The research question asked was "Will those children ages three and four who have intensive play experiences in play-based preschools and who can perform at high levels of LEGO building as constructional play also show high levels of mathematical achievement later in formal school settings?". Thus, this study attempts to establish a…

The prediction of academic success of undergraduate students using an item response theory partial credit model adjusted grade point average (IRTGPA) is presented and its results are compared to those from an unweighted grade point average (GPA). The sample included 2,444 freshmen admitted in the fall of 1987 to 681 courses at a large midwestern…

This monograph covers the theory, application, and interpretation of both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques in institutional research. Each chapter opens with a hypothetical case study, which is used to illustrate the application of one or more statistical procedures to typical research questions. Chapter 2 covers the comparison…

This study demonstrates that the validity and usefulness of mathematics achievement tests can be improved by defining psychologically meaningful subscores that yield differential relations with student, teacher, and school variables. The National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) 8th- and 10th-grade math tests were subjected to full…

This report examines the effects of both student and school characteristics on mathematics and science achievement levels in the third, seventh, and eleventh grades using data from the 1985-86 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Analyses feature hierarchical linear models (HLM), a regression-like statistical technique that…

The current study explored the association between a large-scale federally funded preschool intervention and the social and emotional development of participants. Data were drawn from the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS) and included 1,378 primarily African American youth who participated in the CLS and had scores for two or more identifiable…

Background: The question whether old media are driven out of existence by new media has been a long concern in academic and industrial research but has received no definitive answer. Aim: This paper goes beyond most previous studies of Internet impact on traditional media, which have placed their relationship within a competition-based framework,…

This paper describes an initial effort to provide a carefully reasoned, factually based, systematic analysis of teacher pay in comparison to pay in other occupations available to college-educated workers. It also reports on the sensitivity of these salary comparison estimates to differences in certain characteristics of the labor force, such as…

This paper investigates the processes by which visual mental images--the precept-like short-term memory representations--are created from information stored in long-term memory. It also presents a new method for studying image generation. Three experiments were conducted using college students as subjects. In the first experiment, a Podgorny and…

Entrepreneurship courses commonly use various kinds of group work, cooperative learning, study circles and study teams. A major challenge of this pedagogy is the unbiased grading of group members based on the accountability of individual performances. This paper provides an approach to using student peer assessment to provide feedback on…

This study examines racial/ethnic group differences in two- and four-year college enrollment rates of bachelor's degree aspirants, controlled for differences in expected costs and benefits, financial resources, academic characteristics, and social and cultural capital. The sample (n=7,832) is drawn from the National Educational Longitudinal Study…

This technical report outlines the results of a correlational study of an Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) measure, a Reading Comprehension measure, a Vocabulary measure, and a statewide, large-scale reading assessment. The effects of school income level, gender, ethnicity, Special Education status, and English Language Learner status are also…

High school seniors who answered that they would choose to borrow, when asked what they would do if college costs were $1,500 more than they, their family, and a scholarship could provide, were significantly more likely to attend college in the next four years than were students who answered that they would choose other options (delaying college…

Although colleges and universities interested in the most cost-effective way of diversifying their entering class or meeting enrollment targets have an array of analytical techniques to choose from, issues of accuracy, scope, and usability continue to slow their widespread use. To address these issues, this article develops an institutional…

Background: This study sought to examine the associations between indices of socio-economic deprivation in childhood and later involvement in crime. Method: Data were gathered as part of the Christchurch Health and Development Study. In this project a cohort of 1,265 children born in Christchurch in 1977 have been studied from birth to age 21…