While some engineering students develop proper critical thinking skills, most engineering students do not. Engineers must critically think to tackle various problems on the job, but many schools do not properly instill critical thinking in engineering students. With engineers working on multiple tasks in little time, a knowledge of critical…

We used multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) modeling to examine general factors of psychopathology in three samples of youth (Ns = 2119, 303, 592) for whom three informants reported on the youth's psychopathology (e.g., child, parent, teacher). Empirical support for the "p"-factor diminished in multi-informant models compared with…

Health risks, when presented as ratios (e.g., two out of seven people), are challenging to understand, but visual displays can foster accurate understanding. We conducted three experiments to test how characteristics of numbers (Experiment 1), icon arrays (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), and number lines (Experiments 1 and 3) influenced people's ability…

Omitted variable bias occurs in most statistical models. Whenever a confounding variable that is correlated with both dependent and independent variables is omitted from a statistical model, estimated effects of included variables are likely to be biased due to omitted variables. This issue is particularly problematic in physics education research…

Basic knowledge of ideas of causal inference can help students to think beyond data, that is, to think more clearly about the data generating process. Especially for (maybe big) observational data, qualitative assumptions are important for the conclusions drawn and interpretation of the quantitative results. Concepts of causal inference can also…

Researchers commonly interpret effect sizes by applying benchmarks proposed by Cohen over a half century ago. However, effects that are small by Cohen's standards are large relative to the impacts of most field-based interventions. These benchmarks also fail to consider important differences in study features, program costs, and scalability. In…

This article revisits how the end points of plotted line segments should be selected when graphing interactions involving a continuous target predictor variable. Under the standard approach, end points are chosen at ±1 or 2 standard deviations from the target predictor mean. However, when the target predictor and moderator are correlated or the…

The article serves as a guide for researchers in developing evidence of validity using bivariate correlations, specifically construct validity. The authors outline the steps for calculating and interpreting bivariate correlations. Additionally, they provide an illustrative example and discuss the implications.

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is a useful tool when analyzing data collected from groups. There are many decisions to be made when constructing and estimating a model in HLM including which estimation technique to use. Three of the estimation techniques available when analyzing data with HLM are maximum likelihood, restricted maximum…

Studies on reading literacy have yet to connect how students perceive the importance of different literacy areas to their ability perception in those areas. This article analyzes students' importance ranking of four different areas of literacy: prose (comprehending written information), document (interpreting information in forms, schedules,…

Advances in validity theory and alacrity in validation practice have suffered because the term "validity" has been used to refer to two incompatible concerns: (1) the degree of support for specified interpretations of test scores (i.e. intended score meaning) and (2) the degree of support for specified applications (i.e. intended test…

We describe a semester-long project for an introductory statistics class that studies the broken windows theory of policing and the related issues of race, policing, and criminal justice. The most impactful feature of the project is the data-collection phase, in which students attend and observe a public arraignment court session. This "Court…

Phillip Henry is a semi-retired former U.K. Registrar and Secretary with almost 40 years' experience in higher education. He has been active in staff development in the United Kingdom (Association of University Administrators, Academic Registrars Council, and Association of Heads of University Administration), in the United States (AACRAO and a…

Research in mathematics education has investigated teachers' professional knowledge in depth, comprising two different approaches: a cognitive and a situated perspective. Linking these two perspectives leads to addressing situation-specific skills such as perception, interpretation and decision-making, indicative of revealing a teacher's knowledge…

Objective: To determine the level of moderate-vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) assessed via self-report and accelerometer in the college population, and to examine intrapersonal and contextual variables associated with physical activity (PA). Participants: Participants were 77 college students at a university in the northwest sampled…