This study, the purpose of which is to determine an efficient instructional design for different levels of spatial abilities, investigates: (1) the main effects of visual treatments in simulation environments on comprehension and the transfer of chemistry knowledge and (2) the interaction effects of the visual treatments and the learners' spatial…

Educators and education advocates have recently acknowledged that the ability to think systemically is one of the necessary skills for success in the 21st century. Game-making is especially well-suited to encouraging meta-level reflection on the skills and processes that designer-players use in building such systems. Membership in a community of…

The use of virtual environments for special needs is as diverse as the field of Special Education itself and the individuals it serves. Individuals with special needs often face challenges with attention, language, spatial abilities, memory, higher reasoning and knowledge acquisition. Research in the use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)…

Technology offers ample opportunities to bring reality into the classroom. Students and teachers nowadays have many tools to work in an authentic way with real data in mathematics and science education. However, much research and development are still needed to create a consistent learning trajectory out of the many exciting single activities.…

Purpose: Applications of online Second Life (SL) prevail over the world. The purpose of this paper is to make a review and synthesis of recent research studies on SL. Design/methodology/approach: Documental analysis is employed. Totally, 135 research publications, published in 2006-2008, are reviewed and synthesized. Findings: Findings are as…

This study investigates how the expectations of different types of financial aid affect the student college choice process from application through enrollment. We find that students from different race and income groups respond differentially to aid packages in their application and enrollment decisions depending on their levels of aid…

This paper reports findings of a pilot study that examined the pedagogical potential of "Second Life" (SL), a popular three-dimensional multi-user virtual environment (3-D MUVE) developed by the Linden Lab. The study is part of a 1-year research and development project titled "Modelling of Secondlife Environments"…

"Gedankensimulation" is a term adapted from Einstein's "thought experiments" to indicate mentally created simulations that can help conceptualize ideas. Presents seven examples of simulations that can be utilized to solve problems or illustrate concepts in probability and statistics. Problem contexts include games of chance,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of test dimensionality on the stability of examinee ability estimates and item response theory (IRT) based score reports. A simulation procedure based on W. F. Stout's Essential Unidimensionality was used to generate test data with one dominant trait for the whole test and three minor traits…

Many missing data studies have simulated data, randomly deleted values, and investigated the method of handling the missing values that would most closely approximate the original data. Regression procedures have emerged as the most recommended methods. If the values are missing randomly, these procedures are effective. If, however, the values are…

This paper evaluated multidimensional linking procedures with which multidimensional test data from two separate calibrations were put on a common scale. Data were simulated with known ability distributions varying on two factors which made linking necessary: mean vector differences and variance-covariance (v-c) matrix differences. After the…

This paper discusses issues of representation in the use of scientific visualizations, specifically those used for biomedical applications, and the implications of those issues to interface design. Topics addressed include the benefits of research into the generation of virtual simulation (virtual reality) and the importance of realism. (Contains…

Equating a test form to itself through a chain of equatings, commonly referred to as circular equating, has been widely used as a criterion to evaluate the adequacy of equating. This paper uses both analytical methods and simulation methods to show that this criterion is in general invalid in serving this purpose. For the random groups design done…

Logistic regression was used for modeling the observation-to-indicator ratio needed for the standard error scree procedure (SEscree) to correctly identify the number of factors existing in generated sample correlation matrices. The created correlation matrices were manipulated along the number of factors (4,6), sample size (250, 500), magnitude of…

A variety of approaches have been suggested by which to assess the equality of population mean vectors under conditions of population covariance matrix homogeneity and heterogeneity. The nonrobustness of commonly used multivariate tests of means to population covariance matrix heterogeneity has been long documented. However, most studies have…