Revisits Felix's (1988) and Birdsong's (1994) theories regarding universal grammar. Birdsong's criticism of Felix is upheld by consideration of a statistical model of the data. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the need of statistical training for engineering undergraduate students. Describes the six reasons to teach statistics. The methods for statistical quality control are presented. Twenty-three references are listed. (YP)

A critical reanalysis of Barrett, Caldwell, and Alexander's (1985) critique of dynamic criteria. Summarizes and questions Barrett, et al.'s three definitions of dynamic criteria and their conclusion that reported temporal changes in criteria could be explained by methodological artifacts. A greater focus on dynamic criteria as constructs is…

Responds to Austin, Humphreys, and Hulin's (1989) critique of Barrett, Caldwell, and Alexander, suggesting that the burden of proof still rests on the advocates of the concept of dynamic criteria, and that empirical support is lacking for the existence of dynamic criteria as a simplex. Contrary evidence from educational, organizations, and…

A critique of a procedure developed by Becker and Williams (1986) for gauging the extend to which an organization's composition suggests discrimination. Their model and its associated statistical test suffer from two problems: (1) it is difficult to dismiss the null hypothesis of no discrimination; and (2) the model makes an overly simple…

School-effectiveness researchers have had difficulty quantifying stability in effectiveness over time. Responding to Peter Tymms's argument that Gray and associates have not provided an authoritative statistical analysis of school effectiveness (in a study of 30 British secondary schools), this article asserts that this study was concerned with…

Examines difficulties with citation analysis as it is used to study citation frequency, usually for the evaluation of scientists, publications, or institutions. Topics addressed include selection of a control set of papers, comparisons of different types of papers (e.g., methodological or theoretical), effects of independent variables, and use of…

This commentary on EC 603 695 argues that significance testing is a necessary but insufficient condition for positivistic research, that judgment-based assessment and single-subject research are not substitutes for significance testing, and that sampling fluctuation should be considered as one of numerous epistemological concerns in any…

The problem of monitoring trends for changes at unknown times is considered. Statistics that permit one to focus high power on a segment of the monitored period are studied. Numerical procedures are developed to compute the null distribution of these statistics. (Author)

Examines what Carr found when he investigated the accuracy of David Armor's predictions on the effects of continuing and discontinuing busing in Norfolk (Virginia). Argues against Carr's assertions that because Armor's predictions were in error, there is no White flight in response to busing. (JS)

Demonstrates how different experimental designs arise from variation of three basic distinctions: block versus treatment factors, fixed versus random factors, and crossed versus nested factors. Argues that understanding how these distinctions influence statistical analysis can reduce amount of experimental design. Presents an example of this by…

Presents 10 keys for teachers seeking to understand statistical reasoning and research design. The first six keys cover basic definitions to statistics. Keys 7 to 10 help teaches grasp the principles underlying the design and interpretation or research. (Author/VWL)

In this article, we argue that too much previous research has tended to assess the effects of student, classroom, and school variables in isolation from other variables and has often used statistical techniques that ignored the nested nature of the 3 classes of factors. We then argue that a more educationally oriented framework should be used to…

Although the use of action research has made its way into various faculties of education as a means of applying theory to practice, there remains a disconnect between the teacher as an educator and the teacher as a researcher. Research must be empirically based; therefore, it has traditionally been seen to reside in the domain of the theorist or…

This paper comments on strengths and weaknesses of the papers on communities of practice in this special issue of "Technology, Pedagogy and Education." First it discusses the character of communities of practice and the question of whether schools are environments that are conducive to the development of teacher communities of practice. It then…