Reexamines the reliability and validity of the Peabody Individual Achievement Test-Revised (PIAT-R) and the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT) Written Expression scoring systems, applying theory and more appropriate statistical analyses. The WIAT written-expression scoring system was found to have more items that were both reliable and…

Assesses the retrieval effectiveness of automatically constructed interdocument hypertext links in information retrieval (IR). Describes experiments using statistical and probabilistic techniques that were designed to obtain evidence concerning the usefulness of querying and browsing automatically constructed IR hypertexts. Results indicate a…

Describes a practical classroom activity for sorting lists of numbers to lead to statistical analysis. (Author/ASK)

Presents a method for quantifying the costs and benefits of research to teach undergraduate psychology students research ethics and the statistical concepts of central tendency and variability. Outlines how students rate the costs and benefits of well-known psychology experiments, and learn how to analyze and interpret their findings. (DSK)

The current literature on 10 measures of attachment (including a psychometric analysis) is reviewed. Adult attachment and parent-adolescent attachment measures, which include two interview protocols, are considered. A comparison of the theoretical structure and basic properties of adult attachment measures is presented. Selection and use of these…

A statistic used by R. Meijer (1994) to determine person-fit referred to the number of errors from the deterministic Guttman model (L. Guttman, 1950), but this was, in fact, based on the number of errors from the deterministic Guttman model as defined by J. Loevinger (1947, 1948). (SLD)

Assesses validity of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Depression scale (MMPI-D), and the Rorschach Depression Index in measuring adolescent depression. Retroactive charts of 118 hospitalized adolescents were divided into depressed (n=66) and nondepressed (n=52) groups. Results indicated…

Modified the three-parameter model to include an additional random effect for items nested within the same testlet. Fitted the new model to 86 testlets from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and compared standard parameters (discrimination, difficulty, and guessing) with those obtained through traditional modeling. Discusses the…

Argues that the apparent lack of empirical support for the practice of profile analysis has stemmed in part from the use of statistical techniques that have neglected to explore the perspective of the clinician. Explores Configural Frequency Analysis, a statistical technique focusing on the relationships among groups of participants as the unit of…

Presents ideas on how to approximate statistical analysis and decision making by approximating 95% confidence intervals and drawing conclusions about the significance of difference based on visual comparisons of frequency distributions. (SAH)

Discussion of shelf reading as a method to maintain library books in their proper location focuses on a statistical approach to determine when shelf reading is necessary. Uses sampling to obtain data on misshelved books over time and develop a control chart to assess when shelf reading is necessary. (Author/LRW)

Considers the differences between quantitative and qualitative research. Cites some essays by Adorno when he was living in New York which led to the conclusion that empirical data has much to say and discusses the theoretical-methodological contributions in a recent master's thesis in education. (BT)

Discuses the adverbialization of two roughly synonymous present-day English intensifiers, "pretty" and "fairly." Based on electronic corpora, a quantitative analysis of their long-term history is provided using the framework of adverb functions proposed by Quirk et al (1995). (Author/VWL)

Explains the pros and cons of the qualitative and quantitative research methods and discusses the role of assessment objectives on choosing the research methodologies. Presents an example study. Includes 13 references. (Author/YDS)

Addresses the use of subjective judgment in research that involves statistical/quantitative methods with regard to four aspects of quantitative research: (1) design; (2) preliminary analyses; (3) general analyses; and (4) specific analyses. (Contains 37 references.) (ASK)