This document consists of papers published in the electronic journal "Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation" during 2000-2001: (1) "Advantages of Hierarchical Linear Modeling" (Jason W. Osborne); (2) "Prediction in Multiple Regression" (Jason W. Osborne); (3) Scoring Rubrics: What, When, and How?"…

Because an instructor's first interaction with students on the first day of class can determine the success of those to follow, it is important to explore what happens in a classroom setting before offering prescriptions on how to best handle situations in that setting. To understand how students' responses to specific attributes related to…

Proposes an empirico-statistical model to differentiate dependent and independent historical texts. Formulates a regard for information principle and an amplitude correlation principle. Experimentally examines and validates the model and both principles using specific historical texts. Includes tables and graphs. Appends further discussion of the…

Six existing statistical procedures (models) for indirectly assessing the prevalence of need for alcohol, drug abuse, and mental health services across subareas of a state are described and critiqued in terms of epidemiological and statistical characteristics. Specific advantages and disadvantages are listed for each model. (SLD)

Whether indexes of cognitive processes that affect adults are related to sentence reading times and recall was studied for 49 fifth grade and 73 seventh grade good and poor readers. Younger children differed from older children in that greater numbers of causal relations were associated with better sentence recall. (SLD)

Three classes of variables were used to predict three indices of intervention outcomes for children with handicaps and developmental delays. Results suggest the important role of nonprogram variables in determining outcomes in programs that train parents to teach preacademic, communication, social, self-help, and motor development skills.…

Presents results of a study of neighborhood effects on educational attainment in Scotland. Reports a significant negative association between deprivation in the home neighborhood and educational attainment. Concludes that policies to alleviate educational disadvantage must focus on social deprivation in the society at large and not just on…

Use of the bootstrap resampling technique (BRT) is assessed in its application to resampling analysis associated with measurement of payment allocation errors by federally funded Family Assistance Programs. The BRT is applied to a food stamp quality control database in Oregon. This analysis highlights the outlier-sensitivity of the…

Reports on characteristics significantly related to teacher retention in a large urban school district using a Cox regression model to model teacher turnover for a sample of 2,327 white, black, and Hispanic-American first-year teachers. Sex, ethnicity, education, and certification route are significantly related to teacher retention. (SLD)

In this study, the authors used expectancy theory to examine key factors that motivate business faculty to conduct research. The survey results, from 320 faculty members at 10 business schools, showed that faculty members who assign higher importance ratings to both the extrinsic and the intrinsic rewards of research exhibit higher research…

Despite the conceptual importance of impression motivation in predicting social anxiety (Leary & Kowalski, 1995; Schlenker & Leary, 1982), no research has tested the link between impression motivation specifically regarding one's physical appearance (appearance impression motivation, or AIM) and social physique anxiety (SPA). The purpose of this…

Background: Autism is rarely diagnosed before three years of age despite evidence suggesting prenatal abnormalities in neurobiological processes. Little is known about when or how development becomes disrupted in the first two years of life in autism. Such information is needed to facilitate early detection and early intervention. Methods: This…

Background: Research examining intergenerational transmission of psychopathology is often limited by reliance on the same individuals for information on multiple constructs of interest. To counteract this limitation, data from a prospective, longitudinal study of at-risk youth were analyzed to test the hypothesis that parenting and family…

Background: There are some indications that maternal lifestyle during pregnancy (smoking and stress) contributes to symptoms of ADHD in children. We prospectively studied whether prenatal exposure to maternal smoking and/or stress is associated with ADHD symptoms and diagnostic criteria (according to DSM-IV) in 7-year-olds. Methods: Nulliparous…

Value-added models, which rate schools for effectiveness while taking into account the poverty and other socioeconomic status of the students, are generating increased interest. This paper describes the use of one such model to evaluate whether school ratings changed when three new programs were introduced: the "Target Teach" curriculum…