This article discusses how a brief project-based unit promoted the learning of children in a first-grade classroom. The children attended a public elementary school located in a southeastern university town in the United States. Approximately 94% of the students in the school were from economically disadvantaged families. No children in this…

This report is the Proceedings of the third conference of its type. Included are 23 of the 25 papers presented at the conference, discussion of these papers by invited discussants, and symposium papers by a group of leaders in adaptive testing and latent trait test theory research and applications. The papers are organized into the following…

A complex research and development process is required to study instructional processes and student outcomes effectively. In order to study the instructional process it is essential to select or develop instruments that can describe a total event. Understanding the classroom process necessitates having a record of the environment, the materials,…

This study examines the manner in which a group of kindergarten children viewed their kindergarten experience, how those views changed over time, and the extent to which those views were affected by background variables and preschool experiences. Eighty-three randomly selected urban kindergarten children were interviewed three times over a 7-month…

The validity of the assumptions under which the ordinal true score test theory was derived was examined using (1) simulation based on classical test theory; (2) a long empirical test with data from 321 sixth graders; and (3) an extensive simulation with 480 datasets based on the 3-parameter model. (SLD)

The difference between item bias and item impact and the way they relate to item validity are discussed from a multidimensional item response theory perspective. The Mantel-Haenszel procedure and the Simultaneous Item Bias strategy are used in a Monte Carlo study to illustrate detection of item bias. (SLD)

This paper reports on a project which has developed the general latent class model as a framework for representation of item responses. This framework can be used to represent data in applications such as mastery tests and other kinds of achievement tests, where there is reason to believe that current foundations are deficient. Methods of…

Evaluations of social programs based upon quasi-experimental designs are typically plagued by problems of nonequivalence between the experimental and comparison group prior to the experiment. In such settings it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the effects of the program from the confounding effects associated with the…

A content analysis was conducted of three educational research journals published by the American Educational Research Association to review the quantitative and qualitative techniques used in educational research. All articles appearing in these three journals from 1988 through 1995 (total n=1,715) were considered. Research methods were…

A nonmetric multidimensional scaling technique was employed to determine the characteristics of the ideal professor. Subsequently, the results were compared across varying levels of program personnel, including administrators, faculty, staff and students. Centered in a relatively self-contained academic program of a large midwestern university,…

This quasi-experimental study was designed to explore the potential impact of online instruction in a graduate course affects K-12 teachers' attitudes towards technology integration in schools and learning performance in the United States. This study used a nonequivalent control group design. Nineteen participants in both the experimental group…

The results of this study conclude that there is a multidimensional basis for test score inferences on the mathematics and critical reading sections of the SAT. Results from the exploratory analyses indicate that the data are multidimensional, as mathematics displayed two dimensions and critical reading displayed three dimensions. The correlations…

High rates of failure in secondary level science classes are a problem worldwide. Effective teaching and efficient management of schools requires information as to the causes of failure. One approach to acquiring this information is to improve our understanding of what the students themselves perceive as the causes and antecedents of school…

The increased use of criterion-referenced statewide testing programs is an outgrowth of the need for more diagnostic information for planning and decision making than is provided by norm-referenced programs. There remains, however, a need for state agencies to compare the results of local districts to a variety of comparison groups for the purpose…

Thirty-four papers on educational statistics which were presented at the 1971 AERA Conference are summarized. Six major interest areas are covered: (a) general information; (b) non-parametric methods; (c) errors of measurement and correlation techniques; (d) regression theory; (e) univariate and multivariate analysis; (f) factor analysis. (MS)