Obtaining predictions from regression models fit to multiply imputed data can be challenging because treatments of multiple imputation seldom give clear guidance on how predictions can be calculated, and because available software often does not have built-in routines for performing the necessary calculations. This research note reviews how…

Differential item functioning (DIF), or item bias, is a relatively new concept. It has been one of the most controversial and the most studied subject in measurement theory. DIF occurs when people who have the same ability level but from different groups have a different probability of a correct response. According to Item Response Theory (IRT),…

Confidence intervals for effect sizes (CIES) provide readers with an estimate of the strength of a reported statistic as well as the relative precision of the point estimate. These statistics offer more information and context than null hypothesis statistic testing. Although confidence intervals have been recommended by scholars for many years,…

Recent positive psychology literature has consistently demonstrated the link between PsyCap (composite score of hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism--HERO) and employee productivity. However, most of these studies were conducted in industrial or organizational settings and have mostly examined the independent effect of hope, efficacy,…

Pandemic-related policies are typically developed by districts and translated to all schools for implementation. Understanding the degree to which the pandemic impacted school-level performance would provide additional perspective for researchers looking to help district and school officials move forward. The main purpose of this study is to…

The prevalence and risk of foster care involvement among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relative to children with intellectual disability (ID), children with ASD and ID, and typically developing children were examined using 2001-2007 Medicaid data. Children were followed up to the first foster care placement or until the end of 2007;…

Background: Recent research among cancer survivors suggests that health behaviors and coping are intertwined, with important implications for positive behavior change and health. Informal caregivers may have poor health behaviors, and caregivers' health behaviors have been linked to those of survivors. Aims: This hypothesis generating study…

Despite the body of research on auditory-visual speech perception in infants and schoolchildren, development in the early childhood period remains relatively uncharted. In this study, English-speaking children between three and four years of age were investigated for: (i) the development of visual speech perception--lip-reading and visual…

Utilizing a data set of over 900,000 enrollees in adult basic education programs in New York State between 2005 and 2013, we examine the college enrollment of GED® passers. Upon enrollment in an adult basic education program, participants were asked whether they wanted to attend college after completion; almost 13,000 students both indicated a…

In 1974, and then again in 1996, Martin Feldstein published studies of the impact of the Social Security system on private saving in the U.S. economy. He found that Social Security depressed personal saving by a substantial amount--up to 50 percent. The author uses the Feldstein data and empirical models in this article to illustrate the steps in…

This study investigates how barriers to school-based crime prevention programming moderate the effects of situational crime prevention (SCP) policies on levels of violent crime in U.S. public high schools. Using data from the 2008 School Survey on Crime and Safety, we estimate a series of negative binomial regression models with interactions to…

The sudden perception of a connection between ideas is exhilarating. We might call these moments 'Aha!' moments. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how several different ideas can come together in Year 12 mathematics. The subject Further Mathematics in the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) is the Victorian adaptation of General…

Background: There is little research on how affective reactions (e.g., stress) to "perceptions" of nutritious food accessibility contribute to dietary behaviors. Aims: This study explores whether stress associated with limited access to nutritious foods--termed "nutrition resource stress" (NRS)--contributes to diet outcomes,…

This study explores the association between PhD students' self-perception of skills and their career plans, which are analytically transformed into three non-academic sectors in relation to the academic sector (which serves as the baseline). Drawing on a representative sample of PhD students at a globally oriented research university in Asia (the…

This study examines the impact of class difficulty on first-semester GPA, controlling for a number of precollege factors and the course load taken in the first semester. Although a large body of literature exists on the determinants of academic performance, class difficulty is often neglected in the literature. For this study, we created a new…