Problem-solving performance and goal-setting behavior were investigated in 156 undergraduates who, on Mehrabian's Achievement Scales, demonstrated either the motive to approach success or the motive to avoid failure. Different expectations of success or failure were induced by fictitious preperformance information. The degree of success or failure…

The way that department heads interpret the effort required by college faculty to teach classes was studied with a national sample of 491 department heads in 25 major U.S. universities. Based on the responses of department heads, a model was developed to relate the effort required to teach a class to the level, size, instructional mode, and…

This study attempted to identify the things that help elementary school students solve verbal problems. Among the types of things included for examination were: the attributes of problems, the tools used, and the problem transformations that were possible. The summary of findings is comprised of 29 diverse types of statements grouped under four…

An explanation is given of what is meant by "sample-free" item calibration and by "item-free" person measurement as these terms are applied to the one-parameter logistic test theory model of Georg Rasch. When the difficulty of an item is calibrated separately for two different samples the results may differ; but, according the…

The Domain of Cognition is a taxonomy for planning, sequencing, and implementing instruction, which covers the entire range of cognitive and cognitive-affective learning and behavior. Students acquire, learn, and use information on eight hierarchically and sequentially arranged levels of complexity. The levels and their corresponding abilities…

BASED LARGELY ON AIR RESEARCH ON SHELTER MANAGEMENT SIMULATION, AN ANALYSIS WAS MADE OF THE IMPACT OF THE LARGE, COMPLEX SHELTER ON SHELTER MANAGEMENT TRAINING NEEDS. THE LARGE SHELTER REQUIRES THE TYPE OF LEADERSHIP THAT ONLY THOSE WHO ALREADY HAVE SUPERVISORY SKILLS CAN SUPPLY. SUCH PEOPLE ARE NEITHER ATTRACTED NOR HELPED BY THE USUAL SHELTER…

The complexity of defining accurate passing scores with a minimum classification error when evaluating criterion-referenced, multiple-choice tests has been a major problem for classroom teachers. Therefore, a practical procedure in which the instructor determines the plausibility of each item option for the minimally acceptable examinee is…

Starting with a model for explaining comprehension and noncomprehension of verbal material in terms of a match/mismatch principle, this project developed a scale of language usage and explored hypotheses about how comprehension may become possible if a child does not now comprehend some particular oral or written text. Eight separate reports are…

This study examined how children of different ages process social information from dramatic television programs. Second and eighth graders were shown edited versions of a television program that differed in complexity and the difficulty of inferring causal connections between the scenes. In addition, the scenes in half of the showings were kept in…

This research was designed to determine whether the type of questions asked and the stimuli about which the questions were asked would have any measurable effect on the thought processes of second and fourth graders. Stimuli included a picture consisting of three illustrations, a listening stimulus composed of a story that was read to each…

The relationships between the characteristics of human tasks and the abilities required for task performance are investigated. The goal of the program is to generate principles which can be used to identify ability requirements from knowledge of the characteristics of a task and of variations in the conditions of task performance. Such knowledge…

Discussion centered on three sets of factors that may influence the variability observed in "concept identification" (concept formation and discrimination learning) studies: stimulus characteristics, incentives employed, and subject characteristics. Stimulus characteristics are described in terms of the number of dimensions…

An application of the two-paramenter logistic (Rasch) model to tailored testing is presented. The model is discussed along with the maximum likelihood estimation of the ability parameters given the response pattern and easiness parameter estimates for the items. The technique has been programmed for use with an interactive computer terminal. Use…

A flexilevel test is found to be inferior to a peaked conventional test for measuring examinees in the middle of the ability range, superior for examinees at the extremes. Throughout the entire range of ability, a flexilevel test is much superior to any conventional test that attempts to provide accurate measurement at both extremes. See also ED…

This paper reports on an experiment which attempted to: (1) empirically validate a hypothesized hierarchical sequence of three double classification tasks; (2) investigate transfer to an untrained Piagetian double classification task; and (3) assess the effects of overtraining a relatively easy task on the learning of a more difficult task, as…