Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how principals and school supervisory authorities understand and use feedback from mandatory proficiency tests (VERA) in the low-stakes context of Germany. For the analysis, the authors refer to a theoretical model of schools that differentiates between Autonomous and Managed Professional…

As result replicability is essential to science and difficult to achieve through external replicability, the present paper notes the insufficiency of null hypothesis statistical significance testing (NHSST) and explains the bootstrap as a plausible alternative, with a heuristic example to illustrate the bootstrap method. The bootstrap relies on…

Using two well known criteria for the diagonalizability of a square matrix plus an extended form of Sylvester's Rank Inequality, the author presents a new condition for the diagonalization of a real matrix from which one can obtain the eigenvectors by simply multiplying some associated matrices without solving a linear system of simultaneous…

The authors evaluated the extent to which interobserver agreement (IOA) scores, using the block-by-block method for events scored with continuous duration recording (CDR), were higher when the data from the same sessions were converted to discontinuous methods. Sessions with IOA scores of 89% or less with CDR were rescored using 10-s partial…

How effective is training frogs to jump? This is perhaps the most frequent question in biology that is subjected to statistical analysis: does a treatment make a difference? One can examine whether there is indeed a training effect, by first assuming the opposite. That is, the authors assume that training has no effect on the mean distance jumped.…

The assessment of mediation in dyadic data is an important issue if researchers are to test process models. Using an extended version of the actor-partner interdependence model the estimation and testing of mediation is complex, especially when dyad members are distinguishable (e.g., heterosexual couples). We show how the complexity of the model…

Individuals tend to select again alternatives about which they have positive impressions and to avoid alternatives about which they have negative impressions. Here we show how this sequential sampling feature of the information acquisition process leads to the emergence of an illusory correlation between estimates of the attributes of…

Although the use of simulation to teach the sampling distribution of the mean is meant to provide students with sound conceptual understanding, it may lead them astray. We discuss a misunderstanding that can be introduced or reinforced when students who intuitively understand that "bigger samples are better" conduct a simulation to…

Involving children and young people in educational research has been foundational in developing and understanding theories of learning, and understanding child development. Attempts to identify children's perspectives on policies and practices that directly affect them in educational settings have resulted in an increase in the involvement of…

Rationale: Asthma is a variable condition with an apparent tendency for a natural decline in asthma symptoms and health care use occurring as children age. As a result, asthma interventions using a pre-post design may overestimate the intervention effect when no proper control group is available. Objectives: Investigate patterns of natural decline…

This study reviews a selected sample of 274 research articles on ELT, published between 2005 and 2015 in Turkish contexts. In the study, 15 journals in ULAKBIM database and articles from national and international journals accessed according to convenience sampling method were surveyed and relevant articles were obtained. A content analysis was…

Multiple-choice formats remain a popular design for assessing listening comprehension, yet no consensus has been reached on how multiple-choice formats should be employed. Some researchers argue that test takers must be provided with a preview of the items prior to the input (Buck, 1995; Sherman, 1997); others argue that a preview may decrease the…

The study sought to determine the effects of the use of Wordle and lecture method in teaching Curriculum Studies 1 EDU: 222 on students' performance. 100 students were purposively selected and to ensure homogeneity and consistency, the WRub was given to the 100 students and they were then grouped based on their performance--above average, average…

The study was conducted in two Colleges of Education in the Western and Central Regions of Ghana to find out how Colleges of Education students and tutors perceive the study of Ghanaian Languages. The target population comprised all staff and students of the Colleges of Education but the accessible population comprised students and tutors of the…

The purpose of this study was to compare self-efficacy and self-regulation between the students with SRB and students with NSRB, and the relationship of these variables to academic performance. Using a random stratified sampling technique 60 girl students who had school refusal behavior (SRB) and 60 of students without SRB were selected from 8…