Describes the validation of a taxonomy designed to classify teacher verbal strategies to foster interaction through the Hawaii Interactive Television System operated for distance education at the University of Hawaii. Highlights include Kappa Coefficients; Z-scores; and recommendations for future use. (Author/LRW)

Discusses historical and contemporary influences on changes in special education assessment, emphasizing three persistent themes: accurate classification, fairness to minority students, and special education outcomes. Dunn's contributions to each theme are discussed, along with other influences such as legislation and litigation. Current dynamics…

Uses co-occurrence analysis of INSPEC classification codes and thesaurus terms assigned to medical informatics (biomedical information) journal articles and proceedings papers to reveal a more complete perspective of how information science and information technology (IS/IT) authors view medical informatics. Discusses results of cluster analysis…

Developed a measure of severity of mental retardation in adults, the Level of Activity in Profound/severe Mental Retardation, scale using Rasch analysis as a guide to item selection. Results from using the scale to rate 146 adults with mental retardation support the use of the scale for classification of severe and profound retardation. (SLD)

Using several data sets, the relative performance of the beta binomial model and two more general strong true score models in estimating several indices of classification consistency is examined. It appears that the beta binomial model can provide inadequate fits to raw score distributions compared to more general models. (TJH)

Eight articles discuss Program Theory (PT) construction issues, administrators as applied theorists, tests of PT, using path analysis to develop/evaluate PT, using PT to describe/measure program quality, developing/testing program classification and function theories, a pattern-matching approach to link PT and evaluation data, and linking PT and…

Theoretical and empirical issues relating to haptic exploration and the representation of common objects during haptic classification were investigated in 3 experiments involving a total of 112 college students. Results are discussed in terms of a computational model of human haptic object classification with implications for dextrous robot…

The concept of paraphyly is defined and its importance in the teaching of evolution and taxonomy is discussed. Examples are included to illustrate this concept. A list of 14 references is provided. (CW)

Reviews previous work on producing knowledge by the use of information retrieval or classification schemes, and describes techniques by which hidden knowledge may be retrieved, i.e., serendipity in browsing and use of appropriate search strategies. Possible future methods based on relational indexing or artificial intelligence are also explored.…

Two studies of classification strategies of three and five year olds and adults found that five year olds and adults used different sorting strategies for each of two sorting tasks, whereas three year olds relied on the same strategy for both. Children most successful in producing correct groupings were most likely to modify their strategies…

A solution is offered to problems associated with the inequality in the manipulability of probabilities of classification errors of masters versus nonmasters, based on competency test results. Eschewing the typical arbitrary establishment of observed-score standards below 100 percent, the solution incorporates a self-correction of wrong answers.…

The accuracy of Houle's typology in providing an accurate conceptual description of systematic structural forms of continuing professional education and business education instructors was tested via a survey of 98 (of 129) business educators. Results of rotation factor analysis added inquiry/reinforcement to Houle's 3 learning modes of…

Contrasted four theories of natural language category acquisition by investigating the relation between category intensions and extensions in kindergarten children, second and fifth graders, and college students. Since none of the theories discussed could explain the pattern of results, an exemplar-based model was proposed. (RH)

Elaborates on the components of five domains of a taxonomy for science educators' concerns for teaching and curriculum development: information, process, creativity, attitude, and applications domain. (YP)

To establish the relationship between categorization ability and psychometric intelligence, 98 ninth graders in Israel were instructed to group 28 common Hebrew nouns into categories and were given a battery of intelligence tests. Results are discussed in terms of their impact on the design of intelligence testing. (SLD)