Although prior studies have documented a positive association between religiosity and sense of meaning in life, the role of specific religious beliefs is currently unclear. Past research on images of God suggests that loving images of God will positively correlate with a sense of meaning and purpose. Mechanisms for this hypothesized relationship…

Looked-after children and young people (LACYP) are educationally disadvantaged compared to the general population. A systematic review was conducted of randomised controlled trials evaluating interventions aimed at LACYP aged =18 years. Restrictions were not placed on delivery setting or delivery agent. Intervention outcomes were: academic skills;…

In the case of trials with nested data, the optimal allocation of units depends on the budget, the costs, and the intracluster correlation coefficient. In general, the intracluster correlation coefficient is unknown in advance and an initial guess has to be made based on published values or subject matter knowledge. This initial estimate is likely…

As of September 2012, only Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia had not adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Yet empirical evidence that demonstrates the efficacy of the initiative remains elusive. The Emperor has no clothes (Tienken 2011a). This latest installment of standardization and centralization of curriculum and…

This study proposes robust means modeling (RMM) approaches for hypothesis testing of mean differences for between-subjects designs in order to control the biasing effects of nonnormality and variance inequality. Drawing from structural equation modeling (SEM), the RMM approaches make no assumption of variance homogeneity and employ robust…

Item response theory (IRT) becomes an increasingly important tool when analyzing "big data" gathered from online educational venues. However, the mechanism was originally developed in traditional exam settings, and several of its assumptions are infringed upon when deployed in the online realm. For a large-enrollment physics course for…

This study examines ways in which economic and sociological explanations of higher education (HE) choices may intersect through student's use of information. We find substantial positive associations between intention to go to university in England and each of: (i) parents' education; (ii) cultural capital; and (iii) expectations of the size of…

The effects of high- versus low-quality child care during 2 developmental periods (infant-toddlerhood and preschool) were examined using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Propensity score matching was used to account for differences in families who used different combinations of child…

The present study seeks to evaluate a hybrid model of identification that incorporates response to instruction and intervention (RTI) as one of the key symptoms of reading disability. The 1-year stability of alternative operational definitions of reading disability was examined in a large-scale sample of students who were followed longitudinally…

The quality of evaluation of essay type answer books involving multiple evaluators for courses with large number of enrollments is likely to be affected due to heterogeneity in experience, expertise and maturity of evaluators. In this paper, we present a strategy to detect anomalies in evaluation of essay type answers by multiple evaluators based…

Analysts of institutional performance have occasionally used a peer grouping approach in which they compared institutions only to other institutions with similar characteristics. Because analysts historically have used cluster analysis to define peer groups (i.e., the group of comparable institutions), the author proposes and demonstrates with…

There has been increasing interest in using of web-based surveys--rather than paper based surveys--for collecting data on alcohol and other drug use in middle and high schools in the US. However, prior research has indicated that respondent confidentiality is an underlying concern with online data collection especially when computer-assisted…

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…

Teachers require knowledge of the unique skills that each child brings to the classroom in order to effectively target instruction towards students' learning needs. Despite substantial investments in programs aimed at enhancing teacher knowledge of individual students' skills (KISS), we know surprisingly little about how KISS is distributed or how…

Teacher pension systems target retirements within a narrow range of the career cycle by penalizing individuals who separate too soon or remain employed too long. The penalties result in the retention of some teachers who would otherwise choose to leave, and the premature exit of some teachers who would otherwise choose to stay. We examine how the…