Peer mentoring programs frequently are implemented on college campuses to enhance first-year college student retention; however, few studies have examined characteristics of peer mentors that are associated with more supportive mentor-mentee relationships, leaving college personnel with a limited understanding of how to improve these vital…

Research on teacher and school academic optimism has abounded ever since these two constructs were confirmed and shown to have positive effects on student achievement. However, one overlooked research question is the nested association between teacher and school academic optimism. This study intends to fill this gap by using hierarchical linear…

Discipline-based education researchers have a natural laboratory--classrooms, programs, colleges, and universities. Studies that administer treatments to multiple sections, in multiple years, or at multiple institutions are particularly compelling for two reasons: first, the sample sizes increase, and second, the implementation of the treatments…

Multiple-choice questions (MCQs) play a key role in standardised testing and in-class assessment. Research into the influence of within-item response order on MCQ characteristics has been mixed. While some researchers have shown preferential selection of response options presented earlier in the answer list, others have failed to replicate these…

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) has become increasingly popular in the higher education literature, but there is significant variability in the current approaches to the conducting and reporting of HLM. The field currently lacks a general consensus around important issues such as the number of levels of analysis that are important to include…

The hierarchical network model (HNM) is a framework introduced by Sweet, Thomas, and Junker for modeling interventions and other covariate effects on ensembles of social networks, such as what would be found in randomized controlled trials in education research. In this article, we develop calculations for the power to detect an intervention…

As recommended by Carroll, the present study examined the factor structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition Spanish (WISC-IV Spanish) normative sample using higher order exploratory factor analytic techniques not included in the WISC-IV Spanish Technical Manual. Results indicated that the WISC-IV Spanish subtests were…

This brief examines kindergarten readiness and attendance in kindergarten for children enrolled in publicly provided early education programs as well as similar children who entered kindergarten without enrolling in these programs. Key findings detail the effects for children if they were enrolled for at least 90 calendar days as a three- or…

The low employment rates of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) are a major concern. In 2011 only 34% of adults with ID were employed compared to 76% of adults without disabilities (Siperstein, Parker, & Drascher, 2013). Higher educational attainment is associated with higher employment rates for students with ID (Smith, Grigal,…

Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT) models were in active use in the Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) field for over 20 years. They have been intensively studied, and a number of useful extensions to them were proposed and experimentally tested. Among the most widely researched extensions to BKT models are various types of individualization.…

Mediation in multi-level data can be examined using conflated multilevel modeling (CMM), unconflated multilevel modeling (UMM), or multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM). A Monte Carlo study was performed to compare the three methods on bias, type I error, and power in a 1-1-1 model with random slopes. The three methods showed no…

The Reading and Me Survey (R&MS) measures reading self-perceptions and enjoyment of reading of intermediate elementary students and parallels the Math & Me Survey (M&MS). We examined its psychometric properties through content validation, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and reliability and…

We investigated the effects of a laboratory curriculum developed using the socio-­scientific issues (SSI) framework to contextualize scientific and socially relevant issues for students. Using self-determination theory and hierarchical linear modeling, we examined the effects of the SSI curriculum relative to a control curriculum on student…

The researchers of this brief observed that few environments have the potential to shape the outcomes of college students as much as residence halls. As a result, residence halls have the capacity to foster a strong sense of community as well as other important outcomes such as college satisfaction and academic achievement. However, given the high…

This within-subjects experimental study investigated the influence of the arts on cortisol for economically disadvantaged children. Participants were 310 children, ages 3-5 years, who attended a Head Start preschool and were randomly assigned to participate in different schedules of arts and homeroom classes on different days of the week. Cortisol…