Les buts vises par cette recherche etaient en premier lieu, d'adapter et de valider un modele d'evaluation des besoins et en second lieu, d'identifier les besoins des detenteurs d'enjeux concernes par un programme universitaire de formation initiale en sciences infirmieres. La recension des ecrits nous a permis de constater qu'aucun auteur n'avait tente d'identifier des besoins a partir de la definition du concept de besoin de Guba et Lincoln (1982) basee sur la notion d'ecart, du benefice significatif et de l'etat insatisfaisant et d'en verifier la validite en s'assurant que la presence des conditions definies au niveau de l'etat cible soit significativement benefique au sujet et que leur absence le blesse, l'indispose ou lui impose une contrainte. De plus, la majorite des evaluations de besoins effectuees ne tenaient pas compte du contexte local et des valeurs vehiculees par les personnes concernees. L'adaptation du processus d'evaluation des besoins de Guba et Lincoln (1982) presente dans cette recherche prend en consideration les valeurs des personnes concernees par un programme universitaire de formation initiale en sciences infirmieres, tout en tenant compte du contexte local dans lequel se deroulait l'evaluation des besoins. Le present modele comprend quatre etapes principales: (1) l'identification du ou des domaines cibles par les participantes; (2) l'identification des besoins potentiels par les participantes; (3) la verification de l'authenticite des besoins potentiels par celles-ci et (4) la mise en priorite des besoins authentiques par ces dernieres. La deuxieme etape, c'est-a-dire l'identification des besoins potentiels, comprend quatre phases: (1) la definition du niveau "minimum" par les participantes en fonction des perspectives idiographique et nomothetique; (2) la determination de la grandeur de l'ecart entre l'etat cible et l'etat actuel que les participantes considerent comme significative; (3) l'identification des etats cibles en termes de performance et de moyens et (4) l'identification des ecarts. La triangulation utilisee pour valider le modele d'evaluation des besoins comprend quatre methodes de collecte des donnees: les entrevues de groupe (focus group), les questionnaires, l'approche hermeneutique et l'estimation de l'amplitude lors de la priorisation des besoins. Les participantes provenaient de cinq groupes differents: les administratrices, les professeures, les representantes des milieux hospitaliers et communautaires et les graduees du programme. Les resultats obtenus ont permis de conserver la majorite des etapes du modele. L'auteure considere cependant qu'il n'est pas necessaire de demander aux participantes de definir le niveau "minimal" lorsqu'on traite des moyens car ceux-ci sont en fait des interventions qui devront etre effectuees pour faciliter l'acquisition et la mai trise des habiletes cognitives, motrices et affectives par les graduees dans le futur. L'inclusion des moyens lors de la phase d'identification des ecarts ne s'avere pas necessaire pour les memes raisons. La phase de la determination d'une grandeur significative doit etre conservee selon l'ordre presente dans le modele. L'attribution de cette valeur apres la phase d'identification des ecarts pourrait permettre l'inclusion de besoins futurs dans la categorie des besoins de base, et de ce fait, eviter de nombreuses modifications au sein du programme ainsi que l'ajout de nouvelles ressources. L'impossibilite de discerner individuellement les besoins authentiques des besoins potentiels peut etre attribuable, en partie, a la methodologie utilisee ou aux repondantes. Une nouvelle validation du modele aupres d'un nombre plus eleve de repondantes, tout en considerant les suggestions relatives a la methodologie, est donc recommandee. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This thesis investigates the robustness of the Type I error rate of the t test, the t test on ranks (Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon), the Welch test and the Welch test on ranks applied to reaction time populations with unequal variances. Reaction time is often encountered as a dependent variable in educational and behavioural research. Reaction time data are typically skewed and are commonly modelled on a family of distributions known as the ex-Gaussian. A Monte Carlo study compared the robustness of type I error rates of the four tests under study under 36 conditions wherein four factors were observed: total sample size ($N=24$ and 72), ratio of sample sizes ($n\sb1:n\sb2$ = 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3); ratio of population variances (var1:var2 = 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, and 1:9), and negative and positive conditions. In each condition, 5,000 scores were generated from Miller's (1988) most skewed distribution that represented a boundary condition of reaction time data. The results indicated that the t test was the preferred option under all simulated conditions, except the negative condition. Furthermore, under the negative condition, all four tests produced liberal Type I errors.

Test scores are intended to provide a measure of examinee's estimate of ability. High ability examinees are expected to get few easy items wrong and low ability examinees are exepcted to get few difficult items right. But there are occasions when the test-taking behavior of some atypical examinees may be so unsual that their test scores cannot be regarded as an appropriate measure of ability. An atypical examinee can have a spuriously low or a spuriously high score. However, appropriateness indices can be used to identify examinees with potentially inaccurate total scores. Appropriateness indices provide quantitative, measures of response pattern atypicality. These indices fall into two major categories: (a) IRT-based and (b) non-IRT based indices. The dependency of non-IRT based indices on the item difficulty order of a particular group has rendered them inadequate for detecting aberrant reponse patterns. IRT-based indices are group invariant. Researchers have investigated the effectiveness and the distributions of these indices under varying conditions of testing. However, some test situations might require efficient and accurate indices of appropriateness measurement for restricted samples. It might be helpful, for example, to accurately identify examinees with potential spuriously low scores falling just the below the criterion of a minimum competency test, on a certification test, it might be helpful to concentrate on identifying examinees with spuriously high scores. Therefore, the effects of item difficulty 7 and examinee ability distributions on the effectiveness and the distributional characeristics of LZ and ECIZ4 (IRT-based) appropriateness indices were investigated in this study. To examine the effects of item difficulty and ability distributions on the distributional characteristics of LZ and ECIZ4, data were generated in nine combinations of item difficulty and ability distributions to simulate the responses of 2000 examinees to 60 test items according to the three-parameter model. Three uniform distributions of item difficulty were used. Items typical of diagnostic tests were generated in the interval -3.0 to +1.2; items typical of power tests were generated in the interval of -3.0 to +3.0; and items typical of certification and licencing tests were generated in the interval of -1.2 to +3.0. Three distributions of ability were used. Thetas typical of low, medium, and high ability examinees were generated to have normal distributions with the means of -1.2, 0.0, and +1.2 respectively and each with a standard deviation of 0.6. The mean, standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, and the percentile estimates of LZ and ECIZ4 were significantly affected by the variations of item difficulty and ability distributions. The distributions of the two indices approximated a normal distribution when the ability estimates matched the item difficulty. Overall, the distributions of LZ approximated a normal distribution better than the distribution of ECIZ4. To examine the effectiveness of LZ and ECIZ4 in detecting aberrant response patterns, two samples, each consisting of 500 response patterns (for spuriously low and spuriously high) were generated for each of the nine combinations of item difficulty and ability distribution and subjected to spurious treatments. Twenty percent and 10% spuriously high scores were created by randomly selecting 20% or 10% of the original responses and changing incorrect answers to correct. Twenty percent and 10% spuriously low scores were created by randomly selecting 20% or 10% of the original responses and changing correct answers to incorrect. The percentile estimates obtained were used as cutoff points to classify response patterns as aberrant or non-aberrant. Spuriously low aberrant response patterns were easier to detect by the two indices under the low item difficulty and spuriously high aberrant response patterns were easier to detect under high item difficulty. At low (0.01 and 0.05) false positive rates, LZ had higher detection rates of spuriously high and spuriously low aberrant response patterns than ECIZ4 under the high item difficulty; and ECIZ4 had higher detection rates than LZ under the medium and under the low item difficulty. Twenty percent treatment samples were easier to detect by the two indices than the 10% treatment samples.

Rosenberg has demonstrated that the high school student is influenced by several factors in choosing an extra-curricular activity. Witkin, on the other hand, has shown that an individual's characteristic mode of perceiving the environment, that is his degree of psychological differentiation, can be reliably identified. A specific link between Rosenberg's notion of perceived choice of extra-curricular involvement and Witkin's psychological differentiation has yet to be established. Rosenberg identified two distinct types of perceived involvements, Inclusive and Exclusive. Witkin and others have developed measuring instruments to determine a subject's degree of psychological differentiation. The purpose of the present study is to test the hitherto undetermined connection between the student's degree of psychological differentiation and his perceived choice of extra-curricular activities as measured on the continuum of Inclusivity-Exclusivity. In addition, a second purpose of the study is to develop a testing instrument to measure Inclusivity-Exclusivity. In the current research, scores on the degree of psychological differentiation were measured by Jackson's version of Witkin's Embedded-Figures Test, the Hidden Figures Test-V (HFT-V). The constructed Inclusivity-Exclusivity Questionnaire (I-E) was used to measure the perceived choice of activities. The research sample included one hundred and fifty-one students from grades nine to thirteen. The hypothesis that field-dependent subjects, as determined by the HFT-V, exhibit significantly higher scores on the I-E than field-independent subjects was supported. The study concludes with the following suggestions for further research: (1) The Questionnaire could be further validated for the use of future research of student's perceived choice of activities by investigating its consistency as a measuring instrument across cultures, socio-economic groupings and with different races. (2) It would be of interest to do an exploratory investigation to determine some of the other factors involved in the choice of an extra-curricular activity. (3) A number of correlational studies of extra-curricular involvement with academic success, leadership, self-esteem, school completion, and career choice is suggested.

Educators and practitioners have been striving for bias-free tests for the last few decades. As a result of this, several indices for bias detection have been developed, among which are the logistic regression and Mantel-Haenszel procedures. However, the effects of variables other than DIF on the performance of the logistic regression and Mantel-Haenszel indices have yet to be researched. The present study examines the effects of sample size, item difficulty, item discrimination, and ability distribution on the distributions and percentiles (P90 and P95) of logistic regression and Mantel-Haenszel statistics under the null hypothesis. Simulated data were used in order to evaluate the effects of the stated variables on the distributions of the logistic regression indices of uniform (LU) and nonuniform (LN) differential item functioning DIF or item bias. The same simulated data were used to evaluate the effects of the variables on Mantel-Haenzel procedure (MH-delta and MH-CHISQ). Results of this study show that the logistic regression procedure has advantages over the MH procedures, taking into account the effects of the independent variables studied. This is evident from the fact that the distribution of LN and LU index are known and that the four independent variables had no significant effect on the LU index. However the observed values were notably larger than expected values. Further research should be done to evaluate the effects of the stated variables and others such as test length, and using data with known amount of dif. Generalization of this study should be proved by replications of its findings. Evidently, variables other than DIF, significantly influence the two procedures. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

An attempt was made to relate Smith's psycholinguistic theory of reading and Witkin's theory of psychological differentiation to determine if the use of syntactic and semantic cues in reading is related to one's extent of field-dependence. It was hypothesized that FI subjects would make more use of syntactic and semantic cues than would FD subjects. The Sophistication of Body Concept Scale and experimenter designed paper-and-pencil adaptions of Miller's disruptive effect technique, composed of a "Woodpecker Test" and a "Groundhog Test", were used to measure the interaction of the two variables. The scores of 158 grade four subjects were used to determine the reliability of the reading tests. The scores of 119 subjects identified as FI (N = 47) and FD (N = 72) were analyzed by a repeated measures analysis of variance. Differences were found to be in the direction hypothesized, but statistically non-significant at the .05 level. Significant differences were noted, however, in reading scores between the FI and FD groups and between scores on non-disrupted and disrupted reading material. The failure to reject the null hypothesis was attributed to limitations in the measuring devices used and suggestions were made for replication.

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