The purpose of this paper is to further the cause of clarifying construct interpretations of tests, by proposing that non-metric multidimensional scaling may be more useful than factor analysis or other latent structure models for investigating the internal structure of tests. It also suggests that typical problems associated with scaling…

Past research on the effectiveness of laboratory training (the use of small group methods of experienced-based learning to produce personal change in attitudes and behaviors) has been deficient both in experimental design and in the concept of change. College students (N=128) participated in a study which used a series of 11 measurements to assess…

Two methods of 'equating' tests using item response theory (IRT) are compared, one using true scores, the other using the estimated distribution of observed scores. On the data studied, they yield almost indistinguishable results. This is a reassuring result for users of IRT equating methods. (Author)

Arguing that sufficient theory exists about the interplay between human information processing, computer systems, and the demands of various tasks to construct useful theories of human-computer interaction, this study presents a structural model of human-computer interaction and reports the results of various statistical analyses of this model.…

Play therapy has been employed by therapists to alleviate children's emotional stress. Most research dealing with this type of intervention has been in the form of case studies, focusing on therapy outcome rather than on the therapeutic process. The process of one child in individual play therapy was analyzed through the use of time-series…

For over 50 years, the overwhelming weight of evidence has been that subjects are able to make use of partial information when responding to multiple-choice items. The subject chooses the alternative which has given rise to the lowest mismatch, except that if this minimum mismatch is larger than some threshold, the question is left unanswered.…

This paper's goal is to redefine fiscal health by broadening its predictive function and to determine which fiscal indicators are useful for forecasting fiscal health for one, two, and three years. Results indicate that school district fiscal health forecasts are potentially great planning tools for local for local decision makers. Includes 11…

A neurobehavioral maturity assessment which used data from preterm infants was developed. Eight dimensions of neurobehavioral functioning were found to be stable, nonredundant, and developmentally valid. (PCB)

Examines information transfer in atmospheric physics by tracing one paper through five years of citations and suggesting patterns for highly cited papers. The results are also discussed in terms of information transfer in a popularized environment, as stratospheric aerosols have been prominently discussed in the popular press. (Author/EM)

Investigates whether the hypothesis that the mother's work situation influences parents' perceptions of their three-year-old children can explain reported differences in effects of maternal employment on the child. The sample consisted of 152 white, two-parent families. Results support the generalization that maternal employment may entail both…

To assess Feuerstein's Learning Potential Assessment Device's (LPAD) ability to identify deficient cognitive functions, Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices were administered to 176 elementary/junior high students--25 percent were rescored--and 12 complete LPAD reports from a university educational clinic were reanalyzed. Correlations were…

This study with 45 institutionalized individuals with mental retardation and self injurious behavior (SIB) calculated conditional probability using sequential analysis techniques. It found that successive episodes of self-injury were sequentially dependent and this association was not related to frequency or rate of occurrence. The best predictor…

A study investigated the effectiveness of a weighting procedure for adjusting survey results to correct for nonresponse bias. Using data from a Cooperative Institutional Research Program followup survey, results indicate that the procedure is highly effective in univariate distributions; its effectiveness in adjusting correlation and regression…

This review of research on the social integration of children with disabilities in mainstreaming programs addresses the problems of generalizing findings to other groups of children, use of simplistic measuring techniques, limited evidence supporting the use of multivariate statistical procedures, and interpretation of treatment effects.…

This paper argues that judgment-based assessment of data from multiply replicated single-subject or small-N studies should replace normative-based (p=less than 0.05) assessment of large-N research in the clinical sciences, and asserts that inferential statistics should be abandoned as a method of evaluating clinical research data. (Author/JDD)