Aim: Information on the timing and long-term outcome of single-event multilevel surgery in children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy (CP) walking with flexed knee gait is limited. Based on our clinical experience, we hypothesized that older children with bilateral spastic CP would benefit more from single-event multilevel surgery than younger…

This paper describes a study, now in progress, of new methods for representing the sampling variability of Mantel-Haenszel differential item functioning (DIF) results, based on the system for categorizing the severity of DIF that is now in place at the Educational Testing Service. The methods, which involve a Bayesian elaboration of procedures…

The graduate careers of nearly 5,000 Ph.D.-seeking students from 11 departments in each of 3 major universities were investigated with a special focus on minority students. Minorities and women were found to be underrepresented in graduate school, and to have generally lower candidacy and graduation rates than their white and male counterparts. In…

Research in the behavioral and health sciences frequently involves the application of one-factor analysis of variance models. The goal may be to compare several independent groups of subjects on a quantitative dependent variable or to compare measurements made on a single group of subjects on different occasions or under different conditions. In…

To identify differences in doctoral student achievement across programs, demographic groups and gender, the graduate careers of nearly 5,000 doctoral students from 11 departments at each of 3 major universities were investigated. Three types of data analysis examined numbers of students entering each department and the proportions of various…

Most currently used measures of inter-rater agreement for the nominal case incorporate a correction for "chance agreement." The definition of chance agreement is not the same for all coefficients, however. Three chance-corrected coefficients are Cohen's Kappa; Scott's Pi; and the S index of Bennett, Goldstein, and Alpert, which has…

Although perfectly scalable items rarely occur in practice, Guttman's concept of a scale has proved to be valuable to the development of measurement theory. If the score distribution is uniform and there is an equal number of items at each difficulty level, both the elements and the eigenvalues of the Pearson correlation matrix of dichotomous…

Reading test data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were scaled using the unidimensional item response theory model. Data were collected for students aged 9, 13, and 17. To determine whether the responses to the reading items were consistent with unidimensionality, four different methods were applied: (1) principal…

National Assessment of Educational Progress reading data were scaled using a unidimensional item response theory model. Bock's full-information factor analysis and Rosenbaum's test of unidimensionality were applied. Conclusions about unidimensionality for balanced incomplete block spiralled data were the same as for complete data. (Author/GDC)

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the relative performance of the parametric, rank, and normal scores procedures when the classical assumptions were met and under violations of these assumptions. This investigation included the normal scores as well as the rank test. (LMO)

Describes how the test statistic for nonparametric one-way multivariate analysis of variance can be obtained by submitting the data to a packaged computer program. Monte Carlo evidence indicates that the nonparametric approach is advantageous under certain violations of the assumptions of multinormality and homogeneity of covariance matrices.…

The Mantel Haenszel (MH; 1959) approach of Holland and Thayer (1988) is a well-established method for assessing differential item functioning (DIF). The formula for the variance of the MH DIF statistic is based on work by Phillips and Holland (1987) and Robins, Breslow, and Greenland (1986). Recent simulation studies showed that the MH variances…

Recent simulations have shown that, for a given sample size, the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) variances tend to be larger when items are administered to randomly selected examinees than when they are administered adaptively. Results suggest that adaptive testing may lead to more efficient application of MH differential item functioning analyses. (SLD)

Discuss whether high scores on the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) are associated with high student socioeconomic status, including high family income, particularly in California. Concludes that the SAT is no more a "wealth test" than is every other measure of student achievement such as grades. Describes other factors influencing…

Use of the Mantel-Haenszel procedure as a test for differential item functioning under the Rasch model of item-response theory is examined. Results of the procedure cannot be generalized to the class of items for which item-response functions are monotonic and local independence holds. (TJH)