Spatial microsimulation encompasses a range of alternative methodological approaches for the small area estimation (SAE) of target population parameters from sample survey data down to target small areas in contexts where such data are desired but not otherwise available. Although widely used, an enduring limitation of spatial microsimulation SAE…

The decomposition of the overall effect of a treatment into direct and indirect effects is here investigated with reference to a recursive system of binary random variables. We show how, for the single mediator context, the marginal effect measured on the log odds scale can be written as the sum of the indirect and direct effects plus a residual…

Academic Self-Efficacy for Self-Regulated Learning (ASE for SRL) represents individuals' belief in their abilities to regulate and organize their learning to achieve academic outcomes, and it is crucial for motivation and students' well-being. This study, conducted on a nationally representative sample of 26,564 10th grade Italian students (50.1%…

One of the main objectives of international large-scale assessments is to make comparisons between different countries, education policies, education systems, or subgroups. One of the main criteria for making comparisons between different groups is to ensure measurement invariance. The purpose of this study was to test the measurement invariance…

This study tested factorial structure, reliability as well as gender, age, and cultural measurement invariance of the Brief Inventory of Thriving (BIT). Data were collected from 981 Italian, Portuguese, and Chinese emerging adults. Results showed that BIT scores were reliable, mono-dimensional, and suitable to assess thriving across different…

The State-Trait Cheerfulness Inventory--Trait Version (STCI-T60) measures the temperamental basis of sense of humor involving theoretically derived personality dispositions of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood. The reliability and validity of the newly developed STCI-T60 Italian version were assessed in a sample of Italian speakers (N =…

This paper argues that the consideration of educational disadvantage should go beyond the micro-scale contextual level of individual students, and explore eventual connections with hybrid forms of disadvantage in the social field. The paper draws on the capability approach and the concept of dwelling to introduce dwelling in time as functioning.…

We extend to the longitudinal setting a latent class approach that was recently introduced by Lanza, Coffman, and Xu to estimate the causal effect of a treatment. The proposed approach enables an evaluation of multiple treatment effects on subpopulations of individuals from a dynamic perspective, as it relies on a latent Markov (LM) model that is…

Ample evidence indicates that a person's human capital is important for success on the labor market in terms of both wages and employment prospects. However, unlike the efforts to identify the impact of school attainment on labor-market outcomes, the literature on returns to cognitive skills has not yet provided convincing evidence that the…

Research on effects of home computer use on children's development of cognitive abilities and skills has yielded conflicting results, with some studies showing positive effects, others no effects, and yet others negative effects. These studies have typically used non-experimental designs and one of the main reasons for the conflicting results is…

This article proposes a multilevel model for the assessment of school effectiveness where the intake achievement is a predictor and the response variable is the achievement in the subsequent periods. The achievement is a latent variable that can be estimated on the basis of an item response theory model and hence subject to measurement error.…

In this paper, we use two complementary Italian data sources (the 1995 ISTAT and Bank of Italy household surveys) to generate household-specific nondurable expenditure in the Bank of Italy sample that contains relatively high-quality income data. We show that food expenditure data are of comparable quality and informational content across the two…