Algorithms may be better at prediction than humans in a variety of contexts, but they are not perfect. A deeper understanding of the ways in which educators use and question algorithmic advice within their professional domain is needed. Educators are a particularly unique professional group, in comparison with the other groups studied in the…

With the rise in popularity of social media and e-commerce platforms, "discrete math" is at the heart of our online experiences, playing a front-end role in the recommendation of what to click, watch, or buy, or who to follow or friend, as well as a back-end role in data storage, access, and transfer. This thesis focuses on two such…

We are currently in a century of data where massive amount of data are collected and processed every day, and machine learning plays a critical role in automatically processing the data and mining useful information from it for making decisions. Despite the wide and successful applications of machine learning in different fields, the robustness of…

Linguistic meaning is generated by the mind and can be expressed in multiple languages. One may assume that equivalent texts/utterances in two languages by means of translation generate equivalent meanings in their readers/hearers. This follows if we assume that meaning calculated from the linguistic input is solely objective in nature. However,…

The main objective of this dissertation was to investigate factors that affect decision-makers' trust in and reliance on algorithmic predictions as decision aids in the context of college admission prediction tasks. College admission officers often made predictions about the applicants' future success based on multiple pieces of available…

This dissertation presents two essays on econometric methods for program evaluation and policy choice. In Chapter 1, I develop a statistically optimal way of using data to make policy decisions when the performance of counterfactual policies is only partially identified. Specifically, I consider a class of statistical decision problems in which…

Accurate placement into an initial college mathematics course is a key step toward the successful completion of college mathematics and, eventually, a college degree. Conversely, misplacement in mathematics may lead to a reduced likelihood of course completion and degree attainment. This study investigated the ability of two placement models to…