Common problems encountered in teaching Chinese that involve classical, intentional malapropisms (learned errors) are discussed. Three aspects unique to Chinese are addressed: (1) since Chinese writing is logographic, some malapropisms occur because of similar graphs; (2) since many expressions come from classical Chinese, and instruction in…

Recommendations for remediation of 28 distinct common error patterns in arithmetic computation are described. (SD)

Endpoint and distance effects have been observed in the protocols of subjects learning linear orderings. These were produced by subjects learning the frequency of word occurrence as the greater member of a relationship. Error patterns were similar on all trials. (CHK)

A remedial approach involving review, contrast, and re-review for remedying second language learners' errors is suggested. (RM)

The position here is that error analysis is inadequate, particularly from the language-teaching point of view. Non-errors must be considered in specifying the learner's current command of the language, its limits, and his learning tasks. A cyclic procedure of elicitation and analysis, to secure evidence of errors and non-errors, is outlined.…

Contrastive analysis a priori predicts facts of possible errors in learning a second language that contrastive analysis a posteriori cannot explain. In a study of relative clause formation, the latter approach shows that students have no trouble, whereas the former approach shows the task to be so difficult that they avoid it. (AG)

Problems with finance data reported through the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) are reported. Less than one percent of institutions appear to have reported incorrect data for the fiscal year (FY) 1983 finance survey. One reporting problem concerns state appropriations that are radically different in previous years or that are…

To learn more about the specific nature of the teaching and learning problems involved, researchers conducted a clinical study of 20 high school students enrolled a BASIC course. Investigators presented each student with a sequence of eight programming problems, ranging from easy to difficult. They asked questions to track student thinking and…

The goal of this study was to find a way to quantify three criteria of representational quality, described by Greeno, so that it would be possible to examine statistically the relationship between representational quality and other variables related to problem solution. The sample consisted of 18 college students, 84 percent of whom had…

This document contains 15 research papers presented at the Fourth and Fifth Annual Conferences of the Research Council for Diagnostic and Prescriptive Mathematics. The papers are organized into four sections. In part I, four position papers by Romberg, Engelhardt, Ashlock, and Heddens reflect research ideas which underlie the Council. Part II…

The use of error pattern analysis can reduce the time and money spent on editing and correcting manuscripts. What is required is noting, classifying, and keeping a frequency count of errors. First an editor should take a typical page of writing and circle each error. After the editor has done a sufficiently large number of pages to identify an…

A study was conducted to explore the generality of reconstructive processes of memory for social information. Sixty college students divided evenly into six experimental and control groups were asked to read one of two versions of a story: one in which a couple happily agreed not to have children, the other in which the man's desire to remain…

There are two types of errors made in feeling-of-knowing (FOK) studies: a commission error occurs when a subject answers a question incorrectly, and an omission error occurs when a subject fails to provide an answer for a given question. A subject makes a commission error if he or she responds to the following question, "In which city does…

A study of the processing of morphophonology by native speakers and second language learners focused on the processing of the Japanese potential suffix. The subjects were 13 Japanese adults (mean age 27.1) and 13 advanced learners of Japanese as a second language (mean age 26.6). The production of the potential inflection by the two subject groups…