Three indicators of undergraduate students' (n = 197) source evaluation were investigated as students completed an academic task requiring the use of multiple texts. The source evaluation metrics examined were students' (1) accessing of document information, (2) trustworthiness ratings, and (3) citation in written responses. All three indicators…

This study aimed to examine the written arguments developed by college freshman students using the Science Writing Heuristic approach in inquiry-based general chemistry laboratory classrooms and its relationships with students' achievement in chemistry courses. Fourteen freshman students participated in the first year of the study while 19…

In this study, the role of teacher-student relationships and students' social and emotional skills as potential predictors of students' emotional and behavioural difficulties was investigated by tapping into 962 primary school students' perceptions via questionnaires. While significant correlations were found linking teachers' interpersonal…

In this article, the authors argue that there are a range of effects usually studied within cognitive psychology that are legitimately thought of as aspects of critical thinking: the cognitive biases studied in the heuristics and biases literature. In a study of 793 student participants, the authors found that the ability to avoid these biases was…

Part and partial correlation coefficients are used to measure the strength of a relationship between a dependent variable and an independent variable while controlling for one or more other variables. The present paper discusses the uses and limitations of partial correlations and presents a small heuristic data set to illustrate the discussion.…

Suppressor effects are considered one of the most elusive dynamics in the interpretation of statistical data. A suppressor variable has been defined as a predictor that has a zero correlation with the dependent variable while still, paradoxically, contributing to the predictive validity of the test battery (P. Horst, 1941). This paper explores the…

Commonality analysis is a procedure for decomposing the coefficient of determination (R superscript 2) in multiple regression analyses into the percent of variance in the dependent variable associated with each independent variable uniquely, and the proportion of explained variance associated with the common effects of predictors in various…

This paper discusses the principles underlying discriminant analysis and constructs a simulated data set to illustrate its methods. Discriminant analysis is a multivariate technique for identifying the best combination of variables to maximally discriminate between groups. Discriminant functions are established on existing groups and used to…

Rectifies the unsatisfactory textbook treatment of the finite-sample proprieties of estimators of regression models with a lagged dependent variable and autocorrelated disturbances. Maintains that the bias of the ordinary least squares estimator is determined by the dynamic and correlation effects. (MJP)