A proposed model for the validity of measures of professional competence treats validation as the evaluation of inferences drawn from test scores, focusing on evaluation, generalization, and extrapolation. The model is used to indicate strengths and weaknesses of assessments of professional competence: observations of performance, simulations, and…

Variance formulas of H. E. Daniels and M. G. Kendall (1947) are generalized to allow for the presence of ties and variance of the sample tau correlation. Applications of these generalized formulas are discussed and illustrated using data from a 1965 study of contraceptive use in 15 developing countries. (SLD)

Thirty-seven second, 41 fourth, and 46 sixth graders were tested on low-level subcomponents of reading efficiency and high-level text comprehension to assess the relationship between the two parameters. High-level comprehension does not depend on efficiency of lexical access processes, but verbal memory span is important in high-level…

Discusses five common myths about statistical significance testing (SST), the possible erroneous and harmful contributions of SST to educational research, and suggested alternatives to SST for mathematics education research. (Contains 61 references.) (MKR)

This article reports on an introspective study that examined the effect of EFL learners' L2 reading proficiency on their L2 lexical inferencing while reading an English expository text. The knowledge sources and contextual cues they used in the process, the level of success they achieved, and their rate of learning and retention of the inferred…

A central theme of research on human development and psychopathology is whether a therapeutic intervention or a turning-point event, such as a family break-up, alters the trajectory of the behavior under study. This paper lays out and applies a method for using observational longitudinal data to make more confident causal inferences about the…

Introduction: Authors have stressed the importance of the broader contextual influences on practice improvement and learning and have expressed concern about gaps between research and practice. This implies a potential expansion of the knowledge base for continuing education in the health professions (CEHP) and an increased emphasis on research…

This paper examines whether AFDC/TANF asset tests affect the asset holdings of low-educated single mothers. Special emphasis is given to vehicle assets that make up a very significant share of total wealth for poor families. Consistent with other recent research, the author finds little evidence that asset limits have an effect on the amount of…

The syntagmatic paradigmatic model is a distributed, memory-based account of verbal processing. Built on a Bayesian interpretation of string edit theory, it characterizes the control of verbal cognition as the retrieval of sets of syntagmatic and paradigmatic constraints from sequential and relational long-term memory and the resolution of these…

Professional practice is built on sound knowledge specific to each discipline. This knowledge is developed and validated through a process of scientific investigation or research. However, lack of knowledge about the research process acts as a barrier to applying evidence-based practice within the school setting. Understanding the components that…

This article reports on a study for the Higher Education Funding Council for England on the impact of employability skills teaching and learning on graduate labour market prospects. The findings of the study cast doubt on the assumption that these skills can be effectively developed within classrooms. Detailed information gathered at university…

When older students fail to gain rapid and accurate decoding skills by the third or fourth grade, they not only struggle with reading comprehension, but they also fall behind their average reading peers in academic performance and achievement--and they rarely catch up. When presented with academic tasks that require reading, these students often…

Parenting programmes have been provided to a wide range of child and parent groups across a number of countries, but are they effective? This aim of this paper is to examine the findings from a number of systematic reviews that summarise the best available research evidence on the impact of these programmes on a range of parental and child…

Second language researchers and trainers have met with some success in teaching language learners the skill of inferring meaning from context while reading, using a variety of teaching methods. This paper describes a study that attempts to compare the effectiveness of three teaching methods, on ESL learners' ability to infer from context and…

This quasi-experimental study compared the effects of morphemic and contextual analysis instruction (MC) with the effects of textbook vocabulary instruction (TV) that was integrated into social studies textbook lessons. The participants were 157 students in eight fifth-grade classrooms. The results indicated that (a) TV students were more…