branching

1. a form of programmed instruction that provides additional steps, or branches, to be followed if the standard teaching material has not been adequately mastered to a given level of proficiency. Correct and incorrect answers lead to branches of new material so that students complete different sequences depending on how well they perform. Also called branching program.

2. in linguistics, a method of analyzing the formal structure of a sentence by representing it diagrammatically as a treelike structure with an organized hierarchy of branches and subbranches. In phrase-structure grammar, a tree diagram of this kind (also known as a phrase marker) is often used to illustrate the set of phrase-structure rules that generates a particular grammatical sentence: The diagram so produced will also be a constituent analysis of the sentence in question. Theories of branching have been used in predicting psycholinguistic phenomena and in creating linguistic typologies.

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Psychology term of the day

December 19th 2024

Monte Carlo research

a simulation technique in which a large number of samples with specific selected properties (e.g., normality, size, model type) are generated by computer in order to assess the behavior of a statistical procedure or parameter under varying conditions. For example, an investigator might conduct Monte Carlo research with a large number of normally distributed samples of various sizes (e.g., N = 50, 100, 200, 400, 800) in which a structural model is applied to characterize the data. Results would help the researcher determine the conditions under which the model behaves correctly (i.e., fits the data) as well as shows its limits (e.g., not fitting well with sample sizes less than 200). Also called Monte Carlo method.