This article refutes a recent claim that computer-based tests produce biased scores for very proficient test takers who make mistakes on one or two initial items and that the "bias" can be reduced by using a four-parameter IRT model. Because the same effect occurs with pattern scores on nonadaptive tests, the effect results from IRT scoring, not…

Major advances in the number, capabilities, and quality of state, national, and transnational databases have opened up new opportunities for evaluators. Both large-scale data sets collected for administrative purposes and those collected by other researchers can provide data for a variety of evaluation-related activities. These include (a)…

Teaching of psychology courses trains graduate students in pedagogy, but little is known about how diversity is addressed in these courses. A survey of instructors in teaching of psychology courses assessed their coverage of diversity and classroom bias, as well as the instructional methods used to cover them. Results indicated that 87% of…

This study examines sample characteristics of articles published in "Journal of Applied Psychology" ("JAP") from 1995 to 2008. At the individual level, the overall median sample size over the period examined was approximately 173, which is generally adequate for detecting the average magnitude of effects of primary interest to…

Null hypothesis testing (NHT) is the most commonly used tool in empirical psychological research even though it has several known limitations. It is argued that since the hypotheses evaluated with NHT do not reflect the research-question or theory of the researchers, conclusions from NHT must be formulated with great modesty, that is, they cannot…

An emerging body of self-study of teacher education practices research considers whether classroom teaching experience and doctoral study constitute sufficient preparation for engaging in the work of teacher education. As new academics who explored this issue as graduate students, we turned to one another in this collaborative self-study to…

Classroom demonstrations help students better understand challenging concepts. This article introduces an activity that demonstrates the basic concepts involved in analysis of variance (ANOVA). Students who physically participated in the activity had a better understanding of ANOVA concepts (i.e., higher scores on an exam question answered 2…

Multilevel modeling (MLM) is rapidly becoming the standard method of analyzing nested data, for example, data from students within multiple schools, data on multiple clients seen by a smaller number of therapists, and even longitudinal data. Although MLM analyses are likely to increase in frequency in counseling psychology research, many readers…

This study investigated the views of the nature of engineering held by 6th-grade students to provide a baseline upon which activities or curriculum materials might be developed to introduce middle-school students to the work of engineers and the process of engineering design. A phenomenographic framework was used to guide the analysis of data…

Financial capability, or people's ability to manage and take control of their finances, is receiving increasing interest among policy makers as more people find themselves in difficult financial situations during the current economic downturn. We tackle the problem of how to measure financial capability--with a specific focus on making ends meet…

The goals-plans-actions model and the theory of planned behavior were used to predict what lead to students having a conversation about a disappointing grade with a faculty member. Participants (N = 130) completed two surveys. In the first survey, participants completed measures of primary and secondary goals, planning, decision to engage,…

The authors reviewed 42 empirical studies of teaching of critical thinking skills in postsecondary education published between 1994 and 2009. The instructional intervention, test measure, and research design of the studies were analyzed. Study results suggest that: (1) the same instructional interventions can lead to different results, depending…

There has been increased engagement in studying discourse in the field of mathematics education. But what exactly is a discourse, and how do researchers go about analyzing discourses? This study examines 108 articles from 6 international journals in mathematics education by asking questions such as these: In which traditions and in relation to…

This paper extends the literature on grader variation and the role of moderation and socialisation processes in reducing this variation. It offers a fresh categorisation of academics' assessment beliefs and expectations, and uses this categorisation to analyse the interaction between implicit and explicit expectations in relation to grader…

Computer-based learning environments can produce a wealth of data on student learning interactions. This paper presents an exploratory data mining methodology for assessing and comparing students' learning behaviors from these interaction traces. The core algorithm employs a novel combination of sequence mining techniques to identify deferentially…