This report describes a pilot study conducted to evaluate the instructional effectiveness of the Steck-Vaughn Phonics Program: Level A-Units 3 and 4 and Level B-Units 2 and 3. The Educational Research Institute of America (ERIA) identified volunteer teachers to participate, designed the assessments, and analyzed the collected data. Because the…

This study examined the role of different scaffolding instructional interventions in facilitating students' shift to more sophisticated mental models as indicated by both performance and process data. Undergraduate students (n=51) were randomly assigned to use of one of three scaffolding conditions (adaptive scaffolding (AS), fixed scaffolding…

The Solomon four-group design (R. Solomon, 1949) is a very useful experimental design to investigate the main effect of a pretest and the interaction of pretest and treatment. Although the design was proposed half a century ago, no proper data analysis techniques have been available. This paper describes how data from the Solomon four-group design…

Students who undertook field studies of soil before the related laboratory work performed better on a posttest than students using the opposite sequence. (AL)

Changes, like single scores, are demonstrated to be valid and reliable and potentially predictable by independent variables. Change and growth measures determined from individual examinees' test scores indicated excellent predictive value. (Author/PN)

Effectiveness of cognitive training on older adults performance on the fluid ability of figural relations was examined. A pattern of differential transfer was found with greater training effects to near fluid transfer measures. Findings suggest continued modifiability of intellectual performance through cognitive intervention across the adult life…

If the correlation between selection test and pretest is greater than the correlation between selection test and posttest, a selected group will continue to regress to the mean in the norm-referenced model of the Title I Evaluation and Reporting System and, therefore, yield a biased estimate. (Author/RL)

Brief relaxation instruction alone and instructions plus electromyographic (EMG) feedback produced significant decreases in general and test-specific anxiety. EMG feedback added little to the effectiveness of relaxation instructions and practice. Relaxation instruction without EMG biofeedback shifted subjects toward a more internal locus of…

Research in written composition must not only face up to the fact that composition tests must meet the same requirements for validity and reliability that other tests must meet, but it also faces the unique difficulty of figuring out a way to give a valid and reliable pretest. (DD)

Describes procedure to measure a new course's ability to meet standards in three areas: student acceptance, student gains, and student comprehension. It has been used over three years to test the acceptability of 31 courses which contain more than 200 videotape presentations, and thousands of pages of print materials. (Author/JEG)

In posttest results, 76 prealgebra students who learned about functions in a unit emphasizing multiple formats, anchoring learning in a thematic context, and problem solving in cooperative groups were more successful at problem solving and problem representation than were 56 comparison students conventionally taught. Similar results were found for…

Examines the relationship between different types of conversational interaction and second language acquisition. Focuses on whether conversational interaction facilitates second language development? Employed a pre-test posttest design. (Author/VWL)

Investigated whether a time lag in the introduction of Japanese syllabaries makes a difference in the early second language acquisition of Japanese. Two groups of native speakers of English, an experimental group, and a control group participated in the study. Results of two posttests showed no significant differences between the experimental and…

Three analyses of pretest and posttest data are considered: (1) posttest only designs; (2) two-way repeated measures of analysis of variance (ANOVA); and (3) one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Conditions that ensure legitimacy of inferences about the equality of treatment effects on the latent variable theta are discussed. (SLD)

Based on the division of attained change for each treated individual into causal and noncausal change, the product-moment correlation between causal change and initial level is studied and compared with the correlation between attained change and initial level. Relevant formulas for true scores at population level are presented. (SLD)