Classical informal reasoning "fallacies," for example, begging the question or arguing from ignorance, while ubiquitous in everyday argumentation, have been subject to little systematic investigation in cognitive psychology. In this article it is argued that these "fallacies" provide a rich taxonomy of argument forms that can be differentially…

Spatial judgments and actions are often based on multiple cues. The authors review a multitude of phenomena on the integration of spatial cues in diverse species to consider how nearly optimally animals combine the cues. Under the banner of Bayesian perception, cues are sometimes combined and weighted in a near optimal fashion. In other instances…

The article aims to provide Certified Public Accountant (CPA) candidates, accounting faculty, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and the state boards of accountancy with an insight into the business law professor's perspective concerning the legal education of accountants. This article first describes various factors,…

Although handwriting is often considered a matter of presentation, a substantial body of international research suggests that the role of handwriting in children's composing has been neglected. Automaticity in handwriting is now seen as of key importance in composing but this proposition is relatively untested in the UK and the assumption has been…

Discusses Melvin R. Novick's work in the area of Bayesian statistics. This area of statistics was seen as a powerful scientific tool that allows educational researchers to have a better understanding of their data. (RB)

An analytic expression is derived for the posterior distribution of the bivariate correlation given a data set that contains missing values on both variables. Interval estimates of the unknown correlation are then computed in terms of the highest posterior density regions. A sampling study illustrates the procedure. (SLD)

This paper describes an empirical evaluation of a Bayesian procedure for equating scores on test forms taken by small numbers of examinees, using collateral information from the equating of other test forms. In this procedure, a separate Bayesian estimate is derived for the equated score at each raw-score level, making it unnecessary to specify a…

This paper investigates large differences in employer satisfaction with vocational education and training (VET) between 2005 and 2007. Employer satisfaction was measured using the Survey of Employer Use and Views of the VET System, which was first conducted in 2005 and repeated in 2007. It measures employer satisfaction with vocational…

This policy brief presents a professional consensus regarding the dimensions of teaching quality and the issues that need to be addressed if California is to ensure high quality instruction for all students. It is based on the work of an expert panel of education stakeholders who reviewed research, met with outside experts, and discussed in depth…

In the present study we used bayesian latent growth modeling to asses the impact of a one-semester creativity course on the development of engineering students' creativity scripts. We compared a treatment (N = 52) and a control (N = 42) group with respect to individual differences in initial status and in rate of change. Results revealed that the…

According to the recent Nation's Report Card, 12th-graders failed to produce gains on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) despite earning better grades on average. One possible explanation is that 12th-graders were not motivated taking the NAEP, which is a low-stakes test. We develop three Bayesian IRT mixture models to…

The original grounded theory was derived from a sample of junior and senior science and engineering majors. The current study tested the original grounded theory with a new set of juniors and seniors who were, in contrast to the original sample, primarily studying the liberal arts. In this qualitative analysis, the authors sought to determine if…

This article reviews current methods for evaluating models in the cognitive sciences, including theoretically based approaches, such as Bayes factors and minimum description length measures; simulation approaches, including model mimicry evaluations; and practical approaches, such as validation and generalization measures. This article argues…

This article focuses on the accuracy of satellite data, which may then be used in wave power applications. The satellite data are compared to data from wave buoys, which are currently considered to be the most accurate of the devices available for measuring wave characteristics. This article presents an analysis of satellite- (Topex/Poseidon) and…

Griffiths, Christian, and Kalish (this issue) present an iterative-learning paradigm applying a Bayesian model to understand inductive biases in categorization. The authors argue that the paradigm is useful as an exploratory tool to understand inductive biases in situations where little is known about the task. It is argued that a theory developed…