This paper develops and applies three nonparametric comparisons of the shapes of two item characteristic surfaces: (1) proportional latent odds; (2) uniform relative difficulty; and (3) item sensitivity. A method is presented for comparing the relative shapes of two item characteristic curves in two examinee populations who were administered an…

The effects of statistical and cognitive difficulty ordering of test items, gender, and explicit labeling of item type on college students' test performance were assessed. A total of 137 male and 265 female undergraduates were administered two 40-item multiple choice tests. Results indicate significant effects for gender and use of labels, but…

Examines the effectiveness of adult encouragement--noncontingent supportive comments--on children's motivation. Eighty eighth-grade boys and girls performed easy or difficult computerized two-choice probability learning tasks alone or in the presence of an encouraging adult. In general, the findings show that encouragement influenced children's…

An approximate relationship is devised between the unidimensional model used in data analysis and a multidimensional model hypothesized to be generating the item responses. Scale shrinkage is successfully predicted for several sets of simulated data. (Author/LMO)

Students' reported inner speech during mathematics problem solving was studied. Subjects from grades three to six were assigned to low-task or high-task difficulty groups. Between problems, students reported their inner speech. Both groups maintained an adaptive task-oriented problem-solving stance, with positive affect toward self. (Author/GDC)

Discusses how current procedures for selecting/constructing equivalent texts may lead to error because of their specific limitations; proposes the utilization of micro-propositional analysis coupled with word-frequency lists and readability formulas for constructing "matching" texts; presents some procedures which researchers working in…

Investigates the problem young children have in constructing diagonals, noting that, on the whole, they can not make diagonals in the horizontal/vertical configuration. (HOD)

Research on the usefulness of metaphors as an aid to teaching statistics shows that students taught with metaphors learned more, defined terms more accurately, made more successful inferences, and made fewer errors. (CH)

Examines the relationship between development of logical processes required in deductive reasoning and their use by preschoolers, also considering possible explanations for children's deductive reasoning. The relationship of problem content to real-world knowledge and the sequence of presentation of problem types were found to affect the display…

Evaluates autistic children's affect and rate of task acquisition under three experimental conditions: constant task, varied acquisition task, and varied with maintenance task. Results showed significantly more efficient learning under the varied maintenance condition. (Author/CI)

Guidelines for selecting and using pictures to guide instructional decisions and behaviors are based on three areas of research: role of pictures and how they improve learning, how context or environment in which pictures operate can influence usefulness, and how physical and perceptual characteristics of pictures affect their function. (MBR)

Discusses five research areas offering guidance to people concerned about teaching problem solving in elementary schools. Areas are (1) components of problem difficulty; (2) the contribution of reading difficulties to problem-solving deficiencies; (3) characteristics of successful problem solvers; (4) children's use of problem-solving techniques…

Explored the effects of examiner familiarity, task complexity, and mode of response to the test performance of 79 speech and language impaired preschoolers who completed the Symbolic Mediation Test. Results showed children performed significantly better when tested by familiar examiners. Functioning did not depend on the task's complexity. (JAC)

Seven experiments were performed to address three issues: prose decisions of different levels of difficulty, directed attention effect, and the effects of decisions on memorability of prose among relatively good and relatively poor readers. (Author/PN)

Proposes that while teachers are teaching students how to write more complex sentences, they provide students with the techniques to read increasingly more complex sentences as well. (DD)