Applied researchers faced with limited resources can utilize planned missing designs by incorporating missing data into their research design to collect more and higher quality data compared to a conventional experimental design. Two-method measurement planned missing designs (TMM-PMD) are a type of planned missing design whereby researchers…

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop principles and strategies for and identify limitations of multisite cluster randomized trials in the context of partially and fully nested designs. In the first study, I develop principles of estimation, sampling variability, and inference for studies that leverage multisite designs within the context…

Missing data is a common challenge to any researcher in almost any field of research. In particular, human participants in research do not always respond or return for assessments leaving the researcher to rely on missing data methods. The most common methods (i.e., Multiple Imputation and Full Information Maximum Likelihood) assume that the…

Propensity and prognostic score methods are two statistical techniques used to correct for the selection bias in nonexperimental studies. Recently, the joint use of propensity and prognostic scores (i.e., two-score methods) has been proposed to improve the performance of adjustments using propensity or prognostic scores alone for bias reduction.…

African-American boys who receive exclusionary discipline (i.e. in- or out-of-school suspensions) are overrepresented at the elementary (kindergarten through fifth grade) level. Although African-American boys comprised only 15% of the population of this school, they accounted for 70% of the exclusionary discipline incidents. This…

The modality principle states that narration rather than on-screen text supports best learners in their understanding of information. Many of the modality studies involve content that is irrelevant to the participants. A few studies in the engineering domain have shown that development of self-efficacy affects students' belief in their ability to…

Relieving test anxiety actions range from relaxation exercises to prescription medication. Humor can be a simple method of test anxiety relief. The current study was used to determine if humor, in the form of a cartoon, placed on the splash page of an online exam improved the test scores of students who have high test anxiety. In the current…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the successful completion of a course designed to enhance student success increased the likelihood of students persisting from term-to-term at Ivy Tech Community College Southern Indiana, and whether there was a significant difference in student retention (as determined by persisting to the next term)…

The Resident Assistant (RA) position is arguably the most demanding and time-intensive student leadership position on a university campus with responsibilities that include crisis management, counseling, referral, administrative tasks, teaching, leadership, community building, individual student assistance and role modeling (Blimling, 2003). The…

The credibility of unsupervised exams, one of the biggest challenges of e-learning, is currently maintained by proctoring. However, little has been done to determine whether expensive and inconvenient proctoring is necessary. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether the use of security mechanisms, based on the taxonomy of…

The study explored the relationship between global software development teams, effective software requirements, and stakeholders' perception of successful software development projects within the field of information technology management. It examined the critical relationship between Global Software Development (GSD) teams creating effective…

Statistical power is important in a meta-analysis study, although few studies have examined the performance of simulated power in meta-analysis. The purpose of this study is to inform researchers about statistical power estimation on two sample mean difference test under different situations: (1) the discrepancy between the analytical power and…

In education, sample characteristics can be complex due to the nested structure of students, teachers, classrooms, schools, and districts. In the past, not many considerations were given to such complex sampling schemes in statistical power analysis. More recently in the past two decades, however, education scholars have developed tools to conduct…

Educators face an ever-increasing challenge of addressing the impact of childhood trauma in the classroom. Children impacted by trauma experience a lack of ability to regulate their behavior and learn, and most school staff have little professional development on this topic and how to best address it in the classroom. The purpose of this study was…

Military undergraduate students of for-profit education make up roughly four percent of the student population and often experience financial hardships. This research focused on the effectiveness of financial education on these students. This quantitative quasi-experimental study assessed military undergraduate students deployed on a military…