Egocentric networks represent a popular research design for network research. However, to what extent and under what conditions egocentric network centrality can serve as reasonable substitutes for their sociocentric counterparts are important questions to study. The answers to these questions are uncertain simply because of the large variety of…

New technologies have made the world highly visual, making visual literacy an important and relevant 21st-century skill. Educators and students are often required to produce visual communication products such as infographics, but they often lack the confidence and proficiency in visual design skills to create higher-quality infographics. We…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the current state of graduate level business analytics education in the United States. The goal of this research is twofold. The first goal is to understand how higher education institutions are addressing the growing demand for analysts and data-savvy managers in the job market. To achieve this aim, the…

Randomized control trials are considered the pinnacle for causal inference. In many cases, however, randomization of participants in social work research studies is not feasible or ethical. This paper introduces the co-twin control design study as an alternative quasi-experimental design to provide evidence of causal mechanisms when randomization…

The exponential growth of digital libraries and the proliferation of scholarly content in electronic formats have made data mining and information retrieval essential tools for effectively managing, organizing, and disseminating knowledge. This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the advancements and challenges in these fields, with a…

Background: In educational settings, individuals are often best served by an intervention that is adapted over sequential stages to suit their initial and changing needs. The salience of an adaptive intervention is, perhaps, most clear in the classroom. Learning itself is a sequential process: mastering a given concept or technique frequently…

The visual analysis of data presented in time-series graphs are common in single-case design (SCD) research and applied practice in school psychology. A growing body of research suggests that visual analysts' ratings are often influenced by construct-irrelevant features including Y-axis truncation and compression of the number of data points per…

Visual analysis and nonoverlap-based effect sizes are predominantly used in analyzing single case experimental designs (SCEDs). Although they are popular analytical methods for SCEDs, they have certain limitations. In this study, a new effect size calculation model for SCEDs, named performance criteria-based effect size (PCES), is proposed…

In single-case research designs (SCDs) to determine a functional relation a time-series graph is constructed. Preliminary evidence suggest the approach used to scale the vertical axis and the data points per x- to y-axis ratio (DPPXYR) impact visual analysts' decisions. We conducted a systematic review to evaluate time-series graphs published in…

Latent change score (LCS) models are a powerful class of structural equation modeling that allows researchers to work with latent difference scores that minimize measurement error. LCS models define change as a function of prior status, which makes it well-suited for modeling developmental theories or processes. In LCS models, like other latent…

Mixed methods research collects, analyzes, and integrates rigorous qualitative and quantitative methods to gain a deeper understanding of a phenomenon than would be gained by using either method alone. Integration is one of the key features of mixed methods research and consists of mixing qualitative and quantitative research in a systematic way…

Group design research studies can provide evidence to draw conclusions about "what works," "for whom," and "under what conditions" in special education. The quality indicators introduced by Gersten and colleagues (2005) have contributed to increased rigor in group design research, which has provided substantial…

Despite recent methodological advances in saturation, guidelines for its estimation in more complex research designs--such as ethnographic studies--have been lacking. We present an accessible, step-by-step approach to empirical assessment of data saturation, tested on a moderately sized ethnographic study with 109 combined direct observations and…

Mixed-mode surveys are popular as they can save costs and maintain (or improve) response rates relative to single-mode surveys. Nevertheless, it is not yet clear how design decisions like survey mode or questionnaire length impact measurement quality. In this study, we compare measurement quality in an experiment of three distinct survey designs…

Solving problems in educational settings, as in daily-life scenarios, involves constantly assessing one's own confidence in each considered solution. Metacognitive research has exposed cues that may bias confidence judgments (e.g., familiarity with question terms). Typically, metacognitive research methodologies require examining misleading cues…