The Journal of Experimental Education

Algozzine, Bob; Stoller, Laura

doi: 10.1080/00220973.1981.11011776pmid: N/A

The extent to which special education teachers judged the mathematics performance of a fourth-grade youngster to be a function of his handicapping condition and/or his competence was evaluated. A videotape presentation and brief case study were reviewed and participating teachers were asked the extent to which various attributes were influential in the child’s performance. Differences were indicated for both labels and levels of competence. The results are discussed with regard to previous research and implications for reducing the effects of labels.

Hendrix, William H.; Dudycha, Arthur L.

doi: 10.1080/00220973.1981.11011777pmid: N/A

Three levels of feed forward information and five levels of feedback information were administered during a 200 two-cue trial experiment to 150 subjects. The feed forward information consisted of instructions on correlative relationships and cue validities. The feedback information consisted of outcome feedback presented at different rates. Results indicated that: subjects provided with a psychologically relevant MCPL setting with labeled cues can perform at a very high level of proficiency without feed forward or feed-back information; statistically naive subjects are unable to use feed forward information to improve their performance; whether subject performance increases or decreases when provided with feedback information depends upon the performance index used; and withdrawal of feedback generally has little effect upon subject performance.

Mahlios, Marc C.

doi: 10.1080/00220973.1981.11011778pmid: N/A

This study investigated the effects of cognitive style matching on interaction patterns in 48 teacher-student dyads. A test of cognitive style—field dependence-independence—was administered to 47 fifth- and sixth-grade teachers and 357 students. From these, 48 teacher-student dyads were formed so that teachers and students were matched or mismatched on cognitive style and sex, in conformity with a 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 factorial design. Each dyad was observed for two hours, from which 31 process measures were derived. Cognitive similarity or dissimilarity in and of itself did not appear to be closely associated with the interaction patterns. Rather, dyadic interaction seemed to be affected by a combination of factors including cognitive style and sex of both teachers and students, as well as certain contextual factors, the most important of which being whole class vs. individual instruction.

Thompson, Bruce; Miller, Albert H.

doi: 10.1080/00220973.1981.11011779pmid: N/A

Kerlinger’s social attitudes theory indicates that attitudes regarding educational practices can be subsumed by the two uncorrelated dimensions, progressivism and traditionalism. This study examined in detail the nature of educators’ education-related attitudes. A stratified sample of 195 students completed two instruments measuring educational attitudes. The results suggest that the already potent explanatory power of Kerlinger’s constructs can be augmented by measuring additional constructs when examining educational phenomena. The results also suggest that Kerlinger’s theoretical principle that social attitudes are dualistic may need to be qualified when the attitudes studied involve the vital roles of subjects.

Weldon, David E.; Loewy, John H.; Winer, Janice I.; Elkin, David J.

doi: 10.1080/00220973.1981.11011780pmid: N/A

The effects of density and other situational factors on perceptions of and responses to crowding in classroom learning environments was examined in three separate and concurrent investigations. Experiment I examined the effects of various demographic variables, learning environments, and room design variables on perceptions of ideal, crowded, and intolerable learning conditions. Results indicated that all subjects agreed on what constitutes an ideal learning environment while perceptions of crowded and intolerable learning conditions depended on the subject’s vocational perspective (e.g., teacher, student, administrator, etc.). Effects were also observed for type of learning environment as well as room design variables (noise level, ceiling height, and esthetic quality of the room). These latter effects, however, were weaker and conditional on sex of subject. In Experiment II, the effect of two levels of density on classroom achievement was examined in the laboratory. Two levels of motivation and three levels of learning environment were also manipulated. Results were consistent with a modified form of Zajonc’s (30) theory of social facilitation which treated both density and motivation as manipulations of arousal. That is, a curvilinear relation between density motivation conditions and achievement was obtained indicating moderate levels of density may benefit student achievement. Finally, Experiment III examined classroom achievement as a function of class size over a 24-year period in two community school districts. Results indicated that over the period studied, classroom density was always within the ideal perceptual ranges established by Experiment I. Furthermore, a strong positive relation between classroom density and schievement was obtained. These findings were highly consistent with the modified version of Zajonc’s theory since ideal conditions should produce low to moderate arousal which should in turn facilitate performance. Implications based on the pattern of results for all three experiments were discussed.

Zimmerman, Donald W.; Brotohusodo, Theresa L.; Williams, Richard H.

doi: 10.1080/00220973.1981.11011781pmid: N/A

Reliability coefficients of linear combinations of observed scores have anomalous properties which have led to persistent difficulties in the investigation of difference scores and gain scores in test theory. Interpretation of these test scores is further complicated by effects of correlated errors of measurement which are likely to appear in difference scores and gain scores in practice. In this paper the discrepancies between classical results and correct results obtained from more general formulas, which allow for correlated errors, are examined systematically. These discrepancies depend strongly on the reliability coefficients of the respective tests and are smallest when the influence of the variables related by the formulas is least. A vector representation of difference scores reveals that these anomalies arise from simple geometric relations among observed scores, true scores, and error scores inherent in the test-theory model. In this context, doubts as to the usefulness of difference scores and gain scores in testing practice expressed by previous authors appear to be justified.

Martin, Charles G.; Games, Paul A.

doi: 10.1080/00220973.1981.11011782pmid: N/A

Power and stability of Type I error rates are investigated for the Box-Scheffé test of homogeneity of variance with varying subsample sizes under conditions of normality and nonnormality. The test is shown to be robust to violation of the normality assumption when sampling is from a leptokurtic population. Subsample sizes which produce maximum power are given for small, intermediate, and large sample situations. Suggestions for selecting subsample sizes which will produce maximum power for a given n are provided. A formula for estimating power in the equal n case is shown to give results agreeing with empirical results.