As data are 'numbers with context' (Cobb & Moore, 1997), contextual knowledge plays a prominent role in dealing with statistics. While insights about a specific context can further the depth of interpreting and evaluating outcomes of data analysis, research shows how it can also hinder relying on data especially if results differ from…

Mixed-mode surveys are popular as they can save costs and maintain (or improve) response rates relative to single-mode surveys. Nevertheless, it is not yet clear how design decisions like survey mode or questionnaire length impact measurement quality. In this study, we compare measurement quality in an experiment of three distinct survey designs…

Observers have expressed concern about growing inequality in resources across universities. But are universities really becoming more unequal? We argue that the typical approach of examining endowment growth alone is not sensible. In line with the literature on household inequality, we focus instead on a comprehensive income measure. We find that…

Educational Data Mining (EDM) is the field of using data mining techniques in educational environments. There exist various methods and applications in EDM which can follow both applied research objectives such as improving and enhancing learning quality, as well as pure research objectives, which tend to improve our understanding of the learning…

This paper presents best practices for conducting survey research using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Readers will learn the benefits, limitations, and trade-offs of using MTurk as compared to other recruitment services, including SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics. A synthesis of survey design guidelines along with a sample survey are presented to help…

The goal of this paper is to discuss practical recommendations for collecting data with hard to reach populations and data comparability. We also discuss the importance of piloting and community involvement in the process using an example from the Tribal Prevention Initiative (TiPI), a culturally-based substance abuse prevention program for…

This paper illustrates similarities and differences between two international surveys that assess adults' skills: the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and the Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) survey. In particular, the paper highlights the issues that can arise for researchers interested to…

Survey data are usually of mixed type (quantitative, multistate categorical, and/or binary variables). Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is one of the most extended methodologies to visualize the profile structure of the data. Since the past 60s, MDS methods have been introduced in the literature, initially in publications in the psychometrics area.…

Missing data are a common occurrence in survey-based research studies in education, and the way missing values are handled can significantly affect the results of analyses based on such data. Despite known problems with performance of some missing data handling methods, such as mean imputation, many researchers in education continue to use those…

There are usually limited user evaluation of resources on a recommender system, which caused an extremely sparse user rating matrix, and this greatly reduce the accuracy of personalized recommendation, especially for new users or new items. This paper presents a recommendation method based on rating prediction using causal association rules.…

Ubiquitous computing scenarios such as the one-to-one model, in which every student is issued a device that is to be used across all subjects, have increased in popularity and have shown both positive and negative influences on education. Music teachers in schools that adopt one-to-one models may be inadequately equipped to integrate this kind of…

Through a year-long study of welfare-to-work students in the community college CalWORKs program, we investigated what self-authorship development looks like by examining developmental progress, and whether there are patterns in development along the three dimensions of self-authorship. Findings demonstrate progress toward self-authorship, but…

There are important responsibilities expected from primary school students. The most important of these are the learning of reading, writing and arithmetic. There is a "psychological readiness" aspect besides reading, writing and arithmetic in order to be ready for the school. In this study, among the first-grade students, those who were…

In this study, the authors report on the status of comparative economics systems in the U.S. undergraduate economics curriculum. The treatment of comparative economics systems topics in introductory courses is examined through a survey of standard textbooks. To evaluate comparative economics systems at the advanced undergraduate level, they rely…

We surveyed researchers in the health and exercise sciences to explore different areas and magnitudes of bias in researchers' decision making. Participants were presented with scenarios (testing a central hypothesis with p = 0.06 or p = 0.04) in a random order and surveyed about what they would do in each scenario. Participants showed significant…