This study investigated the relationship between task difficulty and ability level as a factor in producing imitative behavior in infants. A total of 28 toddlers, ranging in age from 14 to 28 months, participated in the study. (Author/JMB)

This paper compares two methods of estimating component difficulties for dichotomous test data. Simulated data are used to study the effects of sample size, collinearity, a measurement disturbance, and multidimensionality on the estimation of component difficulties. (RB)

This study was made to determine the effects of stride length variations on ratings of perceived exertion in experienced recreational runners. Results are presented. (Author/MT)

Easy and difficult tasks were presented to three year olds and their responses of shame and pride were observed. Subjects showed more shame when they failed easy tasks than difficult tasks, and more pride when they succeeded on difficult tasks than easy tasks. Girls showed more shame than boys. (BC)

Have you ever sat through an observation and wondered what in the world you could do to improve the instruction taking place? I have. Sometimes it's because the teacher is so polished that I have difficulty identifying any shortcomings. But sometimes it's because there are so many things wrong with the lesson that I have no idea where I should…

In manual assembly work, parts are often assembled by applying force with a simple tool or by hand. A worker thus needs control the force he or she applies in working, as an appropriate level of force is requisite for minimizing work failures and improving efficiency. The object of this study is to clarify the relationship between the level of…

This study uses three experiments with different kinds of training conditions to investigate the "easy-to-hard" principle, context interference conditions, and feedback effects for learning anticipatory skills in badminton. Experiment 1 (N = 60) showed that a training program that gradually increases the difficulty level has no advantage over the…

This study examined the percentage of task-sampling variability in performance assessment via a meta-analysis. In total, 50 studies containing 130 independent data sets were analyzed. Overall results indicate that the percentage of variance for (a) differential difficulty of task was roughly 12% and (b) examinee's differential performance of the…

In this article, we present an approach to the automatic correction of preposition errors in L2 English. Our system, based on a maximum entropy classifier, achieves average precision of 42% and recall of 35% on this task. The discussion of results obtained on correct and incorrect data aims to establish what characteristics of L2 writing prove…

Against the background of an adaptation of Cognitive Load Theory to learner-controlled settings we investigated the impact of learner characteristics on information utilization strategies, cognitive load, and learning outcomes in a hypermedia environment. Based on the data of 79 students, five clusters of students were identified according to…

Developing personalised web-based learning systems has been an important research issue in e-learning because no fixed learning pathway will be appropriate for all learners. However, most current web-based learning platforms with personalised curriculum sequencing tend to emphasise the learner preferences and interests in relation to personalised…

This study investigated the relationship between students' actual performance (accuracy) and their subjective judgments of accuracy (confidence) on selected English language proficiency tests. The unidimensional and multidimensional IRT Rasch approaches were used to model the discrepancy between confidence and accuracy at the item and test level…

We exploit an exogenous increase in General Educational Development (GED) testing requirements to determine whether raising the difficulty of the test causes students to finish high school rather than drop out and GED certify. We find that a six point decrease in GED pass rates induces a 1.3 point decline in overall dropout rates. The effect size…