Summary Employing a Wald confidence interval to test hypotheses about population proportions could lead to an increase in Type I or Type II errors unless the hypothesized value, p0, is used in computing its standard error rather than the sample proportion. Whereas the Wald confidence interval to estimate a population proportion uses the sample…

Given that the usage and complexity of spreadsheets in the accounting profession are expected to increase, it is more important than ever to ensure that accounting graduates are aware of the dangers of spreadsheet errors and are equipped with design skills to minimize those errors. Although spreadsheet mechanics are prevalent in accounting…

Teachers often promote care in doing calculations, but for most students a single mistake rarely has major consequences. This article presents several real-life events in which relatively minor mathematical errors led to situations that ranged from public embarrassment to the loss of millions of dollars' worth of equipment. The stories here…

This paper presents the Agresti & Coull "Adjusted Wald" method for computing confidence intervals and margins of error for common proportion estimates. The presented method is easily implementable by business students and practitioners and provides more accurate estimates of proportions particularly in extreme samples and small…

Evidence from recent research suggests that in the UK the public perception of errors in national examinations is that they are simply mistakes; events that are preventable. This perception predominates over the more sophisticated technical view that errors arise from many sources and create an inevitable variability in assessment outcomes. The…

Fraction division is generally introduced in sixth or seventh grade with this rule: "Invert and multiply." The authors examined current commercial curricula and found that few textbooks use context as a way to build meaning for the division of fractions. When context is used, the connection between the invert-and-multiply rule and the context is…

This note suggests delta method implementations for deriving confidence intervals for a latent mean effect size measure for the case of 2 independent populations. A hypothetical kindergarten reading example using these implementations is provided, as is supporting LISREL syntax. (Contains 1 table.)

In this essay, the author tries to look forward into the 21st century to divine three things: (i) What skills will researchers in the future need to solve the most pressing problems? (ii) What are some of the most likely candidates to be those problems? and (iii) What are some current areas of research that seem mined out and should not distract…

In this paper, we show the potential of webcams as precision measuring instruments in a physics laboratory. Various sources of error appearing in 2D coordinate measurements using low-cost commercial webcams are discussed, quantifying their impact on accuracy and precision, and simple procedures to control these sources of error are presented.…

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is a frequently used multivariate analysis technique in statistics. Jennrich and Sampson (1966) solved a significant EFA factor loading matrix rotation problem by deriving the direct Quartimin rotation. Jennrich was also the first to develop standard errors for rotated solutions, although these have still not made…

Five categories of answer-processing for computerized drill programs in foreign languages are described: nonevaluation, right-wrong evaluation, pattern markup, error anticipation, and parsing. Each strategy is explained in terms of its operation, advantages and disadvantages, ease of use for authoring courseware, and capability to support…

Error profiles for the Fall Enrollment Survey of the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS) were developed as part of an assessment of the quality of survey data. Three statistics were of particular interest: the count of full-time equivalent students, the breakdown by race/ethnicity, and the count of unclassified students. Attention…

Classifies errors as either systematic or blunder and uncertainties as either systematic or random. Discusses use of error/uncertainty analysis in direct/indirect measurement, describing the process of planning experiments to ensure lowest possible uncertainty. Also considers appropriate level of error analysis for high school physics students'…