This study investigated factors that are associated with the creative motor skills of young children. We recruited through random sampling 233 typically developing children attending preschool or kindergarten in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. We administered a "General Information Form" to gather the children's demographic characteristics and…

Basic knowledge of ideas of causal inference can help students to think beyond data, that is, to think more clearly about the data generating process. Especially for (maybe big) observational data, qualitative assumptions are important for the conclusions drawn and interpretation of the quantitative results. Concepts of causal inference can also…

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…

Developing and maintaining a high-quality science teaching corps has become increasingly urgent with standards that require students to move beyond mastering facts to reasoning and arguing from evidence. "Effective" professional development (PD) for science teachers enhances teacher outcomes and, in turn, enhances primary and secondary…

Randomized controlled trials are not always feasible in educational research, so researchers must use alternative methods to study treatment effects. Propensity score matching is one such method for observational studies that has shown considerable growth in popularity since it was first introduced in the early 1980s. This paper outlines the…

Researchers are often inclined to test agreement or discrepancy hypotheses using difference scores. This commentary explains 2 mathematical-statistical principles underlying associations with difference scores and 2 conceptual-interpretation problems that make difference scores inappropriate for testing such hypotheses. The commentary provides…

We present a unique and innovative course, Biostatistical Literacy, developed at the University of Minnesota. The course is aimed at public health graduate students and health sciences professionals. Its goal is to develop students' ability to read and interpret statistical results in the medical and public health literature. The content spans the…

The methodology and mathematical treatment of several classic multivariate methods for the analysis of spectroscopic data is demonstrated in a straightforward way that can be used as a basis for teaching an undergraduate introductory course on chemometric analysis. The multivariate techniques of classical least-squares (CLS), principal component…

The authors investigate coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) risk factors, suitability of online instruction, politics, and institutions' finances as rationales guiding instructional delivery decisions for fall 2020, after COVID-19's emergence. Contributions include estimating multinomial logit regressions with mode of delivery as a categorical…

Background and Aims: The fastest growing group of students with disabilities are those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). States annually report on post-high school outcomes (PSO) of exited students. This study sought to fill two gaps in the literature related to PSO for exited high-school students with ASD and the use of state data and…

Through a mixed-methods approach that utilized teacher surveys and a focus group with computer science (CS) instructional coaches, this study examined elementary teachers' confidence in meeting the needs of students with disabilities, the extent to which the teachers could use the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework in CS education, and…

This study compared the extent to which Hispanic teenagers talk with mothers, fathers and extended family members about risks of sex, protection and relational sex, as well as the role of teenagers' gender on the association between sexuality communication and risky sexual behaviours. The analysis is based upon 474 Hispanic young people's…

The study examined the relationships between reading comprehension and measures of lower level comprehension skills (vocabulary, grammar, and word processing) and a higher level comprehension skill (inference making), to determine if these measures of higher and lower level comprehension skills predicted different levels of variance in reading…

Peer nominations were used to explore age-related differences in the correlates of being admired and being perceived as cool among 542 youths in 5 low-income urban schools (Grades 3-6; 86% African American). Children nominated peers whom they admired and whom they perceived as cool, prosocial, and good at academics. Classroom group-level and…

Purpose: This study examines differences in the mechanisms that charter schools and traditional public schools use to facilitate parental school involvement and the degree to which these differences account for the high levels of involvement among charter school parents. Data and Research Methods: We merge data from principals and teachers from…