Both classical and recent reports suggest a right-hemisphere superiority for color discrimination. Testing highly-trained normal subjects and taking care to eliminate asymmetries from the testing situation, we found no significant differences between left and right hemifields or between upper and lower hemifields. This was the case for both of the…

Over the past 50 years there has been a virtual revolution in thinking about risk mechanisms. The key areas of challenge and opportunity include: identification of environmental causes; use of natural experiments; gene-environment interaction; testing for mediation; developmental moderation; biological programming; and developmental perturbations.

Reports an error in "Testing during study insulates against the buildup of proactive interference" by Karl K. Szpunar, Kathleen B. McDermott and Henry L. Roediger III ("Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition," 2008[Nov], Vol 34[6], 1392-1399). Incorrect figures were printed due to an error in the…

This article has three goals. The first goal is to clarify the role that the consequences of test score use play in validity judgments by reviewing the role that modern writers on validity have ascribed for consequences in supporting validity judgments. The second goal is to summarize current views on who is responsible for collecting evidence of…

The author describes an activity where prospective mathematics teachers made hypotheses about the dimensions of a fair cylindrical die and conducted experiments with different cylinders. He also provides a model that estimates the probability that a cylinder would land on the lateral surface, depending on the height and diameter of the cylinder.…

Instructions for the Matrix Reasoning Test (MRT) of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition were modified by explicitly stating that the subtest was untimed or that a per-item time limit would be imposed. The MRT was administered within one of four conditions: with (a) standard administration instructions, (b) explicit instructions…

The purpose of this paper is to present findings on alternate assessments for students who are deaf or hard of hearing (SDHH). Drawn from the results of the "Second National Survey of Assessments and Accommodations for Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing," this study investigated three alternate assessment formats: portfolio, checklists, and…

Here we reprint, and provide background and a commentary on, a recently-rediscovered lecture by Godfrey H. Thomson entitled, "Intelligence and civilisation." It was delivered at the University of Manchester, UK, on 23rd October, 1936, printed in 1937 in the short-lived "Journal of the University of Manchester" and as a pamphlet…

Mandarin Chinese and many other tonal languages use tones that are defined as specific pitch patterns to distinguish syllables otherwise ambiguous. It had been shown that tones carry at least as much information as vowels in Mandarin Chinese [Surendran et al., 2005]. Surprisingly, though, many speech recognition systems for Mandarin Chinese have…

Growth modeling using longitudinal data seems to be a promising direction for improving the methodology associated with the accountability movement. Longitudinal modeling requires that the measurements of ability are comparable over time and on the same scale. One way to create the vertical scale is through concurrent estimation with…

This mixed methods study (Creswell, 2008) was designed to test the influence of collaborative testing on learning using a quasi-experimental approach. This study used a modified embedded mixed method design in which the qualitative and quantitative data, associated with the secondary questions, provided a supportive role in a study based primarily…

With the need for larger and larger banks of items to support adaptive testing and to meet security concerns, large-scale item generation is a requirement for many certification and licensure programs. As part of the mass production of items, it is critical that the difficulty and the discrimination of the items be known without the need for…

Don't settle for assessing recall and comprehension only when you can use this guide to create assessments for higher-order thinking skills. Assessment expert Susan M. Brookhart brings you up to speed on how to develop and use test questions and other assessments that reveal how well your students can analyze, reason, solve problems, and think…

The 12th annual William H. Angoff Memorial Lecture was presented by Dr. Michael T. Kane, ETS's (Educational Testing Service) Samuel J. Messick Chair in Test Validity and the former Director of Research at the National Conference of Bar Examiners. Dr. Kane argues that it is important for policymakers to recognize the impact of errors of measurement…

This dissertation measured the acoustic properties of the English fricatives and affricates produced by native and Chinese L2 speakers of English to identify the phonetic basis and sources of a foreign accent and to explore the mechanism involved in L2 speech production and L2 phonological acquisition at the segmental level. Based on a Network…