In the past decade, moderated mediation analysis has been extensively and increasingly employed in social and behavioral sciences. With its widespread use, it is particularly important to ensure the moderated mediation analysis will not bring spurious results. Spurious effects have been studied in both mediation and moderation analysis, but this…

Whether selection processes contribute to group-level disparities or merely reflect pre-existing inequalities is an important societal question. In the context of observational data, researchers, concerned about omitted-variable bias, assess selection-contributing inequality via a kitchen-sink approach, comparing selection outcomes of…

This study examined predictors of pre-service science teachers' behavioral intention toward e-resources use for teaching in Nigeria. The study used cross-sectional survey research method and a questionnaire with a set of items that measure technology preparedness, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and behavioral intention to gather the…

Latent variable structural equation modeling has become the analytic method of choice in many domains of research in psychology and allied social sciences. One important aspect of a latent variable model concerns the relations hypothesized to hold between latent variables and their indicators. The most common specification of structural equation…

Despite its recommended use, physical activity promotion in the academic classroom (PAPAC) has received little attention in terms of the factors that help to facilitate it. In this study, a social learning perspective was adopted to examine the role of physical activity biographies in generalist classroom teachers' (CTs) PAPAC. CTs (N = 213) were…

It is frequently said or implicitly assumed that there is a positive relationship between enjoyment, attitudes, behaviour and attainment, with pupils who enjoy reading or writing having more positive attitudes towards it, doing it more and thereby getting better at it. This paper explores to what extent this is an assumption or to what extent it…

"Theory and Method in Higher Education Research" contains contemporary contributions to international debates regarding the application and development of theory and methodology in researching higher education. Higher education research is a developing field internationally, which is attracting more and more researchers from a great…

This article investigates three types of stage-sequential growth mixture models in the structural equation modeling framework for the analysis of multiple-phase longitudinal data. These models can be important tools for situations in which a single-phase growth mixture model produces distorted results and can allow researchers to better understand…

Researchers in career and technical education often ignore more effective ways of reporting and treating missing data and instead implement traditional, but ineffective, missing data methods (Gemici, Rojewski, & Lee, 2012). The recent methodological, and even the non-methodological, literature has increasingly emphasized the importance of…

Second-generation early intervention research typically involves the specification of multivariate relations between interventions, outcomes, and other variables. Moderation and mediation involve variables or sets of variables that influence relations between interventions and outcomes. Following the framework of Baron and Kenny's (1986) seminal…

In the present study, the authors propose a new framework that integrates literature on achievement, supports the testing of novel hypotheses, and stresses the importance of examining a large number of factors in the same study. This framework assumes that high achievement is a function of three categories of factors: (a) opportunity factors…

Nonlinear relationships and latent variable assumptions can lead to serious specification errors in structural models. A quadratic relationship, described by a linear structural model with a latent variable, is shown to have less predictive validity than a simple manifest variable regression model. Advocates the use of simpler preliminary…

Cudeck and Browne (1983) proposed using cross-validation as a model selection technique in structural equation modeling. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of eight cross-validation indices under conditions not yet examined in the relevant literature, such as nonnormality and cross-validation design. The performance of each…

Structural equation models merge multiple regression, path analysis, and factor analysis techniques into a single data analytic framework. Measurement models are developed to define latent variables, and structural equations are then established among the latent variables. Explains the development of these models. (KS)

The main purpose of the present study is to demonstrate the structure, mechanisms, and efficacy of community policing and its impact on perceived disorder, crime, quality of life in the community, citizens' fear, and satisfaction with the police. It compares traditional and community policing paradigms on three dimensions: goal, measurement of…