Recent data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) were used to examine the validity of the traditional human capital model, which predicts that training lowers starting wages and increases wage growth. The primary data sample was restricted to those 4,309 members of the NLSY sample who were working for pay and not enrolled in…

To help increase the understanding of sources of difficulty in test items, a study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of various aspects of prose complexity on the difficulty of achievement test items. The items of interest were those that presented a verbal stimulus followed by a question about the stimulus and a standard set of…

The quality of fit between the data and the measurement model is fundamental to any discussion of results. Fit has been the subject of inquiry since as early as the 1920s. Most early explorations concentrated on assessing global fit or subset fits on fixed length, traditional paper and pencil tests given as a single unit. The detection of aberrant…

Research on school effectiveness has underscored the importance of the personal investment and commitment of teachers to education in general, as well as to the particular mission of their own school. This paper presents three analyses that examined the relationships among teachers' perceptions of school leadership, school culture, and teacher…

The multiplicity of variables describing the financial conditions of postsecondary institutions makes it difficult to assess changes in higher education finance from year to year and to find the relationship between these finance variables and average faculty salaries. This study sought to determine if a small number of factors could be derived to…

This study presents a means of identifying economically efficient school districts in Illinois and provides an analysis of select school variables: school population; salary expenditure; level of teacher preparedness; number of years of teaching experience; and select ratios incorporating pupils, administrators, teachers, test scores, and percent…

Patterns of responses to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) that typify deliberate deception of others (faking good) were studied using 100 undergraduates at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa) who were given extra course credit for participation in the study. Females constituted 73% of the final subject pool. Each…

The use of stepwise regression has been criticized for both interpretive misunderstandings and statistical aberrations. A major statistical problem with stepwise regression and other procedures that involve multiple significance tests is the inflation of the Type I error rate. General approaches to control the family-wise error rate such as the…

Studies comparing neuromotor and mental functioning of normal and disabled populations have shown that lower cognitive functioning is significantly related to lower motor functioning for retarded or disabled children but not for normal children. In an effort to further examine the relationship between these two functions, a study was conducted of…

Applied researchers frequently precede analyses of interest with one or more preliminary tests, used to help researchers determine which variables to examine more closely, or whether there are anomalies in the data set. These texts can be classified into three categories: omnibus tests, tests for model fit, and exploratory tests. Fifty-four…

A new method for estimating the parameters of the normal ogive three-parameter model for multiple-choice test items--the normalized direct (NDIR) procedure--is examined. The procedure is compared to a more commonly used estimation procedure, Lord's LOGIST, using computer simulations. The NDIR procedure uses the normalized (mid-percentile)…

In order to examine the possible effects of violation of assumptions using parametric procedures, this study is an exploratory investigation into the use of parametric versus nonparametric procedures using a multiple case study design. The case study investigation guidelines outlined by Yin served as the methodology. The following univariate…

This study examined three questions: (1) Are district-wide reductions in teacher-pupil ratios related to gains in reading and mathematics achievement for students in grades 4, 8, and 11? (2) Are district-wide reductions in teacher-pupil ratios related to decreases in the percentage of students who leave school between grades 8 and 12 without…

This study investigates the relationship between the academic background of teachers of advanced placement (AP) classes and the scores of their students on the nationally administered advance placement examinations. The effect of teacher characteristics on the exam scores was found to be significant. Classes which did poorly on the exams were more…

This study sought to examine the relationship between five methods of test preparation and test performance as measured by Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) Verbal, Quantitative and Total scores. Data on method of test preparation were obtained through voluntary examinee response to five questions which appeared on the answer sheets. One…