Is there a future for simulation and gaming research?

Educational technology research and development -     

Methods for estimating the number of relevant documents in a collection

Several statistical sampling methods are evaluated for estimating the total number of relevant documents in a collection for a given query. The total number of relevant documents is needed in order to compute recall values for use in evaluating document retrieval systems. The simplest method considered uses simple random sampling to estimate the number of relevant documents. Another type of random sampling, which assigns unequal selection probabilities to the individual documents in the collection, is also investigated. An alternative approach considered uses curve fitting and extrapolation, where a smooth curve is developed which relates precision to document rank. Another curve relates a function of precision to the query-document score. In either case, the curve is extrapolated to the total number of documents in order to estimate the number of relevant documents. Empirical comparisons are made of all three methods.     

A historical overview of educational psychology

A historical review of educational psychology might improve understanding of current status and problems. Before American development of the field, the Greeks, Juan Vives in the 16th century, and Pestalozzi and Herbart in the 19th century applied psychological views to educational problems. Despite the absence of scientific psychology in 19th century America, normal schools offered courses purporting to be psychological in content; these courses were supported by textbooks on the subject. James began, and Thorndike developed, the discipline that by the mid-1920s had assumed much of its current form. Journals and academic departments appeared in the first quarter of the century also. The continuing search through the middle of the century for a satisfying professional organization reflected educational psychology's difficulties in establishing an identity. It is not clear even today that the field has “crystallized,” as one writer described it in the 1920s.