Participatory modeling (PM) is an engaged research methodology for creating analog or computer-based models of complex systems, such as socio-environmental systems. Used across a range of fields, PM centers stakeholder knowledge and participation to create more internally valid models that can inform policy and increase engagement and trust…

In recent years, mathematical models of decision making, such as the diffusion model, have been endorsed in individual differences research. These models can disentangle different components of the decision process, like processing speed, speed-accuracy trade-offs, and duration of non-decisional processes. The diffusion model estimates individual…

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union contains directions on how user data may be collected, stored, and when it must be deleted. As similar legislation is developed around the globe, there is the potential for repercussions across multiple fields of research, including educational data mining (EDM). Over the past two…

Vocational education and training (VET) programs are typically regarded as the means to enable successful school-to-work transitions. However, high rates of premature contract terminations in VET programs suggest that adolescents face difficulties during this transition. This paper aims to examine the determinants of persistence intention,…

Academic advising plays an important role in students' decision-making in higher education. Data-driven methods provide useful recommendations to students to help them with degree completion. Several course recommendation models have been proposed in the literature to recommend courses for the next semester. One aspect of the data that has yet to…

Reading development involves several changes in orthographic processing. A key question is, "how does the coding of letters develops in children learning to read?" Masked priming effects of transposition and substitution primes have been taken to index the importance of letter position and identity coding. Somewhat contradicting results…

How have changes in the costs of enrolling for full-time study at public 2-year and 4-year colleges have affected the decisions about whether and where to enroll in college? We exploit local differences in the growth of tuition at community colleges and public 4-year colleges to study the impact of public higher education costs on the…

The recent popularity of models that capture the dynamic coevolution of both network structure and behavior has driven the need for summary indices to assess the adequacy of these models to reproduce dynamic properties of scientific or practical importance. Whereas there are several existing indices for assessing the ability of the model to…

This issue provides a study on translation competence acquisition (TCA). The study consisted of an TCA experiment involving 129 first to fourth year trainee translators and recent graduates. The experiment was conducted in November 2011, when the first-year subjects had just begun their degree course; the graduates had completed their studies in…

Papay (2011) noticed that teacher value-added measures (VAMs) from a statistical model using the most common pre/post testing timeframe--current-year spring relative to previous spring (SS)--are essentially unrelated to those same teachers' VAMs when instead using next-fall relative to current-fall (FF). This is concerning since this choice--made…

This dissertation investigates the effect of observational learning in crowdsourcing markets as a lens to identify appropriate mechanism(s) for sustaining this increasingly popular business model. Observational learning occurs when crowdsourcing participating agents obtain knowledge from signals they observe in the marketplace and incorporate such…

The study explores how parents' occupational field affects gender differences in educational fields. On the one hand, the theory of direct transfer predicts that adolescents enter fields similar to those of their parents because of intergenerational transmission of occupation-specific resources and that adolescents are more likely to draw upon the…

Does data use make a difference in student achievement? Despite the field's optimism on this matter, relatively few studies have attempted to quantify the effects of data use. These studies have often used the presence of a data use intervention (e.g., a data system or data coaching) as a proxy for use, as opposed to tracking teachers' direct…

Context: Following the social cognitive career theory of Lent, Brown, and Hackett (1994), the current study examines the effect of role models' professions and practical internship experiences on the choice of professional environment independent of professional interests. Embedded in the Swiss context with its strong vocational training system,…

As Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) expands to focus on adolescent populations, the broadly accepted theoretical framework put forth by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) should be empirically tested for measurement utility. Using longitudinal data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, we first…