Presents responses to the problem appearing in the March, 2000 issue on data and graph interpretation. (ASK)

Structural equation mixture modeling (SEMM) integrates continuous and discrete latent variable models. Drawing on prior research on the relationships between continuous and discrete latent variable models, the authors identify 3 conditions that may lead to the estimation of spurious latent classes in SEMM: misspecification of the structural model,…

Five studies examined how interacting with the physical environment can support the development of fraction concepts. Nine-and 10-year-old children worked on fraction problems they could not complete mentally. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that manipulating physical pieces facilitated children's ability to develop an interpretation of fractions.…

Considers a problem of simple random walks to study distributions of variances. Describes watching a drunk over a period of nights, taking a number of steps per night. Explores the full probability distribution for the variance of the data string and discusses the connection of the results to the problem of data binning. (Author/NB)

The authors examine 12 months of emergency department visit data (N = 2,521) from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System All Injury Program and explore its utility for measuring and studying intimate partner violence. Given the dearth of national data on intimate partner violence-related injury and its potential value for public health…

Meehl's taxometric method was developed to distinguish categorical and continuous constructs. However, taxometric output can be difficult to interpret because expected results for realistic data conditions and differing procedural implementations have not been derived analytically or studied through rigorous simulations. By applying bootstrap…

This article illustrates how to (a) use schoolwide data to monitor student responsiveness to primary and secondary prevention efforts to identify students for tertiary preventions and (b) design, implement, and evaluate a function-based intervention in collaboration with two general education teachers, who served as the primary interventionists.…

In this article, the author presents informal surveys conducted on students regarding their opinions on the meaning of their existence. A total of 740 student responses are collected and summarized from eight sections of Astronomy 100. As a result of the study, it is apparent that "purpose in life" is of fundamental importance to students. The…

In this paper, we examine how students discuss and interpret data and whether these actions vary depending on the type of data they analyse. More specifically, we are interested in whether students perform differently when analysing first-hand data, which they collect themselves, compared with second-hand data provided to them. Our data analysis…

District central office administrators increasingly face policy demands to use "evidence" in their decision making. These demands up the ante on education policy researchers and policy makers to better understand what evidence use in district central offices entails and the conditions that may support it. To that end, the authors conducted a…

Fueled by a culture fascinated by numbers and increased accountability, data-driven instruction has become a mighty force as it joins with the tools of technology to handle the mammoth task of gathering, sorting, analyzing, and synthesizing data. Success stories from districts all over the country attest to the positive results of implementing…

This article aims at analyzing laddering as a technique of qualitative research, emphasizing the procedures for data collection, analysis and interpretation, and its main limitations as well. "Laddering refers to an in-depth, one-on-one interviewing technique used to develop an understanding of how consumers translate the attributes of products…

This paper considers the recent introduction of Citizenship Education in England from a governmental perspective, drawing on the later work of Foucault to offer a detailed account of the political rationalities, technologies and subjectivities implicated in contemporary education policy in the formation and governance of citizen-subjects. This is…

A typical card sort is an activity in which students are given a set of cards with a single concept written on each card and asked to organize the cards by grouping related concepts. The nontraditional card sorts described in this article foster critical thinking and add elements of inquiry as students use them to develop flowcharts for complex…

In many practical settings, essentially the same differential item functioning (DIF) procedures have been in use since the late 1980s. Since then, examinee populations have become more heterogeneous, and tests have included more polytomously scored items. This paper summarizes and classifies new DIF methods and procedures that have appeared since…