Most existing diagnostic models are developed to detect whether students have mastered a set of skills of interest, but few have focused on identifying what scientific misconceptions students possess. This article developed a general dual-purpose model for simultaneously estimating students' overall ability and the presence and absence of…

Economic efficiency demands accurate assessment of individual ability for selection purposes. This study investigates Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) for estimating true ability and ranking individuals. Two Monte Carlo simulations and real data analyses were conducted. Results suggest a slight advantage for IRT, but…

We demonstrate how developmental theories may be instantiated as statistical models, using hierarchical continuous-time dynamic systems. This approach offers a flexible specification and an often more direct link between theory and model parameters than common modeling frameworks. We address developmental theories of the relation between the…

The concept of meritocracy stands as a fundamental ethos within the governance and educational paradigms in Singapore. This principle, notwithstanding its intrinsic paradoxes -- most notably, the juxtaposition of egalitarian ideals against elitist practices -- remains steadfastly upheld, with no indications of waning in the foreseeable future. A…

This article proposes a duplex model for understanding giftedness. The first part of the duplex is the set of gifted skills and attitudes that one possesses as a result of heredity, the environment, and their interaction. It is the input that one has acquired from one's life experiences. The second part of the duplex is the utilization or…

Background: Despite increasing support for models in physical education, ambiguity exists concerning the role of teachers in the implementation of models. Very generally, some scholarship seems to suggest that teachers should work as technicians and use models in an instrumental manner. Other scholarship suggests that teachers should use models in…

Childhood adversity can lead to cognitive deficits or enhancements, depending on many factors. Though progress has been made, two challenges prevent us from integrating and better understanding these patterns. First, studies commonly use and interpret raw performance differences, such as response times, which conflate different stages of cognitive…

3D design and modeling is an important part of design education. Self-directed learning (SDL) has been considered in order to effectively learn and teach 3D design and modeling. Exploring the relationship between students' SDL ability and their behavior in learning 3D design will not only promote the 3D design learning process and outcomes, but…

Drawing from the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework, this paper aims to study the influence of academic researchers' ability, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and opportunity on their performance. We conducted an empirical analysis using a sample of 607 academic researchers to examine the relationships between the three AMO…

Discussions on diversity and disability in dialogue with special educationalists and philosophers of education are not often found in the research literature. Researchers within disability studies have been critical towards the enterprise of special education and vice versa, and the language they use is often different, as they draw on various…

This software review discusses the capabilities of Stata to conduct item response theory modeling. The commands needed for fitting the popular one-, two-, and three-parameter logistic models are initially discussed. The procedure for testing the discrimination parameter equality in the one-parameter model is then outlined. The commands for fitting…

Estimation of parameters for the many-facets Rasch model requires that conditional on the values of the facets, such as person ability, item difficulty, and rater severity, the observed responses within each facet are independent. This requirement has often been discussed for the Rasch models and 2PL and 3PL models, but it becomes more complex…

This dissertation consists of three chapters that contribute to the fields of macroeconomics, economic development, and entrepreneurship. In the first chapter, "Entrepreneurship Selection and Performance in the U.S. and Across Countries: The Role of Human Capital," I seek to establish a set of stylized facts related to entrepreneurship…

Extensive research has established that successful learning from an example is conditional on an important learning activity: self-explanation. Moreover, a model for learning from examples suggests that self-explanation quality mediates effects of examples on learning outcomes (Atkinson et al. in Rev Educ Res 70:181-214, 2000). We investigated…

Educational process mining is now a promising method to provide decision-support information for the teaching-learning process via finding useful educational guidance from the event logs recorded in the learning management system. Existing studies mainly focus on mining students' problem-solving skills or behavior patterns and intervening in…