Since 2018, institutions of higher education have been aware of the "enrollment cliff" which refers to expected declines in future enrollment. This paper attempts to describe how prepared institutions in Ohio are for this future by looking at trends leading up to the anticipated decline. Using IPEDS data from 2012-2022, we analyze trends…

Given the rapid adoption of machine learning methods by education researchers, and the growing acknowledgment of their inherent risks, there is an urgent need for tailored methodological guidance on how to improve and evaluate the validity of inferences drawn from these methods. Drawing on an integrative literature review and extending a…

When fitting unidimensional item response theory (IRT) models, the population distribution of the latent trait ([theta]) is often assumed to be normally distributed. However, some psychological theories would suggest a nonnormal [theta]. For example, some clinical traits (e.g., alcoholism, depression) are believed to follow a positively skewed…

The purpose of this paper is to highlight issues related to students' personal inferences that arise when students verbally explain their justification for calculus statements. We conducted clinical interviews with three undergraduate students who had taken first-semester calculus but had not yet been exposed to formal proof writing activities…

Background: For decades, education researchers have relied on the work of Campbell, Cook, and Shadish to help guide their thinking about valid impact estimates in the social sciences (Campbell & Stanley, 1963; Shadish et al., 2002). The foundation of this work is the "validity typology" and its associated "threats to…

Hinterecker, Knauff, and Johnson-Laird (2016) compared the adequacy of the probabilistic new paradigm in reasoning with the recent revision of mental models theory (MMT) for explaining a novel class of inferences containing the modal term "possibly." For example, "the door is closed or the window is open or both," therefore,…

Despite the call for an argument-based approach to validity over 25 years ago, few examples exist in the published literature. One possible explanation for this outcome is that the complexity of the argument-based approach makes implementation difficult. To counter this claim, we propose that the Assessment Triangle can serve as the overarching…

Data analysis is a significant methodological component when conducting quantitative education studies. Guidelines for conducting data analyses in quantitative education studies are common but often underemphasize four important methodological components impacting the validity of inferences: quality of constructed measures, proper handling of…

We report 3 experiments investigating novel sorts of inference, such as: A or B or both. Therefore, possibly (A and B). Where the contents were sensible assertions, for example, "Space tourism will achieve widespread popularity in the next 50 years or advances in material science will lead to the development of antigravity materials in the…

Despite the critical role of emotions in multicultural teacher education, no attempt has been made to develop an instrument including affect as a dimension in measuring cultural competence for preservice teachers. To bridge this gap, the present three-study research used three distinct samples of 456 preservice teachers to develop and estimate the…

Modeling using mathematics and making inferences about mathematical situations are becoming more prevalent in most fields of study. Descriptive statistics cannot be used to generalize about a population or make predictions of what can occur. Instead, inference must be used. Simulation and sampling are essential in building a foundation for…

Three experiments are presented that investigate the two-dimensional valence/trustworthiness by dominance model of social inferences from faces (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008). Experiment 1 used image averaging and morphing techniques to demonstrate that consistent facial cues subserve a range of social inferences, even in a highly variable sample of…

There are many important issues in informatics and many agree that algorithms and programming are most important issues that need to be included in informatics education (Dagiene and Jevsikova, 2012). In this paper, we propose how some of these issues can be easily taught using the notion of a formal system which consists of axioms and inference…

As with any psychometric models, the validity of inferences from cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) determines the extent to which these models can be useful. For inferences from CDMs to be valid, it is crucial that the fit of the model to the data is ascertained. Based on a simulation study, this study investigated the sensitivity of various fit…

This work has a three-fold purpose. The first is to set out the rationale for an alternative approach for assessing the generalizability of research findings. (It is related to but not equivalent to the CE method.) The second is to formalize this approach through a quantitative model. The third is to apply the approach to the results of the…