A typical question in multiple regression analysis is to determine if a set of predictors gives the same degree of predictor power in two different populations. Olkin and Finn (1995) proposed two asymptotic-based methods for testing the equality of two population squared multiple correlations, [rho][superscript 2][subscript 1] and…

The results of this study determined that community college students who transfer to for-profit institutions are indeed different from students who follow traditional routes defined as public and non-profit institutions. This study compares the demographic characteristics, academic experiences, and socioeconomic factors of California community…

We propose a nonparametric (or distribution-free) procedure for testing the equality of several population variances (or scale parameters). The proposed test is a modification of Bakir's (1989, Commun. Statist., Simul-Comp., 18, 757-775) analysis of means by ranks (ANOMR) procedure for testing the equality of several population means. A proof is…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation of 2001 increased the stakes for all schools to increase student achievement by mandating all students meet or exceed state standards by 2014. A small rural school responded 5 years ago to their failure to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) by implementing professional learning communities (PLC) as a…

Assessing a high school's effectiveness is not straightforward. Comparing a school's standardized test scores to those of other schools is one approach to measuring effectiveness, but a major objection to this method is that students' test scores tend to be related to students' "socioeconomic" status--family household income, for…

Background: Despite a powerful civil rights movement and legislation barring discrimination in housing markets, residential neighborhoods remain racially segregated. Purpose: This study examines the extent to which neighborhoods' racial composition is inherited across generations and the extent to which high schools' and colleges' racial…

The extreme interval values and statistics (expected value, median, mode, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation) for the smallest (min) and largest (max) values of exponentially distributed variables with parameter ? = 1 are examined for different observation (sample) sizes. An extreme interval value g[subscript a] is defined as a…

Fred Wulczyn explores how data on the incidence and distribution of child maltreatment shed light on planning and implementing maltreatment prevention programs. He begins by describing and differentiating among the three primary sources of national data on maltreatment. Wulczyn then points out several important patterns in the data. The first…

The demand that today's schools shall produce better educational outcomes of their pupils is stronger than ever before, especially in front of the background of our globalized, competitive world. Past and current research has supported the hypothesis that the teacher is the most important ingredient in the educational process. As the Detroit…

The purpose of this study will be to determine if there is a relationship between Hispanic student achievement and the percentage of Hispanic teachers per district in the state of Texas. Specifically, this study will investigate the relationship between the percentage of Hispanic students per district who pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and…

This article details the results of a written test designed to reveal how education majors construct and evaluate histograms and frequency polygons. Included is a description of the mistakes made by the students which shows how they tend to confuse histograms with bar diagrams, incorrectly assign data along the Cartesian axes and experience…

This analysis of Zipf's law uses an index for the sequence of observed values of the variables in a Zipf-type relationship. Three important properties relating rank, count, and frequency are identified, shapes of Zipf-type curves are described, and parameters of the Mandelbrot-Zipf law are discussed. (Author/LRW)

This study explores a labelling feature that allows students to tag parts of their online messages. Data comes from four sequentially offered sessions of a graduate education course. Students engaged in two to three online activities in groups of three or four. Students (n = 53) contributed from 0 to 56 labels (M = 12.42, SD = 13.50) and 18 to 114…

Examination of the stochastics of moderated multiple regression (MMR) reveals that MMR is an appropriate technique when predictors are fixed variables and the distribution of errors is normal but is not appropriate when predictors are random variables and the joint distribution of criterion and predictor variables is multivariate normal. (SLD)

A Monte Carlo evaluation of four test statistics for comparing dependent zero-order correlations was conducted with four sample sizes and three population distributions. Results indicate that choice of optimal test statistic depends on sample size and distribution, and predictor intercorrelation and effect size or magnitude of the…