Students often believe that statistical significance is the only determinant of whether a quantitative result is "important." In this paper, I review traditional null hypothesis statistical testing to identify what questions inferential statistics can and cannot answer, including statistical significance, effect size and direction,…

This article develops a set-theoretic approach to Bayes's theorem and Bayesian process tracing. In the approach, hypothesis testing is the procedure whereby one updates beliefs by narrowing the range of states of the world that are regarded as possible, thus diminishing the domain in which the actual world can reside. By explicitly connecting…

Reproducibility crises have arisen in psychology and other behavioral sciences, spurring efforts to ensure research findings are credible and replicable. Although reforms are occurring at professional levels in terms of new publication parameters and open science initiatives, the credibility and reproducibility of undergraduate research deserves…

Integral to most undergraduate psychology degree programs are research methods courses. Students learn about theory, study design and hypothesis testing, and gain knowledge that is assessed by laboratory reports. We describe a problem-based learning approach with an emphasis on acquisition of study design skills. Working in small groups, students…

For decades, instructional communication scholars have relied predominantly on cross-sectional survey methods to generate empirical associations between effective teaching and student learning. These studies typically correlate students' perceptions of their instructor's teaching behaviors with subjective self-report assessments of their own…

To begin statistical analysis, Bayesians quantify their confidence in modeling hypotheses with priors. A prior describes the probability of a certain modeling hypothesis apart from the data. Bayesians should be able to defend their choice of prior to a skeptical audience. Collaboration between evaluators and stakeholders could make their choices…

A bottleneck in gathering big data about learning is instrumentation designed to record data about processes students use to learn and information on which those processes operate. The software system nStudy fills this gap. nStudy is an extension to the Chrome web browser plus a server side database for logged trace data plus peripheral modules…

Single case studies can provide vital contributions to theory-testing in social science studies. Particularly, by applying the process-tracing method, case studies can test theoretical frameworks through a rigorous research design that ensures substantial empirical leverage. While most scholarly contributions on process-tracing focus on either…

Current practices in study design and data analysis have led to low reproducibility and replicability of findings in fields such as psychology, medicine, biology, and economics. Because gifted education research relies on the same underlying statistical and sociological paradigms, it is likely that it too suffers from these problems. This article…

The current study will be conducted in relationship of entrepreneurship education and academic performance. The study will be conducted on the post graduate students in the Universities of Bahawalpur. In the current study those universities will be included that were offering and also not offering entrepreneurship as a subject of teaching. The…

The benefits of undergraduate research are well documented, and many colleges and universities include a senior research requirement for graduation. In addition, most science curricula attempt to include discoverystyle, laboratory components to prepare students for their research experiences and to expose them to research methods in different…

The purpose of this paper is to provide an easy template for the inclusion of the Bayes factor in reporting experimental results, particularly as a recommendation for articles in the "Journal of Problem Solving." The Bayes factor provides information with a similar purpose to the "p"-value--to allow the researcher to make…

The challenge of teaching in the sciences is not only conveying knowledge in the discipline, but also developing essential critical thinking, data analysis, and scientific writing skills. I outline an exercise that can be done easily as part of a microbiology laboratory course. It teaches the nature of the research process, from asking questions…

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This eighth installment of "Explorations in Statistics" explores permutation methods, empiric procedures we can use to assess an experimental result--to test a null hypothesis--when we are reluctant to trust statistical…

Students need to have a basic understanding of research methods before obtaining a communication degree in order to become an intelligent consumer of research--someone who is able to read, understand, explain, and critically evaluate communication and other research reported in scholarly journals as well as in the popular press. These skills are…