A previously developed method of automatically selecting items for inclusion in a test subject to constraints on item content and statistical properties is applied to real data. Two tests are first assembled by experts in test construction who normally assemble such tests on a routine basis. Using the same pool of items and constraints articulated…

The Adult Education components of the 1991 and 1995 National Household Education Survey (NHES) collected the name and subject matter of a wide range of courses adults had taken in the previous months. Adult education involves a variety of types of courses, whether related to basic skills, equivalency programs, degree programs, or personal…

The National Household Education Survey (NHES) is a data collection system of the National Center for Education Statistics that is designed to provide information about educational issues best addressed through contacting households rather than institutions. In 1995, as in 1991, one of the components of this telephone survey was a study of adult…

This study is a critical evaluation of the roles for coding and scoring of missing responses to multiple-choice items in educational tests. The focus is on tests in which the test-takers have little or no motivation; in such tests omitting and not reaching (as classified by the currently adopted operational rules) is quite frequent. Data from the…

The cognitive effects of self-referencing in math word problems were studied in 100 third, fourth, and fifth graders solving compare-unknown and referent-unknown problems. In general, self-referencing (referring to "you") facilitated encoding processes in solving these problems. Self-referencing appeared to decrease the load on working…

Investigates how coder characteristics such as language skills, political knowledge, coding experience, and coding certainty affected inter-coder and coder-training reliability. Shows that language skills influenced both reliability types. Suggests that cross-national researchers should pay more attention to cross-national assessments of…

Describes a classroom exercise that uses a letter from Max Delbruck to George Beadle to stimulate interest in the mechanics of a nonoverlapping comma-free code. Enables students to participate in the rich history of molecular biology and illustrates to them that scientists and science can be fun. (JRH)

Discusses problems in using ASCII for data communications and computers and provides a historical perspective on the development of Unicode, a new universal encoding scheme. The future of Unicode is considered, implications for libraries are discussed, and a sidebar explains how computers store textual data. (LRW)

Presents general principles for cleaning data sets. Suggests techniques: check for column shifts, data completeness, marginal frequencies, and selected cross-tabulations; examines a sample of cases. Gives strategies for preventing data processing errors. (SK)

Describes a detailed algorithm for fast text compression. Related to the PPM (prediction by partial matching) method, it simplifies the modeling phase by eliminating the escape mechanism and speeds up coding by using a combination of quasi-arithmetic coding and Rice coding. Details of the use of quasi-arithmetic code tables are given, and their…

Describes the design of optimal tree-structured vector quantizers that minimize the expected distortion subject to cost functions related to storage cost, encoding rate, or quantization time. Since the optimal design problem is intractable in most cases, the performance of a general design heuristic based on successive partitioning is analyzed.…

Uses Kintsch's proposition-based construction-integration theory of discourse comprehension to detail the user coding operations that occur in each of the three subsystems (Perception, Comprehension, Application) in which users process an information retrieval systems (IRS) message. Describes an IRS device made up of two separate parts that enable…

Two studies examined understanding of notational representation among 3- to 5-year-olds. Children solved problems when shown cards with a picture or word indicating identity or a quantity indicator. In the easier condition, children had difficulty solving the problems as a function of their familiarity with the notation, suggesting weaknesses in…

N.O. Schiller and A. Caramazza (2003) and A. Costa, D. Kovacic, E. Fedorenko, and A. Caramazza (2003) have argued that the processing of freestanding gender-marked morphemes (e.g., determiners) and bound gender-marked morphemes (e.g., adjective suffixes) during syntactic encoding in speech production follows distinct principles, with only…

Researchers studying science communication have criticized the sensationalism that often appears in journalistic accounts of science news. This article looks at the linguistic sources of that sensationalism by analyzing the journalistic coverage of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study of hormone replacement research, which was abruptly…