Adjunct questions are test-like items interspersed at regular intervals, preceding or following prose passages, with the intention of increasing subsequent learning. In this state-of-the-art review, studies which include three major variables--age, ability, and question complexity level--are examined to determine whether a particular combination…

The efficacy of employing subsets of items from a calibrated item pool to estimate the Rasch model person parameters was investigated. Specifically, the degree of invariance of Rasch model ability-parameter estimates was examined across differing collections of simulated items. The ability-parameter estimates were obtained from a simulation of…

For Title I evaluations, it may be appropriate to test out-of-level; that is, to override publisher's recommendations concerning the difficulty, length, and content appropriate for a particular grade. It is seldom necessary, however, to move more than one grade down. If the mean is substantially higher than the median, then some pupils will have…

Test questions were phrased according to different sentence structures in a study of the complexity level of items for 220 third-grade children. Both the sensitivity of wh-questions (who, what, where, etc.) as a dependent variable and differences between wh-questions eliciting subject and predicate nouns were investigated. Effects of paraphrase…

Three methods of item selection were used to select sets of 38 items from a 50-item verbal analogies test and the resulting item sets were compared for internal consistency, standard errors of measurement, item difficulty, biserial item-test correlations, and relative efficiency. Three groups of 1,500 cases each were used for item selection. First…

Six approaches to assessing test item bias were examined: transformed item difficulty, point biserial correlations, chi-square, factor analysis, one parameter item characteristic curve, and three parameter item characteristic curve. Data sets for analysis were generated by a Monte Carlo technique based on the three parameter model; thus, four…

Education is faced with a declining resource base coupled with overwhelming demands for categorical programs. The current resource allocation strategy common to all systems is cutting spending. The difference between large and small districts is less important than differences in complexity. Complexity in resource allocations is more a function of…

Age differences in recognition and recall of common nouns were studied using three groups of fifty students, with mean ages of 6.7, 11.4, and 16.9. Subjects were randomly placed in either an incidental or intentional learning condition. All subjects were questioned about the physical, phonemic, and semantic aspects of the same words, in the same…

The New York State Preliminary Competency Test in Reading is designed to measure a student's ability to understand written material of varying levels of difficulty. Results are used to evaluate a student's current level of achievement in reading and to indicate the extent of compensatory or remedial help which may be necessary to pass the final…

The purpose of this study is to show that there is a gradual and measurable development in the drawing of space representation concepts. A further purpose is to show that children's drawings of a village (which represent relations among concepts) may be a better measure of their conceptual maturity than their drawings of a man (which represent a…

Structural reading difficulty of argumentative prose (text with an underlying message or superordinate principle), is related to the reader's approach to reading and learning. Ninety Swedish teenagers and adults with varying levels of formal education, were divided into three groups, based on their own descriptions of reading and learning: deep…

Using the critical incident method, this study sought to describe job requirements perceived as critical by Michigan Cooperative Extension agents, identify training needs, and determine possible differences in training needs and job requirements according to employment position and tenure. The research involved collecting 444 written descriptions…

In an effort to identify the cognitive characteristics of teachers which predispose them to attempt to increase levels of information processing in their classrooms, a theoretical construct--cognitive complexity--was synthesized from the processes of conceptual level, creativity, and categorization. Measures of constructs listed above were…

Reported is a study designed to determine whether reading grade level (RGL) assessment techniques used for elementary and secondary education textbooks would discriminate among plant and soil science textbooks. The study was to select the RGL indices suited to quantify the readability of these sources, and to identify the factors affecting…

Describes study that investigated the effects of medium of instructional practice, task difficulty, and gender on continuing motivation. Microcomputers and paper and pencil format were compared on tasks at a hard or easy difficulty level with fifth and sixth grade students, and questionnaires were used to determine student attitudes. (Author/LRW)