This study considers the importance of contextual effects on the quality of assessments on item bias and differential item functioning (DIF) in measurement. Often, in educational studies, students are clustered in teachers or schools, and the clusters could impact psychometric issues yet are largely ignored by traditional item analyses. A…

Differential Item Functioning (DIF) occurs when there is a greater probability of solving an item based on group membership after controlling for ability. Following administration of a 50-item scientific and quantitative reasoning exam to 286 two-year and 1174 four-year students, items were evaluated for DIF. Two-year students performed…

This article examines a wide range of parish school indicators that can be used to predict long-term viability. The study reported in this article explored the relationship between demographic variables, financial variables, and parish grade school closures in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. Specifically, this study investigated whether…

The authors propose a methodology based on the principal strata approach to causal inference for assessing the relative effectiveness of two degree programs with respect to the employment status of their graduates. An innovative use of nonparametric bounds in the principal strata framework is shown, examining the role of some assumptions in…

The testing of English language learners (ELLs) is, to a large extent, a random process because of poor implementation and factors that are uncertain or beyond control. Yet current testing practices and policies appear to be based on deterministic views of language and linguistic groups and erroneous assumptions about the capacity of assessment…

The Centre for the Economics of Education was asked to bring together a wide range of academic evidence (primarily England-based) to investigate the extent to which academic and non-academic childhood outcomes are complementary to each other, or are in some way traded-off against each other. The report also investigates the drivers of both…

We compared the structure of discussions in a middle school mathematics classroom before (Year 1) and after (Year 2) teacher participation in professional development activities aimed at enhancing students' participation and the co-construction of mathematical ideas. Changes in the role of teacher and student were accompanied by identifiable…

This study examined the joint impact of experiencing both interparental violence and child physical maltreatment on young adults' self-esteem. It also tested the hypothesis of parental and peer relationship qualities as mediators in the relationship between childhood histories of family violence and adult self-esteem. Data were collected from a…

The failure of Hume's "constant conjunction" to describe apparently causal relations in science and everyday life has led to various "probabilistic" theories of causation of which the study by P. C. Suppes (1970) is an important example. A formal model that was developed for the analysis of comparative agricultural experiments…

Report describes the rationale underlying a procedure for eliciting personal estimates of probabilities utilizing a proper scoring rule, and illustrates some new techniques for calibrating those probabilities and providing better feedback to students learning to assess uncertainty. (Author)

THIS BIBLIOGRAPHY SUPPLEMENT LISTS MATERIALS ON VARIOUS ASPECTS OF ACHIEVEMENT. APPROXIMATELY 60 REFERENCES ARE PROVIDED TO DOCUMENTS DATING FROM 1961 TO 1966. JOURNALS, BOOKS, AND REPORT MATERIALS ARE LISTED. SUBJECT AREAS INCLUDED ARE ACHIEVEMENT LEVEL, ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATION, UNDERACHIEVERS, PROBABILITY ESTIMATES, AND…

The defining property of an admissible scoring system is that any individual perceives himself as maximizing his expected score by reporting his true subjective distribution. The use of admissible scoring systems as a measure of probabilistic forecasts is becoming increasingly well-known in those cases where the forecast is a discrete distribution…

A FORTRAN computer program is described which computes F ratios and attendant probabilities for two-factor fixed effects analysis of variance designs with disproportional cell frequencies. The number of levels for each factor is limited to five and all zero values are considered to be equivalent to missing values. (Author/JKS)

Compares the harmonic mean and Kramer unequal group forms of the Tukey test for various: (a) degrees of disparate group sizes, (b) numbers of groups, and (c) nominal significant levels. (RC)