Purpose: This paper aims to introduce matching in propensity score analysis (PSA) as an alternative statistical approach for researchers looking to make causal inferences using intact groups. Design/methodology/approach: An illustrative example demonstrated the varying results of analysis of variance, analysis of covariance and PSA on a heuristic…

Today, many undergraduates are themselves raising children. But does college-going by parents improve their offspring's educational attainment? I address this question using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth--1979 and linked Children and Young Adults Survey. I first model postnatal college enrollment and bachelor's completion by…

Vocational education is increasingly seen as a viable path to higher education and not simply a direct route to the labor market. This paper studies the relationship between the secondary school track attended by Chilean students (vocational or academic) and their subsequent outcomes in access to and persistence in postsecondary vocational…

Bayesian techniques have become increasingly present in the social sciences, fueled by advances in computer speed and the development of user-friendly software. In this paper, we forward the use of Bayesian Asymmetric Regression (BAR) to monitor intervention responsiveness when using Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) to assess oral reading…

The probability of test takers changing answers upon review of their initial choices is modeled. The primary purpose of the model is to check erasures on answer sheets recorded by an optical scanner for numbers and patterns that may be indicative of irregular behavior, such as teachers or school administrators changing answer sheets after their…

Research in cognitive psychology and science education has acknowledged two antagonistic theoretical perspectives concerning students' knowledge. One perspective considers students' knowledge as coherent or theory-like, explaining the learning process in terms of framework theories and stable mental models, whereas the other considers it…

Dual Process Theories (DPT) of reasoning posit that judgments are mediated by both fast, automatic processes and more deliberate, analytic ones. A critical, but unanswered question concerns the issue of monitoring and control: When do reasoners rely on the first, intuitive output and when do they engage more effortful thinking? We hypothesised…

Standard least squares analysis of variance methods suffer from poor power under arbitrarily small departures from normality and fail to control the probability of a Type I error when standard assumptions are violated. This article describes a framework for robust estimation and testing that uses trimmed means with an approximate degrees of…

Bayesian network models offer a large degree of flexibility for modeling dependence among observables (item outcome variables) from the same task that may be dependent. This paper explores four design patterns for modeling locally dependent observations from the same task: (1) No context--Ignore dependence among observables; (2) Compensatory…

This article explores the uses of a simulation model (the two bucket story)--implemented by a stand-alone computer program, or an Excel workbook (both on the web)--that can be used for deriving bootstrap confidence intervals, and simulating various probability distributions. The strengths of the model are its generality, the fact that it provides…

This monograph covers the theory, application, and interpretation of both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques in institutional research. Each chapter opens with a hypothetical case study, which is used to illustrate the application of one or more statistical procedures to typical research questions. Chapter 2 covers the comparison…