Michael Flor
Biographic Data
| ID | 5742276 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Flor |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Flor |
| SIGNATURE | FLOR M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Educational Testing Service |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3320-5729 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Toward an Automatic Method for Generating Topical Vocabulary Test Forms for Specific Reading Passages
Background knowledge is typically needed for successful comprehension of topical and domain-specific reading passages, such as in the STEM domains. However, there are few automated measures of student knowledge that can be readily deployed and scored in time to make predictions on whether a given student will likely be able to understand a specific content-area text. In this research report, we present our effort in developing the K-tool, an auto…
How Much Should I Read? An Analysis of Word Learning Opportunities in Children's Novels
With only about a third of students in US public schools achieving the NAEP Proficient level, many educators believe students are not getting enough reading practice. However, how much reading practice is enough? This study quantifies the relationship between the amount of book reading and the expected number of words learned. We collected 45 children's novels, M(Lexile) = 994 L, or Grade 6, and assembled a corpus of 3.2 million words. When readi…
Academic Writing Skills in College Admissions Essays: Exploring Their Implications for Admissions Decisions and First-Semester Grade Point Average
Admissions essays submitted by applicants to undergraduate institutions are typically evaluated by admissions professionals to gain a better understanding of an applicant’s likely fit for the institution. These essays are becoming increasingly important because many colleges are likely to strengthen the role that non-test-based application materials play in the admission decision-making process. The current study examines an index of academic wri…
Mapping of American English vocabulary by grade levels
We describe a large-scale effort to map English-language vocabulary by U.S. school grade levels. Our motivation is to rapidly expand graded vocabulary resources for work with native English speakers in the USA, while taking into consideration school-related influences rather than relying on just the corpus-frequency approaches. We report on the initial effort of data collection, with mapping of about 22K word forms. We provide comparisons of this…
Towards automatic annotation of collaborative problem‐solving skills in technology‐enhanced environments
Associative lexical cohesion as a factor in text complexity
In this paper we present an application of associative lexical cohesion to the analysis of text complexity as determined by expert-assigned US school grade levels. Lexical cohesion in a text is represented as a distribution of pairwise positive normalized mutual information values. Our quantitative measure of lexical cohesion is Lexical Tightness (LT), computed as average of such values per text. It represents the degree to which a text tends to …
The Production of Metaphoric Expressions in Spontaneous Speech: A Controlled-Setting Experiment
We introduce a novel experimental paradigm for eliciting metaphoric expressions in spontaneous speech, under controlled conditions. Participants were presented with a pair of words on a PC monitor and were asked to provide a verbal response describing a conceptual relation between the stimuli. The proportion of metaphoric responses depended on the stimuli in a predictable manner. A large proportion of metaphoric responses was obtained for stimuli…
Academic Writing Skills in College Admissions Essays: Exploring Their Implications for Admissions Decisions and First-Semester Grade Point Average
Admissions essays submitted by applicants to undergraduate institutions are typically evaluated by admissions professionals to gain a better understanding of an applicant’s likely fit for the institution. These essays are becoming increasingly important because many colleges are likely to strengthen the role that non-test-based application materials play in the admission decision-making process. The current study examines an index of academic wri…
The Production of Metaphoric Expressions in Spontaneous Speech: A Controlled-Setting Experiment
We introduce a novel experimental paradigm for eliciting metaphoric expressions in spontaneous speech, under controlled conditions. Participants were presented with a pair of words on a PC monitor and were asked to provide a verbal response describing a conceptual relation between the stimuli. The proportion of metaphoric responses depended on the stimuli in a predictable manner. A large proportion of metaphoric responses was obtained for stimuli…
Associative lexical cohesion as a factor in text complexity
In this paper we present an application of associative lexical cohesion to the analysis of text complexity as determined by expert-assigned US school grade levels. Lexical cohesion in a text is represented as a distribution of pairwise positive normalized mutual information values. Our quantitative measure of lexical cohesion is Lexical Tightness (LT), computed as average of such values per text. It represents the degree to which a text tends to …
Towards automatic annotation of collaborative problem‐solving skills in technology‐enhanced environments
Mapping of American English vocabulary by grade levels
We describe a large-scale effort to map English-language vocabulary by U.S. school grade levels. Our motivation is to rapidly expand graded vocabulary resources for work with native English speakers in the USA, while taking into consideration school-related influences rather than relying on just the corpus-frequency approaches. We report on the initial effort of data collection, with mapping of about 22K word forms. We provide comparisons of this…
How Much Should I Read? An Analysis of Word Learning Opportunities in Children's Novels
With only about a third of students in US public schools achieving the NAEP Proficient level, many educators believe students are not getting enough reading practice. However, how much reading practice is enough? This study quantifies the relationship between the amount of book reading and the expected number of words learned. We collected 45 children's novels, M(Lexile) = 994 L, or Grade 6, and assembled a corpus of 3.2 million words. When readi…
Academic Writing Skills in College Admissions Essays: Exploring Their Implications for Admissions Decisions and First-Semester Grade Point Average
Admissions essays submitted by applicants to undergraduate institutions are typically evaluated by admissions professionals to gain a better understanding of an applicant’s likely fit for the institution. These essays are becoming increasingly important because many colleges are likely to strengthen the role that non-test-based application materials play in the admission decision-making process. The current study examines an index of academic wri…
Toward an Automatic Method for Generating Topical Vocabulary Test Forms for Specific Reading Passages
Background knowledge is typically needed for successful comprehension of topical and domain-specific reading passages, such as in the STEM domains. However, there are few automated measures of student knowledge that can be readily deployed and scored in time to make predictions on whether a given student will likely be able to understand a specific content-area text. In this research report, we present our effort in developing the K-tool, an auto…
Computer Science (5 works) · Linguistics (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Text Readability and Simplification (4 works) · Vocabulary (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · Mathematics education (3 works) · Natural language processing (3 works) · Second Language Acquisition and Learning (3 works) · Artificial Intelligence (2 works)