Statistical mediation allows researchers to investigate potential causal effects of experimental manipulations through intervening variables. It is a powerful tool for assessing the presence and strength of postulated causal mechanisms. Although mediation is used in certain areas of psychology, it is rarely applied in cognitive psychology and…

The present study disentangles 2 sources of the congruence sequence effect with masked primes: congruence and response time of the previous trial (reaction time [RT] carry-over). Using arrows as primes and targets and a metacontrast masking procedure we found congruence as well as congruence sequence effects. In addition, congruence sequence…

Learners make a number of decisions when attempting to study efficiently: they must choose which information to study, for how long to study it, and whether to restudy it later. The current experiments examine whether documented impairments to self-regulated learning when studying information sequentially, as opposed to simultaneously, extend to…

We use data from a large-scale, school-level randomized experiment conducted in 2010-2011 in public schools in Indiana. Our sample includes more than 30,000 students in 70 schools. We examine the impact of two interim assessment programs (i.e., mCLASS in Grades K-2 and Acuity in Grades 3--8) on mathematics and reading achievement. Two-level models…

Design-based methods have recently been developed as a way to analyze data from impact evaluations of interventions, programs, and policies. The impact estimators are derived using the building blocks of experimental designs with minimal assumptions, and have good statistical properties. The methods apply to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and…

A new design-based theory has recently been developed to estimate impacts for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and basic quasi-experimental designs (QEDs) for a wide range of designs used in social policy research (Imbens & Rubin, 2015; Schochet, 2016). These methods use the potential outcomes framework and known features of study designs…

Design-based methods have recently been developed as a way to analyze data from impact evaluations of interventions, programs, and policies (Imbens and Rubin, 2015; Schochet, 2015, 2016). The estimators are derived using the building blocks of experimental designs with minimal assumptions, and are unbiased and normally distributed in large samples…

Memory performance in linear order reasoning tasks (A > B, B > C, C > D, etc.) shows quicker, and more accurate responses to queries on wider (AD) than narrower (AB) pairs on a hypothetical linear mental model (A -- B -- C -- D). While indicative of an analogue representation, research so far did not provide positive evidence for spatial…

This study investigated whether German learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) acquire additional recoding strategies that they do not need for recoding in the consistent German orthography. Based on the psycholinguistic grain size theory (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) we expected students with little experience in EFL to use the same…

We propose a hierarchical Bayesian model for analyzing multi-site experimental fMRI studies. Our method takes the hierarchical structure of the data (subjects are nested within sites, and there are multiple observations per subject) into account and allows for modeling between-site variation. Using posterior predictive model checking and model…

Cognitive load theory (CLT) (Sweller 1988, 1998, 2010) provides us a guiding framework for designing instructional materials. CLT differentiates three subtypes of cognitive load: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load. The three cognitive loads are theorized based on the number of simultaneously processed elements in working memory.…

Use of multivariate analysis (e.g., multivariate analysis of variance) is common when normally distributed outcomes are collected in intervention research. However, when mixed responses--a set of normal and binary outcomes--are collected, standard multivariate analyses are no longer suitable. While mixed responses are often obtained in…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a ubiquitous problem-based learning system (UPBLS) on students' question-raising performance in field inquiry activities. An experiment was conducted on an elementary school natural science course. A total of 43 sixth and fifth grade elementary students divided into experienced and…