Objective:: This study examined the association between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and parenting outcomes including parenting stress, feelings of competence and discipline strategies. Maternal depression and current partner violence were hypothesized to be mediators of the association between CSA and parenting. Method:: This study is based on…

We contrast 2 theories within whose context problems are conceptualized and data interpreted. By traditional linear theory, a dependent variable is the sum of main-effect and interaction terms. By dimensional theory, independent variables yield values on internal dimensions that in turn determine performance. We frame our arguments within an…

This study examines technical efficiency in European higher education (HE) institutions. To measure efficiency, we consider the capacity of each HE institution, on one hand, to provide competencies to graduates and, on the other hand, to match competencies provided during education to competencies required in the job. We use a large sample of…

This report describes measures and methods of data analysis and representation of a systemic approach to the assessment of curricular and pedagogical contributions to general education learning objectives. An existing system for student evaluation of teaching was transformed to enable faculty to designate the learning objectives of the course and…

The Mathematical Association of America Guidelines for Programs and Departments in Undergraduate Mathematical Sciences recommends the use of a periodic external review as an assessment tool to evaluate the mathematics program and the department. However, there is surprisingly little information on how to conduct an external review for a…

Purpose: To explore and analyse various learning organizations and to attempt to outline the form of a holistic learning organization. Design/methodology/approach: The tool described in this article is a continuation of the work published in a Licentiate thesis in 1996 and developed further in a doctoral dissertation in 2001. The Learning…

Purpose: To illustrate the need for social network metadata within semantic metadata. Design/methodology/approach: Surveys properties of social networks and the semantic web, suggests that social network analysis applies to semantic content, argues that semantic content is more searchable if social network metadata is merged with semantic web…

This paper considers the contemporary use of focus groups as a method of data collection within qualitative research settings. The authors draw upon their own experiences of using focus groups in educational and "community" user-group environments in order to provide an overview of recent issues and debates surrounding the deployment of focus…

I. Klugkist, O. Laudy, and H. Hoijtink (2005) presented a Bayesian approach to analysis of variance models with inequality constraints. Constraints may play 2 distinct roles in data analysis. They may represent prior information that allows more precise inferences regarding parameter values, or they may describe a theory to be judged against the…

Most publications on outcomes assessment take a holistic approach: they focus more on the whole of assessment than on its components. They describe entire academic assessment programs and their cumulative impact on institutional effectiveness. Some evaluation articles characterize assessment components such as instruments, findings, and use of…

Studying and evaluating real experiences that promote active and collaborative learning is a crucial field in CSCL. Major issues that remain unsolved deal with the merging of qualitative and quantitative methods and data, especially in educational settings that involve both physical and computer-supported collaboration. In this paper we present a…

Corporations employ data mining to analyze operations, find trends in recorded information, and look for new opportunities. Libraries are no different. Librarians manage large stores of data--about collections and usage, for example--and they also want to analyze this data to serve their users better. Analysts use data mining to query a data…

This case study covers several exploratory data analysis ideas, the histogram and boxplot, kernel density estimates, the recently introduced bagplot--a two-dimensional extension of the boxplot--as well as the violin plot, which combines a boxplot with a density shape plot. We apply these ideas and demonstrate how to interpret the output from these…

As the numbers of students who earn the general educational development (GED) high school equivalency diploma increase, so too does the presence of GED credential holders on college campuses. Yet in large universities, they make up a relatively small demographic group whose advising needs may go unnoticed. In this article, we describe a series of…

This essay has its origin in a project on the globalization of science that rediscovered the wisdom of past research practices through the technology of the future. The main argument of this essay is that a convergence of digital video technologies with practices of social surveillance portends a methodological shift towards a new variety of…