The effect of guessing on the point estimate of coefficient alpha has been studied in the literature, but the impact of guessing and its interactions with other test characteristics on the interval estimators for coefficient alpha has not been fully investigated. This study examined the impact of guessing and its interactions with other test…

Nonnormality of univariate data has been extensively examined previously (Blanca et al., 2013; Micceri, 1989). However, less is known of the potential nonnormality of multivariate data although multivariate analysis is commonly used in psychological and educational research. Using univariate and multivariate skewness and kurtosis as measures of…

Although widely used, student evaluations of teaching do not address several factors that should be considered in evaluating teaching performance such as new course preparations, teaching larger classes, and inconvenient class times. Consequently, the incentive exists to avoid certain teaching assignments to achieve high SET scores while…

The use of statistics in second language acquisition (SLA) research has increased over the past 30-40 years and continues to increase in both complexity and sophistication (Gass, 2009; Loewen & Gass, 2009). The increased use of statistical procedures has drawn attention to the current state of statistical literacy among second language (L2)…

Cluster randomized trials involving participants nested within intact treatment and control groups are commonly performed in various educational, psychological, and biomedical studies. However, recruiting and retaining intact groups present various practical, financial, and logistical challenges to evaluators and often, cluster randomized trials…

Multisite trials, which are being used with increasing frequency in education and evaluation research, provide an exciting opportunity for learning about how the effects of interventions or programs are distributed across sites. In particular, these studies can produce rigorous estimates of a cross-site mean effect of program assignment…

Recently, MDS has been utilized to identify and evaluate cognitive ability latent profiles in a population. However, dimension coordinates do not carry any statistical properties. To cope with statistical incompetence of MDS, we investigated the common aspects of various studies utilizing bootstrapping, and provided an R function for its…

Since the seminal introduction of the propensity score (PS) by Rosenbaum and Rubin, PS-based methods have been widely used for drawing causal inferences in the behavioral and social sciences. However, the PS approach depends on the ignorability assumption: there are no unobserved confounders once observed covariates are taken into account. For…

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a test of "mean" differences, but the reference to "variances" in the name is often overlooked. Classroom activities are presented to illustrate how ANOVA works with emphasis on how to think critically about inferential reasoning.

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…

The goal of this article is to introduce the topic of "learning to reason from samples," which is the focus of this special issue of "Educational Studies in Mathematics" on "statistical reasoning." Samples are data sets, taken from some wider universe (e.g., a population or a process) using a particular procedure…

Research on equating with small samples has shown that methods with stronger assumptions and fewer statistical estimates can lead to decreased error in the estimated equating function. This article introduces a new approach to linear observed-score equating, one which provides flexible control over how form difficulty is assumed versus estimated…

Are fraternities still relevant to the college student experience? By examining the moral, student, and leadership development of IFC fraternity men, while controlling for institutional and student characteristics, the current study analyzed the roots of the purported value-added nature of fraternities using data from the Multi-Institutional Study…

The purpose of this quantitative non-experimental study is to determine the leadership competencies most desired by members of the community college board of trustees and faculty for a community college president. The study will examine the alignment of those competencies between the trustees and their faculty groups to determine if the two groups…

Collegiate athletics coaches play a vital role in the lives of student-athletes and regularly interact with the members of their teams more than faculty given the nature of athletics practice schedules compared to academic class schedules. Although the primary purpose of university attendance at all universities is pursuit of academic degrees,…