Designed to be used as a primary text in introductory research methods courses, "Music Education Research: An Introduction" aims to orient even the most novice researchers toward basic concepts and methodologies. Offering sustained attention to historical, philosophical, qualitative, quantitative, and action research approaches, the book…

This study has two main purposes. Firstly, to compare the different item selection methods and stopping rules used in Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) applications with simulative data generated based on the item parameters of the Vocational Maturity Scale. Secondly, to test the validity of CAT application scores. For the first purpose,…

This study examined the nexus between institutional training and development and employee performance from private universities in Ghana using Principal Components Regression (PCR). The study employed exploratory design through the quantitative and cross-sectional survey methods for data collection. The questionnaires were administered 384…

Developing statistical thinking is vital to fostering students' critical thinking; however, it requires suitable curricula, appropriate textbooks, and well-prepared teachers. For many decades, statistics education was almost absent in the K-12 education in the Arab world. During the past few years, noticeable education reform efforts at all…

Nontraditional students pursuing an advanced degree face unique challenges as compared to full-time traditional students. Current and former masters and PhD students (N = 266) were surveyed to examine differences in their educational experiences and emotional outcomes, and determinants of their positive and negative graduate education experiences.…

Speech is highly variable and systematic, governed by the internal linguistic system and socio-indexical factors. The systematic relationship of socio-indexical factors and variable phonetic forms, referred to here as "socio-indexical structure," has been the cornerstone of sociophonetic research over the last several decades. Research…

The development of statistical literacy has become a key outcome of mathematics curricula in various countries. The purpose of the study was to explore primary pre-service teachers' (PSTs') knowledge of aspects of measures of central tendency, which is a central concept in statistical literacy. The 183 PSTs' written responses to four tasks were…

Background/Context: Observational studies often employ regression discontinuity (RD) designs and multiple control-group designs to explore the causal quantities of interest. RD designs assess policy and program effectiveness by assigning subjects to treatment based on whether they exceed a pre-defined cutoff. RD designs are classified into two…

Nearly one million undergraduates take Introductory Statistics each year, and both the importance of statistics and viewpoints about how it should be taught have changed markedly over the last several decades (Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education College Report, ASA Revision Committee, 2016). Modern introductory…

The purpose of this paper is to extend and evaluate methods of "Bayesian historical borrowing" applied to longitudinal data with a focus on parameter recovery and predictive performance. Bayesian historical borrowing allows researchers to utilize information from previous data sources and to adjust the extent of borrowing based on the…

Empirical studies often demonstrate multiple causal mechanisms potentially involving simultaneous or causally related mediators. However, researchers often use simple mediation models to understand the processes because they do not or cannot measure other theoretically relevant mediators. In such cases, another potentially relevant but unobserved…

Recent studies have shown that U.S. Census-- and American Community Survey (ACS)--based estimates of income segregation are subject to upward finite sampling bias (Logan et al. 2018; Logan et al. 2020; Reardon et al. 2018). We identify two additional sources of bias that are larger and opposite in sign to finite sampling bias: measurement…

This study is the first to investigate subject-level variability in sociolinguistic evaluative judgements by 30 adult L2 German learners and explore whether the observed variability is characterizable as a function of individual differences in proficiency, exposure, and motivation. Because group-level estimates did not paint an accurate picture of…

There is an increasing concern for self-care and quality of life among Master of Social Work (MSW) students as they prepare to serve vulnerable individuals, families, and communities. Evidence suggests numerous benefits to practicing self-care; however, the majority of these studies focus on practitioners in the helping professions as opposed to…

In the November 2016 U.S. presidential election, many state level public opinion polls, particularly in the Upper Midwest, incorrectly predicted the winning candidate. One leading explanation for this polling miss is that the precipitous decline in traditional polling response rates led to greater reliance on statistical methods to adjust for the…