This article discusses the analysis of a decision-making process faced by contestants on the television game show "The Price is Right". The included analyses of the original and related problems concern pattern searching, inductive reasoning, quadratic functions, and graphing. Computer simulation programs in BASIC and tables of…

Described is the use of story telling as a context to introduce mathematical concepts by providing a model, offering problem-posing situations, stimulating investigation, and illustrating concepts. Examples of appropriate stories are given for the primary and low secondary levels. (MDH)

A method was developed using a deck of cards to teach Japanese fifth graders to calculate the area of a parallelogram. Investigations with 59 male and 45 female students demonstrate the superiority of the method to that previously used in terms of recall at one week. (SLD)

A Many-Faceted Rasch Model (FACETS) for measurement of writing ability is described, and its use in solving measurement problems in large-scale assessment is illustrated with a random sample of 1,000 students from Georgia's Eighth Grade Writing Test. It is a promising approach to assessment through written compositions. (SLD)

In this study, 590 third graders from 12 Dutch schools took 32 tests indicating 16 semantic Structure-of-Intellect (SI) abilities and 1 of 4 reading comprehension tests, involving either multiple-choice or open-ended items. Results indicate that item type for reading comprehension is congeneric with respect to SI abilities measured. (TJH)

Use of the bootstrap resampling technique (BRT) is assessed in its application to resampling analysis associated with measurement of payment allocation errors by federally funded Family Assistance Programs. The BRT is applied to a food stamp quality control database in Oregon. This analysis highlights the outlier-sensitivity of the…

Presents activities in which students develop and analyze scatterplots on graphing calculators to model corn growth, decay, a box of maximum volume, and weather prediction. Provides reproducible worksheets. (MDH)

This study formulated and tested a mathematical model to predict learning in which the amount of correct information recalled from an audio learning task is a function of the rate of oral communication. (Contains 36 references.) (MDH)

Extends dynamic model of cognitive growth proposed by van Geert in three directions: (1) added a term to consider exposure to material to be learned; (2) developed method to apply model to cross-sectional studies; and (3) developed procedure to scale cognitive abilities tests with items of varying difficulty. Tests model with 2- to 15-year-olds'…

Drawing conclusions from the comparison of datasets using informal statistical inference is a challenging task since the nature and type of reasoning expected is not fully understood. In this paper a secondary teacher's reasoning from the comparison of box plot distributions during the teaching of a Year 11 (15-year-old) class is analyzed. From…

This article examines students' ability to use the balance model to solve for unknowns. A teaching experiment was conducted in four Year 3 classrooms. This experiment focused on exploring the application of the balance model as an analogue for representing equations and solving for unknowns. The teaching experiment promoted a shift by students…

A popular method of analyzing test items for differential item functioning (DIF) is to compute a statistic that conditions samples of examinees from different populations on an estimate of ability. This conditioning or matching by ability is intended to produce an appropriate statistic that is sensitive to true differences in item functioning,…

The regression-discontinuity approach to evaluating educational programs is reviewed, and regression-discontinuity post-program mean differences under various conditions are discussed. The regression-discontinuity design is used to determine whether post-program differences exist between an experimental program and a control group. The difference…

A two-dimensional, compensatory item response model and a unidimensional model were fitted to the reading and mathematics items in the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised for a sample of 1,000 adults aged 20-39 years. Multidimensional information theory predicts that if the unidimensional abilities can be represented as vectors in…

Project S.C.A.M.P. (Science, Computer and Mathematics Professions) is a year-long program designed to encourage the mathematical and scientific talents and interests of rural gifted junior high school students. Students participated in a 3-week residential summer camp at the University of Virginia and completed computer-based classes in geometry…