Measurement of statistical and psychological knowledge integration.

In an empirical study carried out in a Psychology experimental design class , three groups of university students completed three types of exercises: c alculus, abstract, or exercises on real experimental descriptions. The thre e groups received the same theoretical lectures and were matched in every r espect. In this context we attempted a. comparison between multidimensional scaling and pathfinder on the one hand, and a new application of the gener alized partial credit model. The result showed that the generalized partial credit model was the best mean to detect significant differences before an d after the academic training. The results are discussed in terms of the po ssibility of transfer among different knowledge domains.