How individual differences in cognitive ability influence acquisition and transfer of strategic comparison skills was examined as a function of learning difficulty. Using a cognitive test battery, we classified forty-nine participants into three cognitive ability groups. Participants in each group were trained to compare similar (difficult…

Relational complexity (RC) theory conceptualizes an individual's processing capacity and a task's complexity along a common ordinal metric. The authors describe the development of the Latin Square Task (LST) that assesses the influence of RC on reasoning. The LST minimizes the role of knowledge and storage capacity and thus refines the…

The dance studio typically features a wall of mirrors; however, there has been little research on the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of mirrors in the training environment. Psychological studies on objective self-awareness, the ability to see one's self as an object, suggest that the mirrors magnify this state. How this increased…

In this cross-national study, the authors compared mathematics self-efficacy beliefs of American (n = 107) and Taiwanese (n = 188) middle-school students for level and calibration (accuracy and bias). Taiwanese students surpassed Americans in math achievement. American students evidenced slightly higher self-efficacy levels for easy math items but…

Reading is a complex skill, vital for the postgraduate student. However, many international postgraduate students experience considerable difficulty when applying their reading practices learnt in their own countries. This paper, part of a larger study, aims to provide insights into the reading practices of Indian/Bangladeshi postgraduate students…

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) freshman students at the College of Languages and Translation received direct instruction in adjective-forming suffixes, then they took an immediate and a delayed test. Error analysis showed that 36% of the responses were left blank or the subjects duplicated the stimulus word. In 32% they mismatched the word…

This study provides data from an existing review of secondary data and a survey of dual enrollment managers on the topic of Mississippi community and junior colleges' dual enrollment collaborations with secondary schools and parents of home-schooled students. Dual enrollment, also known as dual credit, concurrent enrollment, and credit based…

This paper presents a goal-based scenario approach to teaching introductory database concepts to undergraduates using two different scaffolding methods. One method, termed "worked-out examples," attempts to reduce extraneous cognitive load by requiring students to complete increasingly complex missing parts of worked out examples. The other…

The purpose of this Item Response Theory study was to investigate how the expected reduction in item information, due to the collapsing of response categories in performance assessment data, was affected by varying testing conditions: item difficulty, item discrimination, inter-rater reliability, and direction of collapsing. The investigation used…

The main goal of this study was to assess how sensitive unidimensional parameter estimates derived from BILOG were when the unidimensionality assumption was violated and the underlying ability distribution was not multivariate normal. A multidimensional three-parameter logistic distribution that was a straightforward generalization of the…

The Mantel-Haenszel (MH) statistic for identifying differential item functioning (DIF) commonly conditions on the observed test score as a surrogate for conditioning on latent ability. When the comparison group distributions are not completely overlapping (i.e., are incongruent), the observed score represents different levels of latent ability…

When running out of time on a multiple-choice test, some examinees are likely to respond rapidly to the remaining unanswered items in an attempt to get some items right by chance. Because these responses will tend to be incorrect, the presence of "rapid-guessing behavior" could cause these items to appear to be more difficult than they…

A method of estimating Rasch-model difficulty calibrations from judges' ratings of item difficulty is described. The ability of judges to estimate item difficulty was assessed by correlating estimated and empirical calibrations on each of four examinations offered by the American Association of State Social Work Boards. Thirteen members of the…

This paper presents six steps in test construction generally recommended by measurement textbook authors. The focus is primarily on paper-and-pencil achievement tests as used by class instructions, although the discussion touches on the construction of other types of assessment. The six steps are: (1) determine the test purpose; (2) determine the…

Fit statistics provide a direct measure of assessment accuracy by analyzing the fit of measurement models to an individual's (or group's) response pattern. Students that lose interest during the assessment, for example, will miss exercises that are within their abilities. Such students will respond correctly to some more difficult items and…