The realities of current fiscal environments faced by most public higher education institutions, budgeting problems, and three appropriate roles that institutional researchers can perform while assisting campus budget and academic staff compete for resources are discussed. Several major themes that flow through the budgeting process concern:…

A chronicle of the problems faced in an attempt to collect data on sociology curriculum trends in California's community college system is presented. The project was initiated in an effort to determine if other colleges in the system were experiencing the same difficulties with curriculum and enrollment in sociology courses being encountered by…

The Ontario Council on University Affairs' fifth annual report, a document equivalent to a state's annual report on higher eudcation, is presented. The full text of all advisory memoranda issued in the year and the text of the major paper released by the council on issues concerning the Ontario University system are provided. The paper was a…

AFTHER, a computer simulation game for dealing with the complexities of higher education in a changing electronic world, is described. It is a tool for decision research and decision assistance. AFTHER enables the users to study higher education governance and its decision-making patterns in general, or to readily convert the simulation to an…

The evolution of academic government and its intersection with the corporate form in England during the late medieval through the early modern periods are reviewed. The following topics are considered: the English universities, transition to university control by the national state, transition to collegiate dominance of the universities, admission…

Four types of control groups are commonly used in cognitive manipulation studies: (1) no-treatment; (2) practice with own methods; (3) practice and training with competing treatments; and (4) practice and training with irrelevant treatments. There are problems associated with the use of each group as a baseline for identifying the "true"…

The effect of commercial coaching on Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores was analyzed, using 1974-1977 test results of 2,500 non-coached students and 1,568 enrollees in two coaching schools. (The Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center, Inc., and the Test Preparation Center, Inc.). Multiple regression analysis was used to control for student…

Student and test characteristics were examined by multiple regression analysis and discriminant function analysis to explain why 171 political science undergraduates scored differently on essay versus objective final examinations. Student characteristics included: (1) patterns of creative, crystallized, and fluid abilities as measured by the…

It is suggested that bias--when associated with a predictor, a test, or a statistical estimator--is not always bad, in spite of the immediate negative response evoked by the word, bias. Four settings are described to illustrate situations in which a procedure should not be summarily rejected due to bias: (1) educational researchers rejected the…

To prepare for implementing competency based education, a system to categorize diagnostic and prescriptive materials was needed. The Annehurst Curriculum Classification System (ACCS), which provides access to curriculum resources for students and teachers, was applied at the elementary and middle school levels. Training programs on ACCS were held…

An analysis of criticism leveled against student grading is presented, and a rebuttal is offered. Twenty-two criticisms of grades are divided into four categories; that grades are meaningless, unimportant, unnecessary, and harmful. In response to the criticism, it is pointed out that grading tends to motivate student achievement, provides rewards…

Three methods of item selection were used to select sets of 38 items from a 50-item verbal analogies test and the resulting item sets were compared for internal consistency, standard errors of measurement, item difficulty, biserial item-test correlations, and relative efficiency. Three groups of 1,500 cases each were used for item selection. First…

Several measurement theorists have convincingly argued that methods of writing test questions, particularly for criterion-referenced tests, should be based on operationally defined rules. This study was designed to examine and further refine a method for objectively generating multiple-choice questions for prose instructional materials. Important…

Six approaches to assessing test item bias were examined: transformed item difficulty, point biserial correlations, chi-square, factor analysis, one parameter item characteristic curve, and three parameter item characteristic curve. Data sets for analysis were generated by a Monte Carlo technique based on the three parameter model; thus, four…

Two concerns led to the development of the screening test which is described: (1) the present 28% rate of attrition of Navy female first enlistees is too high; and (2) attrition is expected to increase when a high school diploma is no longer required for women to enter the Navy. Thus, a screening instrument was needed which could be used…