ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Contrastive Analysis of Sentence Patterns in English and Persian
Author: Hajizadeh, Reza
Date: 2011-09-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Indo European Languages,English,Sentence Structure,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Language Research,Sentences,Grammar,Comparative Analysis,Pattern Recognition,Phrase Structure

Complements, adjuncts and predicator are the three main elements of the clause structure. This paper primarily aims at presenting a general classification of clause structure in Persian. In this context, transitive and intransitive structures in Modern Persian are also analyzed. In this research, five canonical Persian constructions are identified based on valency and transitivity. The paper also discusses the ways in which complements and adjuncts are distinguished from each other. Since the study is oriented towards comparison with English, similarities and differences between the two languages are also discussed. In both languages the basic functions of the clause are the same. However, Persian contains five canonical structures whereas as English has just four of them. While in both languages the subject is the first element of the clause, the order of the elements is different in the two languages. In canonical structures in Persian, the predicator is always the final element of the clause, while in English it always fills the second position. In the context of valency, both languages have the same functions. Intransitive clauses are either monovalent or bivalent. Monotransitive clauses are either bivalent or trivalent. English intransitive clauses are always trivalent.  Complements in the two languages are distinguished by factors such as licensing, obligator "ness," category and prepositional phrase. These factors are applicable in distinguishing complements from adjuncts.
Insertion in Persian
Author: Kambuziya, Aliyeh Kord-e Zafaranlu
Date: 2011-09-15
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Syllables,Vowels,Morphemes,Indo European Languages,Linguistic Theory,Surveys,Phonemes,Foreign Countries,Linguistics

This paper investigates epenthesis process in Persian to catch some results in relating to vowel and consonant insertion in Persian lexicon. This survey has a close relationship to the description of epenthetic consonants and the conditions in which these consonants are used. Since no word in Persian may begin with a vowel, so that hiatus can't be considered immensely in Persian. But there are several reasons to reject such a substantial claim; as the best well-known of them is clitics, such as; plural suffix /-[alpha]n/, nominalizer/adjectivizer suffix /-i/, and also the bound morpheme &quot;to be&quot;/-ast/. Obviously, these morphemes begin with a vowel because of dependency on their before words, thus as a result it occurs hiatus. In order to resolve hiatus, it should be inserted an epenthetic consonant between them. With respect to the features of this epenthetic consonant, it should be said that it doesn't create any distinctive meaning and so it doesn't place in contrast with any phoneme. Since the speaker has no authority in the choice of this epenthetic consonant, thus it isn't distinctive and just has the structural function, as well as it is still inserted for the context recovery and suitable syllable structure in Persian. Furthermore, this process shows that a consonant insertion in different languages is the phonological pattern used for the world constraint recovery in phonotactics, so that it has a close relationship with syllable structure. Also, the presented study evaluates its analysis within the framework of optimality theory (Prince &amp; Smolensky, 1993). This theory employs a notion of constraint dominance and a mechanism for selecting the optimal output with respect to a set of ranked constraints. (Contains 2 tables.)
Privacy: Is There a Right to Be Left Alone?
Author: Wilson, Alan
Date: 2010-00-00
Type: Guides - Classroom - Teacher
Subjects: Decision Making,Moral Values,Critical Thinking,Ethics,Privacy,Civil Rights,Case Studies,Thinking Skills,Responses,Emotional Response,Group Activities,Discussion (Teaching Technique)

The materials include a general discussion of privacy that raises points and questions to engage students in the subject before they complete the hypothetical case study that follows in a three-part, workbook format. (Purpose) The purpose is to engage students in a critical thinking exercise that requires students to analyze a developing situation from a variety of perspectives. (Method) The case study is divided in three parts so that students must adjust their responses to a changing situation. They are to use a variety of moral values, obligations and principles that the instructor of the class may select and define. (Results) The case study often engages students at an emotional level. Further, students in my classes are asked to do some parts in small groups, some by themselves and some with the class as a whole, which leads to often robust discussions. (Conclusion) The students in the ethics class come from a wide range of majors, and the exercise seems to clearly fulfill the purpose of helping them develop critical thinking skills in the area of moral decision-making, even though the content uses a journalism context. (Recommendation) Instructors may wish to only give students the study one part at a time so they cannot base conclusions to part one or two with the knowledge of future developments. I use moral concepts/rules when considering values and principles, whereas obligations refer to duties to different people involved in the case study. (Contains 4 notes.)
Development of a Student Health Assessment System: Health Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behaviors in Middle-School Students. Research Report. ETS RR-10-04
Author: MacCann, Carolyn
Date: 2010-01-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Middle School Students,Grade 8,Parents,Health Behavior,Nutrition,Exercise,Knowledge Level,Student Attitudes,Measures (Individuals),Scores,Validity,Gender Differences,Obesity,Body Weight,Academic Achievement

Newly developed assessments of nutrition and exercise knowledge, attitudes, and behavior were administered to 383 eighth-graders. Evidence for the validity of assessment scores was evaluated with five findings. First, parent- and self-reported behaviors were similar and congruent for healthy eating and exercising but not for sedentary behaviors or unhealthy eating. Second, the theory of planned behavior structural model was confirmed for exercise and nutrition attitudes: Attitudes predicted exercising (R[superscript 2] = 0.34), healthy eating (R[superscript 2] = 0.21), sedentary behaviors (R[superscript 2] = 0.11), and unhealthy eating (R[superscript 2] = 0.09). Third, gender differences replicated previous research: Girls have better diets and nutrition attitudes whereas boys exercise more frequently. The assessments distinguished normal-weight from obese individuals and showed incremental validity in predicting school grades. The paper concludes with a discussion of the assessments' potential for informing interventions. (Contains 3 tables and 7 figures.)
Modeling Nonignorable Missing Data with Item Response Theory (IRT). Research Report. ETS RR-10-11
Author: Rose, Norman
Date: 2010-04-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Item Response Theory,Educational Assessment,Data Analysis,Case Studies,Reliability,Statistical Bias,Computation

Large-scale educational surveys are low-stakes assessments of educational outcomes conducted using nationally representative samples. In these surveys, students do not receive individual scores, and the outcome of the assessment is inconsequential for respondents. The low-stakes nature of these surveys, as well as variations in average performance across countries and other factors such as different testing traditions, are contributing factors to the amount of omitted responses in these assessments. While underlying reasons for omissions are not completely understood, common practice in international assessments is to employ a deterministic treatment of omissions, either as missing observations or as responses that are considered wrong. Both approaches appear problematic. In this project, we analyzed the effects of treating omitted responses either as missing or as wrong, as is done in the majority of international studies, and compared these data-treatment solutions to model-based approaches to treating omitted responses. The two types of model-based approaches used in this study are: (a) extensions of multidimensional item response theory (IRT) with an additional dimension based on response indicator variables defined and calibrated together with the set of items containing the observed responses and (b) multidimensional, multiple-group IRT models with a grouping variable representing the within-country stratification of respondents by the amount of omitted responses. These two model-based approaches were compared on the basis of simulated data and data from about 250,000 students from 30 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Member countries participating in an international large-scale assessment. Appended are: (1) A Note on Equivalent Models for Nonignorable Missing Data; and (2) Proof. (Contains 6 tables and 20 figures.)
Chained versus Post-Stratification Equating in a Linear Context: An Evaluation Using Empirical Data. Research Report. ETS RR-10-06
Author: Puhan, Gautam
Date: 2010-02-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Equated Scores,Comparative Analysis,Statistical Analysis,Statistical Bias,Error of Measurement

This study used real data to construct testing conditions for comparing results of chained linear, Tucker, and Levine-observed score equatings. The comparisons were made under conditions where the new- and old-form samples were similar in ability and when they differed in ability. The length of the anchor test was also varied to enable examination of its effect on the three different equating methods. Two tests were used in the study, and the three equating methods were compared to a criterion equating to obtain estimates of random equating error, bias, and root mean squared error (RMSE). Results showed that for most of the conditions studied, chained linear score equating produced fairly good equating results in terms of low bias and RMSE. In some conditions, Levine-observed score equating also produced low bias and RMSE. Although the Tucker method always produced the lowest random equating error, it produced a larger bias and RMSE than either of the other equating methods. Based on these results, it is recommended that either chained linear or Levine score equating be used when new- and old-form samples differ in ability and/or when the anchor-to-total correlation is not very high. Appended are: (1) Difference in new-form total-to-anchor relationship obtained using new- and old-form samples; (2) Difference in old-form total-to-anchor relationship obtained using new- and old-form samples; and (3) An example in which Tucker showed less bias than was shown by chained linear equating. (Contains 12 figures and 4 tables.)
The Value of the Studied Item in the Matching Criterion in Differential Item Functioning (DIF) Analysis. Research Report. ETS RR-10-13
Author: Tan, Xuan
Date: 2010-04-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Test Bias,Test Items,Item Response Theory

The nature of the matching criterion (usually the total score) in the study of differential item functioning (DIF) has been shown to impact the accuracy of different DIF detection procedures. One of the topics related to the nature of the matching criterion is whether the studied item should be included. Although many studies exist that suggest the studied item should always be included in the criterion, the validity of this statement for models other than the Rasch model has not been studied. This study evaluates the effect of including/excluding the studied item in the matching criterion for situations that mimic real testing situations where the assumptions of the Rasch model are violated. A simulation study was conducted where the effect of including/excluding the studied item in the matching criterion was studied relative to different magnitudes of DIF and different group ability distributions, for data that follow the two-parameter logistic (2PL) item response theory (IRT) and multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) models. Results from the study show that including the studied item leads to less biased DIF estimates and more appropriate Type I error rate, especially when the group ability distributions are different. Systematic bias positioning DIF estimation in favor of the high ability group was consistently found across all simulated conditions when the studied item was excluded from the matching criterion. (Contains 22 tables and 1 note.)
Single- versus Double-Scoring of Trend Responses in Trend Score Equating with Constructed-Response Tests. Research Report. ETS RR-10-12
Author: Tan, Xuan
Date: 2010-04-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Equated Scores,Scoring,Responses,Test Items,Sample Size,Error of Measurement,Statistical Bias,Differences

This study examines the differences in equating outcomes between two trend score equating designs resulting from two different scoring strategies for trend scoring when operational constructed-response (CR) items are double-scored--the single group (SG) design, where each trend CR item is double-scored, and the nonequivalent groups with anchor test (NEAT) design, where each trend CR item is single-scored during trend score equating--for varying sample sizes (n =150, 200, 250, 300, 400). Overall results suggest larger equating errors with smaller sample sizes, though errors were small regardless of sample size. The NEAT design performed about as well as the SG design with respect to conditional and summative standard errors of equating, though it did tend to produce larger bias and root mean-squared differences (RMSDs). When accounting for the total number of trend scores required to do analyses, the NEAT design performed as well or better than the SG design (e.g., when the NEAT n =150 and the SG n = 300). This result might be partially attributable to a larger operational sample size (n = 792) and a good correlation between anchor and total score for the trend sample (r = 0.73). These results suggest that under these testing conditions, the NEAT design performed about as well as the SG design, but further research is required to assess the generalizability of the results. (Contains 2 tables, 11 figures and 4 notes.)
How Can Multivariate Item Response Theory Be Used in Reporting of Susbcores? Research Report. ETS RR-10-09
Author: Haberman, Shelby J.
Date: 2010-03-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Item Response Theory,Scores,Multivariate Analysis

Recently, there has been increasing interest in reporting diagnostic scores. This paper examines reporting of subscores using multidimensional item response theory (MIRT) models. An MIRT model is fitted using a stabilized Newton-Raphson algorithm (Haberman, 1974, 1988) with adaptive Gauss-Hermite quadrature (Haberman, von Davier, &amp; Lee, 2008). A new statistical approach is proposed to assess when subscores using the MIRT model have any added value over (a) the total score or (b) subscores based on classical test theory (Haberman, 2008; Haberman, Sinharay, &amp; Puhan, 2006). The MIRT-based methods are applied to several operational data sets. The results show that the subscores based on MIRT are slightly more accurate than subscore estimates derived by classical test theory. (Contains 5 tables, 3 figures and 1 note.)
Linking Errors in Trend Estimation in Large-Scale Surveys: A Case Study. Research Report. ETS RR-10-10
Author: Xu, Xueli
Date: 2010-04-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Case Studies,Trend Analysis,Computation,Educational Assessment,Error of Measurement,Sampling,Grade 4,Elementary School Students,Mathematics Tests,National Competency Tests

One of the major objectives of large-scale educational surveys is reporting trends in academic achievement. For this purpose, a substantial number of items are carried from one assessment cycle to the next. The linking process that places academic abilities measured in different assessments on a common scale is usually based on a concurrent calibration of adjacent assessments using item response theory (IRT) models. It can be conjectured that the selection of common items has a direct effect on the estimation error of academic abilities due to item misfit, small changes in the common items, position effect, and other sources of construct-irrelevant changes between measurement occasions. Hence, the error due to the common-item sampling could be a major source of error for the ability estimates. In operational analyses, generally two sources of error are accounted for in variance estimation: student sampling error and measurement error. A double jackknifing procedure is proposed to include a third source of the estimation error, the error due to common-item sampling. Three different versions of the double jackknifing were implemented and compared. The data used in this study were item responses from Grade 4 students who took the NAEP 2004 and 2008 math long-term trend (LTT) assessments. These student samples used in this study are representative samples of Grade 4 student population in 2004 and in 2008 across the US. The results showed that these three double jackknifing approaches resulted in similar standard error estimates that were slightly higher than the estimates from the traditional approach, regardless of whether an item sampling scheme was used or items were dropped at random. (Contains 4 tables.)
An Evidence-Centered Approach to Using Assessment Data for Policymakers. Research Report. ETS RR-10-03
Author: Underwood, Jody S.
Date: 2010-01-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Evidence,Data,Educational Assessment,Academic Achievement,Educational Policy,Testing,Responsibility,Decision Making

District-level policymakers are challenged to use evidence of student achievement to make policy decisions, such as professional development and other school improvement plans. They currently receive reports of student achievement data that are complex, difficult to read, and even harder to interpret. Using the research literature on policymakers' use of data and conducting focus groups and interviews, we elicited information on their roles and responsibilities, as well as questions these people would like to have answered from achievement data. We propose an evidence-centered reporting framework to help policymakers determine which data they need, in order to design a series of reports that will answer their questions and to help them make sense of the data in support of policy decisions. (Contains 8 figures, 2 tables, and 2 notes.)
Postsecondary Institutions and Price of Attendance in the United States: 2010-11, Degrees and Other Awards Conferred: 2009-10, and 12-Month Enrollment: 2009-10. First Look. NCES 2011-250
Author: Knapp, Laura G.
Date: 2011-09-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Postsecondary Education,Student Costs,Tuition,Fees,Enrollment,Graduation,Institutional Characteristics,Undergraduate Students,Graduate Students,Full Time Students,Public Colleges,Private Colleges,Proprietary Schools,Academic Degrees,Student Characteristics,Race,Sex,Ethnicity

This &quot;First Look&quot; presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) fall 2010 data collection, which included three survey components: Institutional Characteristics for the 2010-11 academic year; Completions, covering the period July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2010; and 12-Month Enrollment, covering 2009-10. This &quot;First Look&quot; report is based on the collection of data from more than 7,000 postsecondary education institutions that participate in Title IV federal student financial aid programs. It is hoped that the information provided in the report will be useful to a wide range of readers. Further, it is hoped that the results reported here will encourage researchers and others to make full use of the IPEDS data for analysis, for peer comparisons, or to help answer questions about postsecondary education institutions. Appended are: (1) Survey Methodology; and (2) Glossary of IPEDS Terms. (Contains 12 tables and 11 footnotes.) [For the 2009 report, see ED511504.]
Information and Communication Technology Literacy: What Do Businesses Expect and What Do Business Schools Teach? Research Report. ETS RR-10-17
Author: Ali, Radwan
Date: 2010-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Business Administration Education,Undergraduate Study,Technological Literacy,Information Literacy,Human Resources,Consultants,College Faculty,Surveys

Today's information and communications technology (ICT) provides unprecedented amounts of information to organizations and their employees. This overabundance challenges workers, placing an increasing premium on skills of sifting through information of sometimes dubious quality, integrating information critically, and producing well-reasoned conclusions. This paper explores the hypothesis that employers want new hires skilled in ICT literacy, which includes navigating information effectively and using technology efficiently. Based on an ICT literacy framework for higher education, two surveys were created to assess the opinions of human resources (HR) consultants and business school faculty. HR consultants endorsed practically all elements of the framework as being important or essential for new hires. Especially valued were skills associated with information security, confidentiality, and ethical behavior. However, business school faculty did not report a corresponding focus on ICT literacy generally, or ethical/legal issues in particular, in their instruction. The results suggest that while ICT literacy does indeed appear to be among the key skills for today's workforce, much work must still be done to integrate these skills throughout the business school undergraduate curriculum. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)
Aligning Scales of Certification Tests. Research Report. ETS RR-10-07
Author: Dorans, Neil J.
Date: 2010-02-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Testing Programs,Standard Setting (Scoring),Test Interpretation,Certification,Alignment (Education),Pass Fail Grading,Criterion Referenced Tests,Norm Referenced Tests,Goodness of Fit,Achievement Tests,Scoring,Scoring Formulas,Scoring Rubrics,Item Analysis,Evaluation Research

Scores are the most visible and widely used products of a testing program. The choice of score scale has implications for test specifications, equating, and test reliability and validity, as well as for test interpretation. At the same time, the score scale should be viewed as infrastructure likely to require repair at some point. In this report we examine the issue of scale fit--how well the scale fits the intended uses of its scores--for certification tests. Two examples of scale fit are considered: one in which the test has a single threshold that separates the candidate population into pass-fail groups, and one in which the test is required to support a restricted range of multiple thresholds. (Contains 8 tables and 6 notes.)