The difficulty of four binary conceptual rules (conjunctive, disjunctive, conditional, and biconditional) was assessed using the rule-learning paradigm in a variety of stimulus populations. (Editor)

Logical estimates of item difficulty made by judges were compared to empirical estimates derived from a test administration. Results indicated substantial correspondence between logical and empirical estimates, and substantial variation among judges. Further, the more elaborate the system used by judges to make estimates, the more accurate the…

Item level differences between a type of constructed response item (figural response) and comparable multiple choice items in the domain of architecture were studied. Data from 120 architects and architecture students show that item level differences in difficulty correspond to differences in cognitive processing requirements and that relations…

Clause, syllable, and response latency characteristics of conversational utterances were assessed in 14 boys who stuttered and 14 normally fluent boys. Findings suggest that changes in the number of clausal constituents that must be constructed, stored, or coordinated within an utterance may influence the likelihood of speech errors and, hence,…

States that when a college or graduate school toughens its curriculum, entry requirements, or graduation requirements, two opposite effects on enrollment occur: (1) students know more and command higher salaries which enhances enrollment and (2) the pool of eligible students diminishes which has a negative effect on enrollment. (JEH)

An alternative method for scoring adaptive tests, based on number-correct scores, is explored and compared with a method that relies more directly on item response theory. Using the number-correct score with necessary adjustment for intentional differences in adaptive test difficulty is a statistically viable scoring method. (SLD)

Three experiments investigated effects of complexity on 2- to 6-year-olds' understanding of a beam balance. Found that 2- to 4-year-olds succeeded on problems that entailed binary relations, but 5- and 6-year-olds also succeeded on problems that entailed ternary relations. Ternary relations tasks from other domains (transitivity and class…

Compares the influence of text difficulty on the growth of poor readers' reading ability over 18 weeks of 1-to-1 tutoring. Significant differences favored tutored children. Between approaches, the only significant difference was oral reading fluency, which favored students who read material at their reading level. Students who began with lower…

Discusses the complexities of teaching and teacher education, examining circumstances that change the ways in which researchers view teaching and teacher education. The article also presents cautionary thoughts about the tendency to narrow the scope of research to focus only on the spaces immediately relevant to a pressing problem framed by…

Examined the behavior of item and person statistics from item response theory and classical test theory frameworks through Monte Carlo methods with simulated test data. Findings suggest that item difficulty and person ability estimates are highly comparable for both approaches. (SLD)

The investigation of interactions between the abilities of stimulus discrimination and simple learning and two instructional variables (discrimination difficulty and degree of overlearning) with 27 mentally retarded adolescents found an interaction between stimulus discrimination and the number of words presented at one time for learning…

Visual and auditory coding processes in learning-disabled students (SLDs, n=19) and control students (SCs, n=19) were examined. Analysis of decision latencies revealed that with initial task exposure, SLDs responded more slowly than SCs, but confusability patterns were similar. With practice, overall latencies became comparable, while…

The effect of 3 item arrangements (easy to hard, hard to easy, and random) on test anxiety was studied using an actual classroom examination administered to 126 graduate students (36 males and 90 females) under power conditions. Results indicate that anxiety level and test item arrangement are related. (TJH)

The characteristics of unidimensional ability estimates obtained from data generated using multidimensional compensatory models were compared with estimates from non-compensatory item response theory (IRT) models. The least squares matching procedures used represent a good method of matching the two multidimensional IRT models. (TJH)