The web tables in this report provide original and revised estimates of statistics previously published in 2007-08 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:08): Student Financial Aid Estimates for 2007-08 (NCES 2009-166). The revised estimates were generated using revised weights that were updated in August 2013. NPSAS:08 data were…

We propose a new limited-information goodness of fit test statistic C[subscript 2] for ordinal IRT models. The construction of the new statistic lies formally between the M[subscript 2] statistic of Maydeu-Olivares and Joe (2006), which utilizes first and second order marginal probabilities, and the M*[subscript 2] statistic of Cai and Hansen…

Durkheim's nineteenth-century analysis of national suicide rates dismissed prior concerns about mortality data fidelity. Over the intervening century, however, evidence documenting various types of error in suicide data has only mounted, and surprising levels of such error continue to be routinely uncovered. Yet the annual suicide rate remains the…

In 2011-12, graduate students received a total of $51.7 billion in federal loans and grants, institutional grants, employer support, and financial aid from other sources. In 2007-08, this figure was $36.7 billion (College Board 2008, 2012). The data presented in these Web Tables were collected through five administrations of the National…

This paper considers the model of school effectiveness (SE) currently dominant in research, policy and practice in England (although the concerns it raises are international). It shows, principally through consideration of initial and propagated error, that SE results cannot be relied upon. By considering the residual difference between the…

Equating functions are supposed to be population invariant, meaning that the choice of subpopulation used to compute the equating function should not matter. The extent to which equating functions are population invariant is typically assessed in terms of practical difference criteria that do not account for equating functions' sampling…

This study examined the efficacy of 4 different parceling methods for modeling categorical data with 2, 3, and 4 categories and with normal, moderately nonnormal, and severely nonnormal distributions. The parceling methods investigated were isolated parceling in which items were parceled with other items sharing the same source of variance, and…

The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of three recommended anthropometric equations for women and then develop an updated prediction equation using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA). The percentage of body fat (%BF) by anthropometry was significantly correlated (r = .896-. 929; p [is less than] .01) with DXA, but each equation…

Global economic transformations have never been as dramatic as in the twentieth century. Most countries have experienced radical changes in the standards of income per capita, technology, fertility, mortality, income inequality and the extent of democracy in the course of the past century. It is the goal of many disciplines--economics, history,…