Scott,

High IQ and all that... I have done a similar exercise with functionally 
emerging-literate Arab students reading English and am willing to try it 
again, in the interests of science.

I don't have IQ scores for them but I can provide recent TOEFL data. 
Perhaps that can be calibrated to something or other...

Mark


> At 03:12 PM 11/26/2008, Scott Woods wrote:
>> I want to test a technique involving grammar for its effectiveness in 
>> improving reading comprehension.  Please let me know what you think 
>> of my design and if you have any suggestions for related research. . . .
>
> DD: You called? From out of the wood work comes there now a 
> Psychometrician (Retired.) It sounds like a sound design, as 
> presented. However {Ever notice how there is always a caveat?} you are 
> dealing with a rather high end sample.* High IQ and all that. Do the 
> study. Slap it into a Chi Square contingency test and see. Make sure 
> the groups are selected truly randomly. Report the results. I 
> personally think you are doing true science here. A lot rarer than you 
> would think. The null hypothesis is there will not be a significant 
> difference. Fifty fifty. I'd go for the more risky a priori prediction 
> that there will be one in favor of the graphic syntax. That way I get 
> to use a one tail test and that allows significance at a lower level. 
> It is risky, though, because if it turns around and bites YOU on the 
> tail and the normal text group comes out ahead, the experimenter is 
> required to perform a ritual self immolation. We rarely do, though. 
> Just lie and report we did no a priori post hoc corrections. Keep me 
> posted. Fascinating to see a well designed experiment before it is 
> done. Usually the psychometrician just gets a bunch of results and is 
> asked to make sense out of it. {Usually by an attractive graduate 
> student. Blonde preferred.} I suspect that timing will indeed change 
> the results, but that a correlation between speed v extended time will 
> show a high r. Suggestion for future reading - anything by Ohmer 
> Milton. I remain, your faithful friend and joyous companion in 
> original research.
>
> * Ware the regression toward the mean.
>
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