The objective of this paper is the design of a predictive model of students' desertion in Educational Institutions based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The proposed model is based on a weighted sum of individual probabilities of desertion associated with various factors (explanatory variables) by experts in the combined use of the AHP…

We explored a two-stage recognition memory paradigm in which people first make single-item "studied"/"not studied" decisions and then have a chance to correct their errors in forced-choice trials. Each forced-choice trial included one studied word ("target") and one nonstudied word ("lure") that received the…

As colleges and universities grapple with uncertainty around current and future enrollment as well as increasingly vocal questions about the value of postsecondary education, it is critically important that institutions ascertain and invest in the elements of campus learning and engagement that add value to the undergraduate experience. This study…

We provide tools for identification and exploration of data with very large variability having power law tails. Such data describe extreme features of processes such as fire losses, flood, drought, financial gain/loss, hurricanes, population of cities, among others. Prediction and quantification of extreme events are at the forefront of the…

In analyzing data from attitude surveys, it is common to consider the "don't know" responses as missing values. In this article, we present a statistical model commonly used for the analysis of responses/evaluations expressed on Likert scales and extended to take into account the presence of don't know responses. The main objective is to…

Understanding large-scale patterns in student course enrollment is a problem of great interest to university administrators and educational researchers. Yet important decisions are often made without a good quantitative framework of the process underlying student choices. We propose a probabilistic approach to modelling course enrollment…

Maintaining and cultivating student engagement is critical for learning. Understanding factors affecting student engagement can help in designing better courses and improving student retention. The large number of participants in massive open online courses (MOOCs) and data collected from their interactions on the MOOC open up avenues for studying…

Categorical perception (CP) effects manifest as faster or more accurate discrimination between objects that come from different categories compared with objects that come from the same category, controlling for the physical differences between the objects. The most popular explanations of CP effects have relied on perceptual warping causing…

The authors used Ajzen's theory of planned behavior and Shapero's entrepreneurial event model as well as entrepreneurial cognition theory to identify the relationship among entrepreneurial skills, self-efficacy, attitudes toward entrepreneurship, psychological traits, social norms, perceived desirability, social support, and entrepreneurial…

This article uses a logistic probability distribution approach to examine the effect of lecture attendance, aptitude test results, individual heterogeneity and pedagogic intervention on student performance for first-year microeconomics and second-year macroeconomics modules at a leading South African university. The research was motivated by the…

Modeling student learning processes is highly complex since it is influenced by many factors such as motivation and learning habits. The high volume of features and tools provided by computer-based learning environments confounds the task of tracking student knowledge even further. Deep Learning models such as Long-Short Term Memory (LSTMs) and…

In order to increase students' awareness for and comfort with mathematical modeling of biological processes, and increase their understanding of diffusion, the following lab was developed for use in 100-level, majors/non-majors biology and neuroscience courses. The activity begins with generation of a data set that uses coin-flips to replicate…

An empirical evidence for independent samples of a population regarding measurement invariance implies that factor structure of a measurement tool is equal across these samples; in other words, it measures the intended psychological trait within the same structure. In this case, the evidence of construct validity would be strengthened within the…

We report an experiment designed to provide a qualitative contrast between knowledge-limited versions of mixed-state and variable-resources (VR) models of visual change detection. The key data pattern is that observers often respond "same" on big-change trials, while simultaneously being able to discriminate between same and small-change…

Metonymic words have multiple related meanings, such as "college", as in the building ("John walked into the college") or the educational institution ("John was promoted by the college"). Most researchers have found support for direct access models of metonymy but one recent study, Lowder and Gordon (2013), found…