To examine how neighborhood characteristics influence academic achievement, data were drawn from a community survey of low-income neighborhoods and linked with data on performance on standardized testing for third-grade students attending elementary schools in those communities. Results of multilevel logistic regressions indicated that probability…

In this paper, absorbing markov chains are used to analyse the flows of higher degree by research candidates (doctoral and master) within an Australian faculty of business. The candidates are analysed according to whether they are full time or part time. The need for such analysis stemmed from what appeared to be a rather poor completion rate (as…

Using a prospective design spanning 17 years, the authors studied in a sample of 231 boys and girls the predictive links of verbal abuse by the teacher during childhood to high-school graduation and behavioral and emotional problems in young adulthood, as well as the putative mediating role of individuals' generalized and domain-specific…

By using a competing risks model, survival analysis methods can be extended to predict which of several mutually exclusive outcomes students will choose based on predictor variables, thereby ascertaining if the profile of risk differs across groups. The paper begins with a brief introduction to logistic regression and some of the basic concepts of…

Research on factors related to student academic achievement typically involves the use of some type of total cognitive score as the final outcome measure. However, in using a total score, it is assumed that variables related to student learning have the same effect on student learning across academic skill levels. Using a subsample from the first…

Researchers should investigate statistical models that can help counselors decide how to treat individual clients. This research investigated the questions, "Given an effect size (ES) from a counseling outcome study, what is the probability that a client would have a negative response to the treatment, and what is the probability that the client…

The PRODIGY/EBL system [Minton88] was one of the first works to directly attack the problem of strategy utility. The problem of finding effective strategies was reduced to the problem of finding effective rules. However, this paper illustrates limitations of the approach. There are two basic difficulties. The first arises from the fact that the…

Power refers to the probability that a statistical test will yield statistically significant results. In spite of the close relationship between power and statistical significance, there is a consistent overemphasis in the literature on statistical significance. This paper discusses statistical significance and its limitations and also includes a…

This study examines the effects on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) achievement levels of using item response theory (IRT) models that have nominal missing-response parameters. It compares cutpoints based on item parameters that were fitted using two different models. The first set of cutpoints were based on parameters for…

Related research suggests that children may show some simple understanding of event covariations by the early elementary school years. The present experiments use a rule analysis methodology to investigate covariation judgments of children in this age range. In Experiment 1, children in second, third and fourth grade judged covariations on 12…

This review guide, prepared as an aid to teachers of Course III, starts with a pre-test review of Course II topics found again in Course III. The five units of Course III, as outlined in the New York State Syllabus, are then separated into nine smaller units. These include: real numbers; complex numbers; functions; logarithms; trigonometry;…

A major benefit of education is the lower risk of unemployment at higher educational levels. Analysis of statistical data on the white male labor force drawn from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) indicates that the reduction of the incidence of unemployment is far more important than the reduced duration of unemployment in creating…

The purpose of this teaching unit is to approach elementary probability problems in three ways. First, actual trials are performed and results are recorded. Second, a simple computer simulation of the problem provided on diskette and written for Apple IIe and IIc computers, is run several times. Finally, the mathematical solution of the problem is…

Five sets of activities for students are included in this document. Each is designed for use in junior high and secondary school mathematics instruction. The first "Note" concerns magic squares in which the numbers in every row, column, and diagonal add up to the same sum. An etching by Albrecht Durer is presented, with four questions followed by…

Based on the game "Prisoners' Dilemma," a game-theoretical model of the arms race suitable for postsecondary level mathematics and/or political science students is developed in which two players can initially choose any level of arms development. The purpose of the game is to show under what conditions deescalation rather than escalation…