Teaching civics, political science, and government at all levels is the topic of this annotated bibliography. The following kinds and amounts of materials are cited: (1) 8 citations from "Resources in Education" (RIE); (2) 9 citations from "Current Index to Journals in Education" (CIJE); (3) 42 commercially available…

Six tips for increasing student problem-solving skills are offered in this teacher fact sheet. Puzzles and simulations matched to student mental maturity and general knowledge are recommended as activities for helping students think more flexibly and practice higher order thinking skills. In addition, four suggestions are given for controlling…

For decades, every chemical engineer has been asked to have a background in separations. The required separations course can, however, be uninspiring and superficial because understanding many separation processes involves conventional graphical methods and commercial process simulators. We utilize simple, user-­friendly mathematical software,…

This paper illustrates the transformation of a raw data matrix into a matrix of associations, and then into a factor matrix. Factor analysis attempts to distill the most important relationships among a set of variables, thereby permitting some theoretical simplification. In this heuristic data, a correlation matrix was derived to display…

Queuing theory is examined in this paper in order to determine if the theory could be applied in educational settings. It is defined as a form of operations research that uses mathematical formulas and/or computer simulation to study wait and congestion in a system and, through the study of these visible phenomena, to discover malfunctions within…

Tailored Response Testing (TRT) is a new type of test that has demonstrated its applicability to the evaluation of human performance in a wide variety of occupations and work settings. The Navy is using TRT to measure the technical proficiency of job incumbents in three of its jobs. The methodology holds great promise for testing aboard ships as…

In response to requests from the University of Alberta Department of Computing Services for PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) applications in structured learning situations, a program for computer-assisted bibliographic instruction (BI) was developed. The program is divided into the following six units: (1) Introduction;…

This guide lists 21 software packages considered to be worthy of further consideration by other reviewing agencies and schools by a group of 12 computer coordinators from educational software preview centers and evaluation agencies. These software products have been selected as not being likely to appear in the reviews produced by major software…

To avoid the costs to the college and its students of making a poor hiring decision, Edison State Community College in Ohio uses the techniques of descriptive interviewing and teaching simulations to select new faculty. In descriptive interviewing, questions focus on how the candidate has actually behaved in real situations rather than on vague…

In item response theory (IRT), preequating depends upon item parameter estimate invariance. Three separate simulations, all using the unidimensional three-parameter logistic item response model, were conducted to study the impact of the following variables on preequating: (1) mean differences in ability; (2) multidimensionality in the data; and…

The space shuttle simulation, Totally Enclosed Modular Environment (TEME), was developed as a means for students to study group dynamics and how people adapt to their environment. This paper highlights features of this project. Topics reviewed include: (1) its historical development (tracing its origins as a year-long ecology course to current…

This report documents an experiment to determine the training effectiveness of a microcomputer-based avionics system trainer as a cost-effective alternative to training in the actual aircraft. Participants--26 operationally qualified C-141 pilots with no prior knowledge of the Fuel Saving Advisory System (FSAS), a computerized fuel management…

The effectiveness of environmental simulations in developing students' awareness of environmental issues, whether perception of environmental relationships was affected by the simulations, and whether the use of microcomputers as the medium of instruction affected student attitudes towards computers were investigated in this study. Undergraduates…

Four methods for determining the dimensionality of a set of test items were compared: (1) linear factor analysis; (2) residual analysis; (3) nonlinear factor analysis; and (4) Bejar's method. Five artificial test data sets (for 40 items and 1500 examinees) were generated, consistent with the three-parameter logistic model and the assumption of…

This paper describes an undergraduate-level course designed to teach the applications of computers that are most relevant in the social sciences, especially psychology. After an introduction to the basic concepts and terminology of computing, separate units were devoted to word processing, data analysis, data acquisition, artificial intelligence,…