In the early years, it has become essential to support the acquisition of computational thinking, which is seen as a 21st-century skill and new literacy. A valid and reliable measurement tool is needed to develop and evaluate educational practices related to these skills. "TechCheck" is a validated unplugged assessment of computational…

As evidence from evaluation and experimental studies continue to influence decision and policymaking, applied researchers and practitioners require tools to derive valid and credible inferences. Over the past several decades, research in causal inference has progressed with the development and application of propensity scores. Since their…

Computational thinking (CT) is regarded as a valuable skill set for the students of the 21st century, fostering problem-solving skills applicable to academic disciplines and everyday problems. Assessing CT involves evaluating the development of its concepts, practices, and perspectives. However, establishing comprehensive and validated assessments…

Bell's theorem is a topic of perennial fascination. Publishers and the general public have a steady appetite for approachable books about its implications. The scholarly literature includes many analogies to Bell's theorem and simple derivations of Bell inequalities, and some of these simplified discussions are the basis of interactive web pages.…

Background/purpose: This study aimed to investigate the differences among the equations used in estimating the reliability coefficient using the half-split method. These equations demonstrate Spearman-Brown's, Rulon's, Guttman's, Mosier's, Flanagan's, and Horst's. Materials/methods: The study instrument was a 43-item scale for evaluating the…

Background/Context: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) model is a commonly adopted framework to estimate and test a measurement model. Once a well-fitting final CFA model is selected, the selected model may be used to test structural relationships of the latent constructs with other variables, to construct a test with desired reliability and…

After ChatGPT was released late in 2022, many arguments about its accuracy and use in education arose. In this article, I seek to provide evidence of the accuracy and validity of ChatGPT's responses to users' queries in education by applying a systematic review methodology to analyse publications in specific databases following PRISMA guidelines…

This work aims to elaborate a governance composite index for research laboratories in public university. This index is composed by an indicator of responsible liberalism associating effectiveness and ethics, to which are added an organizational management indicator and a strategic management indicator. To achieve the above aim, several methods are…

Frequency of behaviors or amounts of variables of interest are essential topics in many surveys. The use of heuristics might cause rounded answers, resulting in the increased occurrence of end-digits (called heaping or digit-preference). For web surveys (or CASI), we propose using a conditional prompt as input validation if digits indicating…

Creativity is highly valued in both education and the workforce, but assessing and developing creativity can be difficult without psychometrically robust and affordable tools. The open-ended nature of creativity assessments has made them difficult to score, expensive, often imprecise, and therefore impractical for school- or district-wide use. To…

Back random responding (BRR) behavior is one of the commonly observed careless response behaviors. Accurately detecting BRR behavior can improve test validities. Yu and Cheng (2019) showed that the change point analysis (CPA) procedure based on weighted residual (CPA-WR) performed well in detecting BRR. Compared with the CPA procedure, the…

We propose an algorithm that allows calculating the remainder and the quotient of division between polynomials over commutative coefficient rings, without polynomial long division. We use the previous results to determine the quadratic factors of polynomials over commutative coefficient rings and, in particular, to completely factorize in Z[x] any…

Calculating analytical uncertainties as a part of method validation is a relevant aspect of field and laboratory practices in instrumental analytical chemistry subjects, which usually require complex algorithms. This work describes the development and didactic use of an automatic and straightforward informatics tool, implemented in an Excel macro,…

Computational thinking (CT) is a multidimensional term that encompasses a wide variety of problem-solving skills related to the field of computer science. Unfortunately, standardized, valid, and reliable methods to assess CT skills in preschool children are lacking, compromising the reliability of the results reported in CT interventions. To…

The meta-analytic-predictive (MAP) approach is a Bayesian method to incorporate historical controls in new trials that aims to increase the statistical power and reduce the required sample size. Here we investigate how to calculate the sample size of the new trial when historical data is available, and the MAP approach is used in the analysis. In…