Purpose: This exploratory study sought to establish the psychometric stability of a dynamic norming system using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) databases. Dynamic norming is the process by which clinicians select a subset of the normative database sample matched to their individual client's demographic characteristics.…

Despite the importance of identifying individuals with reading disabilities, existing operational definitions of reading disability do not result in reliable identification. A large part of the problem arises from measurement error when a cut-point is imposed on a continuous distribution, especially for low base-rate conditions. One way to reduce…

A compositional effect is when pupil attainment is associated with the characteristics of their peers, over and above their own individual characteristics. Pupils at academically selective schools, for example, tend to out-perform similar-ability pupils who are educated with mixed-ability peers. Previous methodological studies however have shown…

Population-based outcome monitoring could provide useful information about factors that differentially influence the developmental trajectories of deaf or hard-of-hearing children. A strong basis for population-based outcome monitoring is a coordinated, longitudinal data collection, and management infrastructure that includes quality local…

This research empirically evaluates data sets from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for design effects of ignoring the sampling design in weighted two-level analyses. Currently, researchers may ignore the sampling design beyond the levels that they model which might result in incorrect inferences regarding hypotheses due to…

Successful school leadership is highly contextually dependent. However, few studies focused on the comparisons of school leadership across different countries. Even among the existing studies, comparisons tend to be conducted with the assumption that the underlying factorial structure of the construct is the same. In this study, school principal's…

In this paper, we document a study that involved applying a multiple imputation technique with chained equations to data drawn from the 2007 iteration of the TIMSS database. More precisely, we imputed missing variables contained in the student background datafile for Tunisia (one of the TIMSS 2007 participating countries), by using Van Buuren,…

The conflict between immediacy and accuracy in data-gathering and analysis is discussed. The case of the Postsecondary Transcript Sample (PETS) of the National Longitudinal Study is used to illustrate the particulars of this conflict and their resolution on the side of accuracy. (Author/MLW)