Parametric methods, such as autoregressive models or latent growth modeling, are usually inflexible to model the dependence and nonlinear effects among the changes of latent traits whenever the time gap is irregular and the recorded time points are individually varying. Often in practice, the growth trend of latent traits is subject to certain…

Aotearoa New Zealand is a super diverse nation in terms of the ethnicities of its people and languages spoken. With an increased rate of immigration from various parts of the world, the presence of multiple languages in many domains of social life is a reality. Consequently, classrooms are now places where learners have different linguistic and…

Statistical literacy is critical for all sociology students because it facilitates academic and professional success, high-paying jobs, and informed citizenship. Most students, however, lack adequate statistical literacy to engage with sociological research. Within that general deficit, there are gender, racial, and social-class differences, with…

A common practical challenge is how to assign ability estimates to all incorrect and all correct response patterns when using item response theory (IRT) models and maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) since ability estimates for these types of responses equal -8 or +8. This article uses a simulation study and data from an operational K-12…

Regression discontinuity (RD) designs are commonly used for program evaluation with continuous treatment assignment variables. But in practice, treatment assignment is frequently based on ordinal variables. In this study, we propose an RD design with an ordinal running variable to assess the effects of extended time accommodations (ETA) for…

While correlated data methods (like random effect models and generalized estimating equations) are commonly applied in practice, students may struggle with understanding the reasons that standard regression techniques fail if applied to correlated outcomes. To this end, this article presents an in-class activity using results from Monte Carlo…

This article demonstrates how data from a biology paper, which analyzes the relationship between mass and metabolic rate for two species of marine bryozoan, can be used to teach a variety of regression topics to both introductory and advanced students. A thorough analysis requires intelligent data wrangling, variable transformations, and…

Social network data often contain missing values because of the sensitive nature of the information collected and the dependency among the network actors. As a response, network imputation methods including simple ones constructed from network structural characteristics and more complicated model-based ones have been developed. Although past…

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is a powerful statistical technique for reducing the complexity of data and making patterns and relationships within the data more easily understandable. By using PCA, students can learn to identify the most important features of a data set, visualize relationships between variables, and make informed decisions…

It is common for social scientists to use formal quantitative methods to compare ecological units such as towns, schools, or nations. In many cases, the size of these units in terms of the number of individuals subsumed in each differs substantially. When the variables in question are counts, there is generally some attempt to neutralize…

Replication provides a confrontation of psychological theory, not only in experimental research, but also in model-based research. Goodness-of-fit (GOF) of the original model to the replication data is routinely provided as meaningful evidence of replication. We demonstrate, however, that GOF obscures important differences between the original and…

Background: Statistics courses are a necessary component of undergraduate education, but psychology majors often have negative associations with statistics. One way to promote learning within classrooms is to promote classroom connectedness, but few studies have examined classroom connectedness using a social network paradigm. Objective: The…

Three quantitative methods are compared for their ability to understand different COVID-19 fatality ratios in 33 OECD countries. Linear regression provides a limited overview without sensitivity to the diversity of cases. Cluster Analysis and Dynamic Patterns Synthesis (DPS) gives scrutiny to the granularity of case similarities and differences,…

Within each of 170 physicians, patients were randomized to access e-assist, an online program that aimed to increase colorectal cancer screening (CRCS), or control. Compliance was partial: 78.34% of the experimental patients accessed e-assist while no controls were provided the access. Of interest are the average causal effect of assignment to…

We investigated three different approaches for quantifying individual change and reporting it back to persons: (a) the common change score, which is obtained by first computing scale scores from two consecutive measurements and then subtract these scores from one another, (b) the ad-hoc approach, which is similar to the former approach but uses…