Argues that three tenets of the traditional wisdom about teacher questioning are based on inadequate research: (1) it is useful to classify questions as fact (lower level) or reason (higher level); (2) higher level questions are better; and (3) questions are good in general because they stimulate thought. (MBR)

The contribution of passage variables, question types, and format variables to reading comprehension was assessed for 50 successful and 50 unsuccessful readers. A three-stage conditional regression assessed the predictability of 20 predictor features on item difficulty scores. The location of response information and stem length accounted for…

Despite the complexity of current financial aid application forms, federal officials want to stabilize the process of assessing financial need and are not likely to simplify the forms soon. (MSE)

In comparison with full-term infants, seven-month-old high-risk preterm infants exhibited deficits in visual recognition memory and in the ability to recruit, sustain, and shift attention. (RH)

Examines the relation between attention to target and context information and target recall in an incidental learning task for children and adults. Results support a distinction between context-interactive and context-independent situations and suggest that the attentional patterns that are efficient for memory may differ with the kind of…

This study observed 36 fourth-grade teachers and randomly targeted students in each class to see if teacher-student interaction patterns which facilitated low-level mathematics learning were the same as those which facilitated high-level learning for boys and girls. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

Qualitative evidence for the operation of partial knowledge is given by two findings. First, performance when second and subsequent choices are made is above the chance level. Second, it is positively related to first choice performance. A number of theories incorporating partial knowledge are compared quantitatively. (Author/LMO)

Contrasts a fixed-rate presentation list with one in which half the items in a single list were presented at a fast rate and half at a slow rate during paired associative learning with 24 children (aged 8 to 22 years) who were diagnosed with having an attention deficit disorder. (HOD)

Describes two experiments that examined the conditions determining age changes in novelty preferences of children. (HOD)

This study assessed the influence of reading ability and difficulty of material on types of oral reading errors made by 42 second-grade children. Overall, types of errors changed as the material became more difficult. The interactions between reading ability and difficulty level were also significant. (Author/BS)

Using eighth-grade subjects, a study examined the strategy differences between good and poor readers as they summarized what they had read. (HOD)

Biased test items were intentionally imbedded within a test and administered to large samples of Black and White college students. Three item bias detection methods (the three-parameter item characteristic curve procedure, the chi-square method, and the transformed item difficulty approach) were applied to the data. (Author/PN)

Administered three item-difficulty sequence forms of an achievement test to 107 sixth-grade students. No relationship between item-difficulty sequence and test performance, reliability, or item difficulty and discrimination was discovered. (Author/JAC)

Analyzes the exploratory patterns of 112 children ages 4 to 12, using visual and auditory stimuli and toy preference and toy exploration tasks. Finds that a preference for complexity and for unknown toys increases with age and notes age differences in exploratory patterns and question-asking behavior. (Author/CB)

The effects of violating four item construction principles were examined to assess the validity of the principles and the importance of students' test wiseness. While flawed items were significantly less difficult than sound items, differences in item discrimination, test reliability, and concurrent validity were not observed. (Author/BW)