there are two major theories of measurement in psychometrics: classical test theory (ctt) and item-response theory (irt). despite its widespread and long use, ctt has a number of shortcomings, which make it problematic to be used for practical and theoretical purposes. irt tries to solve these shortcomings, and provide better and more dependable answers. one of the applications of irt is the as...

the images of muslims in media, literature and politics have been mostly black and white portrayals of a people alien to modernity, civilization, rationality and pluralism. since the end of the cold war and the onset of deadly terrorist attacks in different areas of the world, especially in the united states, these representations show a palpable difference: muslims are represented not only as ...

abstract recent studies suggest that prelistening activities play an important role in the development of listening comprehension (e.g. long 1990;chiang and dunkel 1992; schmidt-rinehart 1994; jensen and hansen 1995; robinson et al., 1995; buck, 1995; foster and skehan,1996; teng 1996; robinson, 2001; chang and read 2006). in line with previous studies and to shed light on a new aspect of sche...