the program by business or personal contacts, program reputation, course practicality, and program length. They ranked the program as just below a university management degree and somewhat higher than a non-management degree. (Author/MSE)

The investigation examined the transparency and recall of symbols representing three parts of speech (nouns, verbs, and descriptors) from three different graphic symbol systems (Blissymbols, Picture Communication System, and Picsyms) among adults with intellectual handicaps. Results suggested that Blissymbols were the least transparent and hardest…

The progress of 30 mildly handicapped students in grades 3-8 was monitored simultaneously in alternative levels of a reading curriculum, and students' slopes of improvement and variability of performance were compared. Regardless of the level of the curriculum in which progress was assessed, the slope of improvement was similar over time.…

Braille code is difficult to learn and discriminate tactually. A new symbol set, C5, is based on the Moon system of embossed reading and Bliss symbols. Experiments with the C5 alphabet code, printed by a braille printer, showed that subjects found braille code more difficult to learn than C5 code. (Author/JDD)

This study examined the perceived difficulty of the dichotic listening task and strategies used in performing the task among boys with reading disability, age-matched boys, and reading-matched boys. Boys with reading disabilities and younger reading-matched boys were more likely to find the dichotic model confusing when the left ear was attended…

Whether anchor item sets varying in difficulty and discrimination affect precision of cutting score equivalents generated through judge rescaling as much as equivalents from score equating was studied with 4 groups of experts and 250 and 1,000 examinees. Results indicate the robustness of judge rescaling and its superiority over equating. (SLD)

Discusses five environmental dimensions (hardness/softness, open/closed, simple/complex, intrusion/seclusion, and high mobility/low mobility) that affect the experiences of children in day-care centers, demonstrating how to consider these dimensions in solving typical problems in child care settings. (MDM)

This study examined the effectiveness of matching 82 secondary students (learning disabled, remedial, and nondisabled) to differential levels of study guides. The study evaluated two treatment conditions (multilevel study guides containing different levels of referential cues, and single-level study guides without referential cues), used in…

The effect of five types of topical structure (including initial sentence element, mood subject, and surface subject) on the item difficulty of reading comprehension questions was investigated. Results indicated differences in the item difficulty of questions according to the type of topical structure on which the questions were based. (21…

In developing a physics course that would capture medical student interest at the University of Queensland (Australia), it was discovered that there is minimal correlation between students' interest in a subject and perceptions of its difficulty but strong correlation between interest and perception of its relevance to clinical studies.…

Researchers examined the effect of writing in response to simple and complex pictures on students' narrative writing. Findings indicated that fourth graders use different composing behavior and produce different written products than do sixth graders, writing more coherently/cohesively for complex than for simple tasks. (SM)

A survey of teachers' and students' perceptions of the difficulty of learning American Sign Language (ASL) suggested that teachers generally rated the learning difficulty levels higher than students, and both groups cited such sociolinguistic and affective problems as cultural inhibitions, interacting with the deaf, and attitudes and motivations…

Performance of a common set of test items on an examination in which the order of options for one test form was experimentally manipulated. Results for 759 medical specialty board examinees find that reordering item options results in significant but unpredictable effects on item difficulty. (SLD)

This study of 325 adolescents with deafness found that students who attended more classes and more academically demanding classes had higher achievement levels across placement categories. The cumulative effect of mainstream placement may be, in part, a product of different patterns of educational programing. Race was also a factor in achievement.…