In this article, the authors would like to look at a range of solutions submitted by Year 4-5 teams in the 2003 "Naturally Mathematical Challenge" to a question that involves no more than the numbers 1 to 6 and possible arrangements of them. In the context of other competition questions and in their elaboration of mathematical process,…

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic organization created by the Microsoft founder and his wife in 2000, has already invested nearly a billion dollars in an effort to redesign the American high school. It supports some 1,500 existing schools; 450 of them are either restructured or brand new. But the foundation's focus was not…

The majority of research investigating gender-related differences in problem-solving ability has focused on the product of word problem solving--the problem solution. This paper reports an investigation of potential gender-related effects on sixth-graders of an explicitly stated problem-solving plan. Two versions of the test were given: the…

Several techniques for conducting studies of measurement integrity are explained and illustrated using a heuristic data set from a study of teachers' participation in decision making (D. L. Taylor, 1991). The sample consisted of 637 teachers. It is emphasized that validity and reliability are characteristics of data, and do not inure to tests as…

It is argued that, given the importance and the increased use of multivariate techniques such as factor analysis and canonical correlation, students need to be made aware of multivariate methods and the appropriate ways in which they can be applied. As a general linear model that subsumes all other parametric measures, canonical correlation…

The report discusses the nature and effectiveness, with mildly handicapped students, of the heuristic approach, an alternative to the behavioral technique that promotes opportunities for the child to explore materials and take an active role in problem solving. Theoretical support for the approach is cited for use with learning disabled and mildly…

Jessica Yood argues that Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiatives can help us better understand how the academy can act in the information age. Drawing on her observations of a newly emerging WAC program, she offers "an alternative approach to the traditional lens we use to look at disciplines or culture" and suggests that we…

Online information retrieval is pervasive and its development in libraries is accelerating. Within the near future, most college and research libraries will provide direct access to their patrons to vast information resources via CD-ROMs, locally mounted databases, and gateways. The computer terminal and the "frame" of information it…

A school district's program coordinator designed and implemented a practicum study intended to provide intermediate grade teachers and students with problem-solving techniques and skills needed for success in a course in contemporary Canadian issues. Teachers' and students' problem-solving skills were assessed through reports based on…

Written in the form of a workshop transcript for participants to take with them, this booklet is designed to present new ideas, reinforce ideas covered in the workshop, suggest applications of workshop content, and encourage participants to use the applications. The concept of "problem" is defined; key ideas in problem solving are considered;…

To help students develop a broadly generative approach to reading and writing about literature, teachers of literature should employ not only systematic procedures, but also the eclectic and utilitarian spirit of rhetorical invention. A semiotic perspective offers the most solid theoretical foundation for establishing a genuinely heuristic…

This study investigated problem solving skills in mechanics problems that required the use of diagrams. These skills were examined in two ways. First, the study examined student problem solving skills using solution scripts from the Western Australian Tertiary Admission Examination in physics. Solution attempts by students in the 1978 and 1979…

This paper briefly explains the possible two-mode techniques of factor analysis, and discusses, in more detail, one two-mode technique--the Q-technique. The Q-technique may be useful when the researcher is interested in obtaining information about "types" of individuals with regard to certain variables. A concrete heuristic example is used to…

Four discussions of test construction based on item response theory (IRT) are presented. The first discussion, "Test Design as Model Building in Mathematical Programming" (T. J. J. M. Theunissen), presents test design as a decision process under certainty. A natural way of modeling this process leads to mathematical programming. General…

A broad range of well-structured problems--embracing forms of diagnosis, catalog selection, and skeletal planning--are solved in expert computer systems by the method of heuristic classification. These programs have a characteristic inference structure that systematically relates data to a pre-enumerated set of solutions by abstraction, heuristic…