There are many phenomenological benefits for students engaged in business simulation; a primary benefit is that the student has the opportunity to modify behavior in a realistic setting. Benefits may also be noted in the cognitive domain, and new skills can be transferred to the workplace. (Author/JOW)

Electronics students (16 controls, 16 experimentals) designed, built, and tested an amplifier. The experimentals did so after it was designed through computer simulation (using Electronics Workbench software). The experimental group performed significantly better on problem-solving tests; both groups did the same on drill and practice tests. (SK)

Showed how Taylor approximation can be used to generate a linear approximation to a logistic item characteristic curve and a linear ability estimator. Demonstrated how, for a specific simulation, this could result in the special case of a Robbins-Monro item selection procedure for adaptive testing. (SLD)

Conceptualized eight different types of measurement models for a test composed of testlets and studied the goodness of fit of those models to data using data from the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and simulated data. The essentially tau-equivalent model and the congeneric model provided worse model fit than the other measurement models. (SLD)

Discusses the effectiveness of medical education and argues for the appropriate use of emerging technology in training. Suggests using a "marvelous machine" concept for trainees and continuing education working on computer-based simulations for a comprehensive practice experience. (Contains 26 references.) (YDS)

Used simulation to study the problem of missing item responses in tests and questionnaires when factor analysis is used to study the structure of the items. Factor loadings based on the EM algorithm best approximated the loading structure, with imputation of the mean per person across the scores for that person being the best alternative. (SLD)

Assessed the relative merits of the Student "t" test and the Wilcoxon rank sum test under four population distributions and six sample-size pairings through Monte Carlo methods. The Wilcoxon rank sum test demonstrated an advantage in statistical power for nonnormal distributions (but not normal distributions), with fewer Type III errors…

Evaluates a method for item selection in adaptive testing that is based on Kullback-Leibler information (KLI) (T. Cover and J. Thomas, 1991). Simulation study results show that testing algorithms using KLI-based item selection perform better than or as well as those using Fisher information item selection. (SLD)

Studied whether a group's average percent correct in a content domain could be accurately estimated for groups taking a single test form and not the entire domain of items. Evaluated six Item Response Theory-based domain score estimation methods through simulation and concluded they performed better than observed score on the form taken. (SLD)

Investigated the relationship between sample size, latent trait distribution, and item parameter estimation with the nominal response model through simulation. Results suggest guidelines for reasonable item parameter estimation. (SLD)

Studied the effect of including nonindependent correlations in the meta-analysis method of J. Hunter and F. Schmidt on the estimated population standard deviation. Evaluation indicates that the Hunter and Schmidt method will underestimate the true population standard deviation. Developed new methods to correct for this and illustrated the methods…

Studied the use of the person response function (PRF) for identifying nonfitting item score patterns. Proposed a person-fit method reformulated in a nonparametric item response theory (IRT) context. Conducted a simulation study to compare the use of the PRF with a person-fit statistic, resulting in the conclusion that the PRF can be used as a…

Discusses the use of simulation in medical education at all levels and describes how role play, standardized patients, computer, videotape, and mannequin simulations are integrated into the educational curricula for medical students and physicians. Discusses advantages and disadvantages of simulation and barriers to the use of simulation.…

Compared the performance of three methods of assessing differential item functioning (DIF) across demographic groups, using: (1) the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square statistic with no adjustment to the alpha level; (2) the Mantel-Haenszel statistic with a Bonferroni adjusted alpha level; and (3) the generalized Mantel-Haenszel statistic. Simulation…

Evaluated the performance of several alternative cluster analytic approaches to initial model specification using population parameter analyses and a Monte Carlo simulation. Of the six cluster approaches evaluated, the one using the correlations of item correlations as a proximity metric and average linking as a clustering algorithm performed the…