The main purpose of this article and this special section is to encourage greater attention to evidence-based assessment (EBA) in the development of a scientifically supported clinical child and adolescent psychology. This increased attention is especially important in light of (a) the omission of assessment considerations in recent efforts to…

This study uses a Cook's distance type diagnostic statistic to identify unusual observations in a data set that unduly influence the estimation of a covariance matrix. Similar to many other deletion-type diagnostic statistics, this proposed measure is susceptible to masking or swamping effect in the presence of several unusual observations. In…

Many textbooks teach a rule of thumb stating that the mean is right of the median under right skew, and left of the median under left skew. This rule fails with surprising frequency. It can fail in multimodal distributions, or in distributions where one tail is long but the other is heavy. Most commonly, though, the rule fails in discrete…

In categorical data analysis, two-sample cross-validation is used not only for model selection but also to obtain a realistic impression of the overall predictive effectiveness of the model. The latter is of particular importance in the case of highly parametrized models capable of capturing every idiosyncracy of the calibrating sample. We show…

In January 2009, in the last week of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Department of Education (ED), upon orders from the departing political appointee staff, published the final report in a long running National Evaluation of Upward Bound (UB). The study was conducted by the contractor, Mathematica Policy Research. After more than a year in…

Design is an increasingly important component of the world-at-work. This project reveals the views of design educators working within vocational education and training (VET). Research participants called for a review of design education teaching methods in the VET context, with a particular focus on promoting innovation and creativity in diploma…

Metalinguistic awareness (an awareness about the structure of orthography) had been considered vital for reading acquisition. The awareness of phonological regularity and consistency had been found in advanced readers in recent research. Evidence based on simplified Chinese suggested the effect of semantic transparency on reading in school…

A single-case (B-C-B-C) experimental design was used to evaluate the effects of the Color Wheel classroom management system (CWS) on on-task (OT) behavior in an intact, general-education, 2nd-grade classroom during transitions. The CWS included three sets of rules, posted cues to indicate the rules students are expected to be following at that…

This study provides an insight into factors that can help predict the success of students admitted to a Master of information science (MInfSc) programme and aid admission committees in selecting candidates that are most likely to succeed in a graduate programme of information science, using the MInfSc programme at the Africa Regional Centre for…

This study examined the influence of socioeconomic (age, education, marital status, income, and health) and demographic variables and the quantity and quality of relationships with adult children, grandchildren, siblings and friends on life satisfaction of the elderly. Participants were 200 persons older than 60 years of age. Hierarchical…

The purpose of this study is to determine how to build a democratic classroom in terms of teachers' views. In this study, the qualitative research technique is applied. In addition, the semi-structured interview technique is used as a method of data collection. The data obtained are coded into Nvivo2 and then the following themes are established:…

Framed by the literature on research-policy transfer, this paper explores a "real world" task of translating adolescent risk-taking data into "whole-of-system" services development. It aims to explore challenges and opportunities in using large-N quantitative data analyses of such complex constructs to inform holistic policy-making. It offers a…

Visual inspection of data is a common method for understanding, responding to, and communicating important behavior-environment relations in single-subject research. In a field that was once dominated by cumulative, moment-to-moment records of behavior, a number of graphic forms currently exist that aggregate data into larger units. In this…

Background: This paper outlines the findings from a research project carried out in the UK that explored the relationship between parental engagement and student achievement. Purpose: The 12-month research project was commissioned to explore the relationship between innovative work with parents and the subsequent impact upon student achievement. A…

Classroom teachers serve a critical role in developing environmentally literate citizens. In this study, the authors assessed K-8 preservice teachers' understanding of basic ecological concepts. Participants (N = 56) constructed concept maps describing the inter-relationships among 16 ecological concepts. The authors analyzed the concept maps to…