The presence of clustered data is common in the sociobehavioral sciences. One approach that specifically deals with clustered data but has seen little use in education is the generalized estimating equations (GEEs) approach. We provide a background on GEEs, discuss why it is appropriate for the analysis of clustered data, and provide worked…

Assessing sensitivity to unmeasured confounding is an important step in observational studies, which typically estimate effects under the assumption that all confounders are measured. In this paper, we develop a sensitivity analysis framework for balancing weights estimators, an increasingly popular approach that solves an optimization problem to…

This article develops new closed-form variance expressions for power analyses for commonly used difference-in-differences (DID) and comparative interrupted time series (CITS) panel data estimators. The main contribution is to incorporate variation in treatment timing into the analysis. The power formulas also account for other key design features…

This article discusses the basics of the "4 scales of measurement" and how they are applicable to research or everyday tools of life. To do this you will be able to list and describe the four types of scales of measurement used in quantitative research; provide examples of uses of the four scales of measurement; and determine the…

The nine appendices in this publication accompany the full report, "High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) Postsecondary Education Transcript Study and Student Financial Aid Records Collection. Data File Documentation. NCES 2020-004" (ED607366). They include: (1) Glossary of Terms; (2) Student Financial Aid Records Instrument…

Summary Employing a Wald confidence interval to test hypotheses about population proportions could lead to an increase in Type I or Type II errors unless the hypothesized value, p0, is used in computing its standard error rather than the sample proportion. Whereas the Wald confidence interval to estimate a population proportion uses the sample…

Within psychology and the social sciences, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression is one of the most popular techniques for data analysis. In order to ensure the inferences from the use of this method are appropriate, several assumptions must be satisfied, including the one of constant error variance (i.e. homoskedasticity). Most of the training…

The statistical concept of sampling is often given little direct attention, typically reduced to the mantra "take a random sample". This low resource and adaptable activity demonstrates sampling and explores issues that arise due to biased sampling.

The design and psychometric methodology of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is constantly evolving to meet the changing interests and demands stemming from a rapidly shifting educational landscape. NAEP has been built on strong research foundations that include conducting extensive evaluations and comparisons before new…

As the field of chemistry education moves toward greater inclusion and increased participation by underrepresented minorities, standards for investigating the differential impacts and outcomes of learning environments have to be considered. While quantitative methods may not be capable of generating the in-depth nuances of qualitative methods,…

In behavioral sciences broadly, estimating growth models with Bayesian methods is becoming increasingly common, especially to combat small samples common with longitudinal data. Although Mplus is becoming an increasingly common program for applied research employing Bayesian methods, the limited selection of prior distributions for the elements of…

The heterogeneous choice model (HCM) has been proposed as an extension of the standard logit and probit models, which allows taking into account different error variances of explanatory variables. In this note, I show that in an important special case, this model is just another way to specify an interaction effect.

The educational literature, the popular press, and educated laypeople have all echoed a conclusion from the book "Academically Adrift" by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (which has now become received wisdom), namely, that 45% of college students showed no significant gains in critical thinking skills. Similar results were reported by…

A latent variable modeling approach that permits estimation of propensity scores in observational studies containing fallible independent variables is outlined, with subsequent examination of treatment effect. When at least one covariate is measured with error, it is indicated that the conventional propensity score need not possess the desirable…

In adolescence research, the treatment of measurement reliability is often fragmented, and it is not always clear how different reliability coefficients are related. We show that generalizability theory (G-theory) is a comprehensive framework of measurement reliability, encompassing all other reliability methods (e.g., Pearson "r,"…