Despite growing efforts to take a more focused approach to teaching writing across academic disciplines, relatively little is known about how writing-intensive courses impact students' perceptions of writing. This study addressed this question by investigating differences across academic disciplines in student perceptions of writing. Anthony…

This book documents the rise of tax-advantaged college savings plans and analyzes the rhetoric surrounding each state's program adoption to understand what such programs really mean. The book concludes with a Best Practices description of the ideal tax-advantaged college savings plan that maximizes public responsibility to pay for higher…

The effect of person misfit to an item response theory (IRT) model on a mastery/nonmastery decision was investigated. Also investigated was whether the classification precision can be improved by identifying misfitting respondents using person-fit statistics. A simulation study was conducted to investigate the probability of a correct…

This paper concerns the construction of a bibliography of written materials about Aboriginal science and technology drawn from books, theses, dissertations, scientific and non-scientific journals, conference papers and newspapers etc: in fact, articles about the science and technology that relate in some way to Aborigines, from whatever source,…

A major problem in competency-based education is the lack of clarity in defining competence. This monograph describes the levels of competence used in developing competency-based educational programs and provides a taxonomy that can be used in developing competency-based instruction. The taxonomy includes four levels. Level 1 includes specific…

Learnability theory is an attempt to illuminate the concept of learnability using a mathematical model of learning. Two models of learning of categorial grammars are examined here: the standard model, in which sentences presented to the learner are flat strings of words, and one in which sentences are presented in the form of functor-argument…

This study examined the extent to which actions of objects influence children's taxonomic categorization. Two types of action-based categories were examined: those in which the objects share similar actions; and those in which the objects have dissimilar actions. Perceptual features of the objects were dissimilar for all objects used in the study.…

This study is a critical evaluation of the roles for coding and scoring of missing responses to multiple-choice items in educational tests. The focus is on tests in which the test-takers have little or no motivation; in such tests omitting and not reaching (as classified by the currently adopted operational rules) is quite frequent. Data from the…

Two types of qualitative dependent variables are presented for use in counseling research: choices from an unordered set of categorical alternatives and ordered, categorical counseling outcomes. To investigate school choice behavior, the conditional logit model and analysis are introduced. The conditional logit model can include the attributes of…

This study developed a classification model for matching appropriate psychoeducational interventions with specific groups of adolescent sexual offenders. Participants were male juvenile sex offenders incarcerated as wards in the Continuum of Care Sex Offender Treatment Program of the California Department of Corrections. The treatment provided…

The Rasch model for ordered categories was applied to responses on a science attitude survey that uses a combined semantic differential and Likert-type scale format. Data were drawn from the Views about Science Survey for 1,300 high school students. Examination of category response function graphs and threshold estimates allowed classification of…

The purpose of this book is to set forth the elements of English grammar in their relation to thought and the expression of thought. This object has been the guiding principle in the selection of material, in the treatment of forms and constructions, and in the fashioning of the very numerous illustrative exercises. The Introduction explains in…

The purpose of this study is to suggest another source of information to be used for evaluating our teacher education programs. (Author)

Translating social studies objectives into learnable tasks for students in the classroom involves understanding what a learning activity is, and that different types of learning activities serve different functions. An example of a learning activity sequence which includes four catagories of activities--intake, organizational, demonstrative, and…

This study considered the influence of the mother upon the daughter in the socialization process and, as well, environmental factors that might account for personality development. (RK)