Measurement invariance (MI) is an essential part of validity evidence concerned with ensuring that tests function similarly across groups, contexts, and time. Most evaluations of MI involve multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) that assume simple structure. However, recent research has shown that constraining non-target indicators to…

Researchers often study dynamic processes of latent variables in everyday life, such as the interplay of positive and negative affect over time. An intuitive approach is to first estimate the measurement model of the latent variables, then compute factor scores, and finally use these factor scores as observed scores in vector autoregressive…

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is important for teachers' instructional effectiveness. This study investigated the self-reported level of PCK among in-service elementary school science teachers in a municipality in Ghana, examining the overall level of PCK. An In-Service Elementary Science Teachers Self-Reported PCK (IEST-SR-PCK) scale was…

Big Ideas in school mathematics can be seen as overarching concepts that occur in various mathematical topics in a syllabus. For teachers, this knowledge can be used to help students develop a better understanding of mathematics by making visible the central ideas, and connection across topics and across levels. For students, this knowledge can…

Performance in primary education can be measured in terms of different variables, like enrolment rate, attendance rate, or levels of learning achievement of students. Thus, for an analysis of the comparative performance of units, like country, state, or district, we need an aggregate measure or an index developed from these variables. In…

Assessing the measurement model (MM) of self-report scales is crucial to obtain valid measurements of individuals' latent psychological constructs. This entails evaluating the number of measured constructs and determining which construct is measured by which item. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is the most-used method to evaluate these…

This paper reports an investigation into the psychometric properties of the COR-Advantage1.5 (COR-Adv1.5) assessment tool, a criterion-referenced observation-based instrument designed to assess the developmental abilities of children from birth through kindergarten. Using data from 8534 children participating in a state-funded preschool program…

This article outlines a procedure for examining the degree to which a common factor may be dominating additional factors in a multicomponent measuring instrument consisting of binary items. The procedure rests on an application of the latent variable modeling methodology and accounts for the discrete nature of the manifest indicators. The method…

Student Conduct Administration (SCA) is one of many names for the processes and procedures through which colleges and universities manage student behavior. Despite the accessibility of quasi-experimental design (QED) in the study of education (Schlotter, Schwerdt, & Woessman, 2011), the existing scholarship has yet to generate strong empirical…

Using Monte Carlo simulations, this research examined the performance of four missing data methods in SEM under different multivariate distributional conditions. The effects of four independent variables (sample size, missing proportion, distribution shape, and factor loading magnitude) were investigated on six outcome variables: convergence rate,…

Teaching quality is the lifeline of the higher education. Many universities have made some effective achievement about evaluating the teaching quality. In this paper, we establish the Students' evaluation of teaching (SET) discriminant analysis model and algorithm based on principal component clustering analysis. Additionally, we classify the SET…

The issue of measurement invariance commonly arises in factor-analytic contexts, with methods for assessment including likelihood ratio tests, Lagrange multiplier tests, and Wald tests. These tests all require advance definition of the number of groups, group membership, and offending model parameters. In this paper, we study tests of measurement…

NCLB waiver requirements have led to development of teacher evaluation systems, in which student growth is a significant component. Recent empirical research has been focusing on metrics of student growth--value-added scores in particular--and their relationship to other metrics. An extensive set of recent teacher-evaluation studies conducted by…

Promoting self-determination has been identified as an important practice for the successful transition of youth and young adults with disabilities, and numerous studies have examined the relationship between levels of self-determination and transition-related and postsecondary outcomes. Only a few such studies, however, have examined the global…

Recently identified as an academic "achievement emotion", boredom has long been implicated as a factor contributing adversely to student attainment across a diverse range of formal educational settings. Despite this, the study of boredom, particularly among students in higher education, remains a relatively neglected and underdeveloped…