10. Guidelines for Computer Testing

Testing by computer is big business. Many companies are offering software enabling a psychologist to test a client by seating him or her at a computer terminal and pressing Return. The software presents the instructions on the screen, guides the test taker through some sample items to see if the instructions are understood, and then presents the test, automatically recording the responses. After one or more tests have been completed, the equipment scores the responses, and delivers test scores. But it doesn\u27t stop there. It then continues by printing out a complete test interpretation in fairly well-constructed narrative prose. The prose often shows a few signs of having been pasted together out of standard phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, but then so do many reports written by real psychologists. The proliferation of testing systems and automated test interpreters has generated consternation among some clinical psychologists. Matarazzo (1983) cried Wolf in an editorial in Science, and went a little far, seeming to condemn all computerized testing. I replied (Green, 1983b) that there is much less concern about the computer giving the test than about the computer interpreting the test. In fact, a group at the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center in San Diego (McBride & Martin, 1983; Moreno, Wetzel, McBride, & Weiss, 1984) had just successfully transferred the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery to the computer, with no major difficulties. The Navy group used Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT), the most important advance in cognitive testing (Green, 1983a; Weiss, 1985). In a CAT, the computer chooses the next item to be administered on the basis of the responses to the previous items. This procedure requires a new kind of test theory-classical test theory is not adequate. The new theory is called item response theory (IRT), and is now quite well developed, although it is still new and cumbersome. Using IRT, a computer can readily tailor the test to each test taker. The Navy group has successfully used the technique to administer the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). It has been found that a conventional test can be replaced by an adaptive test with about half the items, at no loss of reliability or validity. For many test takers, a conventional test has a lot of wasted items- items that are too easy for the good students, items that are too hard for the poor students. If the items are chosen to be most informative about the individual test taker, a lot of time can be saved. Of course, this means developing an estimate of the test taker\u27s ability as the test progresses, and it implies many intermediate calculations, but the computer is good at that. An interesting by-product of CAT is that nearly everybody who takes it likes it. Such a test provides more success experiences than the lower half of the ability spectrum is used to, and does not seem to disconcert the high scorers. Also, the computer is responsive. As soon as an answer is input, another item appears on the screen; The computer is attending to the test taker in an active way that an answer sheet cannot emulate. Hardwicke and Yoes (1984) report that one recruit said, of the CAT version of the ASVAB, It\u27s faster, it\u27s funner, and it\u27s more easier. Although computerized administration seemed to be working well in the cognitive area, there was more concern about personality tests. The American Psychological Association began getting several calls each week from its members asking about, or complaining about computerized testing. Apparently, some guidelines were needed for the users and the developers of computer-based tests and assessments. We hoped to stimulate orderly, controlled growth in an important and volatile field. The Guidelines (APA, 1986; see Appendix) address the development, use, and technical evaluation of computerized tests and test interpretations. They emphasize personality tests and personality assessments, but are relevant to all computer testing. Why develop guidelines when we have just finished congratulating ourselves about the new joint Testing Standards (APA, AERA, & NCME, 1985)? Because the Testing Standards cover this situation only in a generic sort of way, and deserve amplification in particular details; especially computer-based assessments, that is, narrative interpretations. The new Guidelines are viewed as a special application of the new Testing Standards and as subordinate to them in case of any perceived conflict

Folklore Collections Database Users' Manual

The users' manual for the Folklore Collections Database developed by the American Folklore Society as one outcome of the National Folklore Archives Initiative, an effort to document and provide access to archival collections held by folklore programs at academic institutions, community-based cultural and ethnic organizations, non-profit organizations, and state government-based arts and cultural agencies in the United States. The NFAI project was funded by a 2011-2013 grant from the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Program of the Division of Preservation and Access of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Folklore Collections Database is hosted and maintained by the Indiana University Bloomington Library at www.folklorecollections.org.National Endowment for the Humanitie

A non-Abelian Chern-Simons term for non-BPS D-branes

We propose a Chern-Simons term for N coinciding non-BPS D-branes. Demanding full U(N) invariance and compatibility with T-duality, it is shown that it is necessary to introduce new interaction terms, through which the non-BPS D-branes couple to all p-form RR fields.Comment: 8 pages, contribution to the proceedings of the IVth annual TMR conference inParis (7-13 sept 2000); JHEP-styl

The D8-Brane Tied up: String and Brane Solutions in Massive Type IIA Supergravity

We present two new solutions of Romans' massive type IIA supergravity characterized by the two non-trivial massive potentials of Romans' theory: the NSNS 2-form and the RR 7-form. They can be interpreted respectively as the intersection of a fundamental string and a D8-brane over a D0-brane and the intersection of a D6-brane with a D8-brane over a NSNS5-brane. The D8-brane manifests itself through the mass parameter and in the massless limit one recovers the standard fundamental string and D6-brane solutions. Although these solutions do not have the usual form for BPS bound states at threshold and each of them involves 3 objects, both of them preserve 1/4 of the supersymmetries.Comment: LaTeX2e file, 10 page

The group structure of non-Abelian NS-NS transformations

We study the transformations of the worldvolume fields of a system of multiple coinciding D-branes under gauge transformations of the supergravity Kalb-Ramond field. We find that the pure gauge part of these NS-NS transformations can be written as a U(N) symmetry of the underlying Yang-Mills group, but that in general the full NS-NS variations get mixed up non-trivially with the U(N). We compute the commutation relations and the Jacobi identities of the bigger group formed by the NS-NS and U(N) transformations.Comment: Latex, 11 pages. v2: Typos corrected; version to appear in JHEP

5-branes, KK-monopoles and T-duality

We construct the explicit worldvolume effective actions of the type IIB NS-5-brane and KK-monopole. These objects are obtained through a T-duality transformation from the IIA KK-monopole and the IIA NS-5-brane respectively. We show that the worldvolume field content of these actions is precisely that necessary to describe their worldvolume solitons. The IIB NS-5-brane effective action is shown to be related to the D-5-brane's by an S-duality transformation, suggesting the way to construct (p,q) 5-brane multiplets. The IIB KK-monopole is described by a gauged sigma model, in agreement with the general picture for KK-monopoles, and behaves as a singlet under S-duality. We derive the explicit T-duality rules NS-5-brane -- KK, which we use for the construction of the previous actions, as well as NS-5 -- NS-5, and KK -- KK.Comment: latex file, 34 pgs, 3 figures, typos corrected, version to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Examining Commitment to Prevention, Equity, and Meaningful Engagement: A Review of School District Discipline Policies

Although there is increasing awareness of policy decisions contributing to disproportionality in exclusionary practices, few studies have empirically examined common elements of discipline policies across the nation. We utilized a methodological review and the Checklist for Analyzing Discipline Policies and Procedures for Equity (CADPPE) to examine the extent to which current policies reflect recommendations from research regarding best practices for encouraging appropriate behaviors and preventing undesired behaviors, as well as correlations between those policies and exclusionary disciplinary outcomes for all students of color and students of color with disabilities. Data came from 147 district discipline policies and disciplinary outcomes (i.e., suspension and expulsion) from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The analyses indicated the majority of policies do not include most of the research-based recommendations for preventing the overuse of exclusionary practices. Furthermore, there was no correlation found between CADPPE ratings and the risk ratios for exclusionary discipline for students of color and students of color with disabilities. Implications for policy development and implementation and limitations are provided.Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, Grant R305A18000

Development of complex executive function over childhood : Longitudinal growth curve modeling of performance on the Groton Maze Learning Task

Abstract This longitudinal study modeled children's complex executive function (EF) development using the Groton Maze Learning Task (GMLT). Using a cohort-sequential design, 147 children (61 males, 5.5–11 years) were recruited from six multicultural primary schools in Melbourne and Perth, Australia. Race/ethnicity data were not available. Children were assessed on the GMLT at 6-month intervals over 2-years between 2010 and 2012. Growth curve models describe age-related change from 5.5 to 12.5 years old. Results showed a quadratic growth trajectory on each measure of error—that is, those that reflect visuospatial memory, executive control (or the ability to apply rules for action), and complex EF. The ability to apply rules for action, while a rate-limiting factor in complex EF, develops rapidly over early-to-mid childhood

Intersecting D-Branes in ten and six dimensions

We show how, via $T$-duality, intersecting $D$-Brane configurations in ten (six) dimensions can be obtained from the elementary $D$-Brane configurations by embedding a Type IIB $D$-Brane into a Type IIB Nine-Brane (Five-Brane) and give a classification of such configurations. We show that only a very specific subclass of these configurations can be realized as (supersymmetric) solutions to the equations of motion of IIA/IIB supergravity. Whereas the elementary $D$-brane solutions in $d=10$ are characterized by a single harmonic function, those in $d=6$ contain two independent harmonic functions and may be viewed as the intersection of two $d=10$ elementary $D$-branes. Using string/string/string triality in six dimensions we show that the heterotic version of the elementary $d=6$ $D$-Brane solutions correspond in ten dimensions to intersecting Neveu-Schwarz/Neveu-Schwarz (NS/NS) strings or five-branes and their $T$-duals. We comment on the implications of our results in other than ten and six dimensions.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, (substantial changes in section 2

Perovskite-perovskite tandem photovoltaics with optimized bandgaps

We demonstrate four and two-terminal perovskite-perovskite tandem solar cells with ideally matched bandgaps. We develop an infrared absorbing 1.2eV bandgap perovskite, $FA_{0.75}Cs_{0.25}Sn_{0.5}Pb_{0.5}I_3$, that can deliver 14.8 % efficiency. By combining this material with a wider bandgap $FA_{0.83}Cs_{0.17}Pb(I_{0.5}Br_{0.5})_3$ material, we reach monolithic two terminal tandem efficiencies of 17.0 % with over 1.65 volts open-circuit voltage. We also make mechanically stacked four terminal tandem cells and obtain 20.3 % efficiency. Crucially, we find that our infrared absorbing perovskite cells exhibit excellent thermal and atmospheric stability, unprecedented for Sn based perovskites. This device architecture and materials set will enable 'all perovskite' thin film solar cells to reach the highest efficiencies in the long term at the lowest costs