Underlying thematic analysis are a few fundamental human cognitive processes, such as categorizing, prototyping and metaphorical mapping. By unpacking these basic processes of human cognition, this paper hopes to provide a cognitive basis for thematic analysis as a foundational method in data analysis for qualitative research. In particular, it…

Takers of educational tests often receive proficiency levels instead of or in addition to scaled scores. For example, proficiency levels are reported for the Advanced Placement (AP®) and U.S. Medical Licensing examinations. Technical difficulties and other unforeseen events occasionally lead to missing item scores and hence to incomplete data on…

This paper explores the effect of using multitask learning for abstractive summarization in the context of small training corpora. In particular, we incorporate four different tasks (extractive summarization, language modeling, concept detection, and paraphrase detection) both individually and in combination, with the goal of enhancing the target…

We propose new methods for identifying and classifying aberrant response patterns (ARPs) by means of functional data analysis. These methods take the person response function (PRF) of an individual and compare it with the pattern that would correspond to a generic individual of the same ability according to the item-person response surface. ARPs…

Policymakers have expressed increased interest in program-level higher education accountability measures as a supplement to, or in place of, institution-level metrics. But it is unclear what these measures should look like. In this report, we assess the ways program-level data could be developed to facilitate federal accountability. Evidence shows…

We review the GIDNA and CDM packages in R for fitting cognitive diagnosis/diagnostic classification models. We first provide a summary of their core capabilities and then use both simulated and real data to compare their functionalities in practice. We found that the most relevant routines in the two packages appear to be more similar than…

For this report, the authors analyzed federal government data to look at gender, racial and ethnic diversity among those employed in and earning degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Analysis of the STEM workforce is based solely on occupation, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 1990 and 2000 U.S. decennial censuses…

This research aims to evaluate the manner in which teachers perceive their professional development process. Forty-three teachers from Israeli schools participated in the study. I used a semi-structured interview to understand the teachers' perceptions about their professional development. The qualitative analysis identified two dimensions that…

There are good reasons for higher education institutions to use learning analytics to risk-screen students. Institutions can use learning analytics to better predict which students are at greater risk of dropping out or failing, and use the statistics to treat "risky" students differently. This paper analyses this practice using…

This report explores the definition and selection of science and technology-related (STEM) jobs in-depth. Examples from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia are described, with similarities and differences highlighted. [This document was produced by the author(s) based on their research for "What Is STEM? The Need for Unpacking…

In this paper we have discussed a novel method which has been developed for representation and retrieval of cases in case based reasoning (CBR) as a part of e-learning system which is based on various student features. In this approach we have integrated Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with Data mining (DM) and CBR. ANN is used to find the…

This commentary to the recent article by Musso et al. (2013) discusses issues related to model fitting, comparison of classification accuracy of generative and discriminative models, and two (or more) cultures of data modeling. We start by questioning the extremely high classification accuracy with an empirical data from a complex domain. There is…

A meta-synthesis study was conducted of 60 research studies on educational data mining (EDM) and their impacts on and outcomes for improving learning outcomes. After an overview, an examination of these outcomes is provided (Romero, Ventura, Espejo, & Hervas, 2008; Romero, "et al.", 2011). Then, a review of other EDM-related research…

Rural communities often have distinct contextual factors that impact residents' substance abuse behavior. However, most studies to date have focused either exclusively on urban populations or neglected to analyze data in a way that allows any rural/urban comparison. This is especially true for research examining nonmedical prescription drug use…

This study explored the impact of partial credit scoring of one type of innovative items (multiple-response items) in a computerized adaptive version of a large-scale licensure pretest and operational test settings. The impacts of partial credit scoring on the estimation of the ability parameters and classification decisions in operational test…