This paper proposes an argument framework for the teaching of null hypothesis statistical testing and its application in support of research. Elements of the Toulmin (1958) model of argument are used to illustrate the use of p values and Type I and Type II error rates in support of claims about statistical parameters and subject matter research…

The aim of the current study is to validate the invariance of major profile patterns derived from multidimensional scaling (MDS) by bootstrapping. Profile Analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (PAMS) was employed to obtain profiles and bootstrapping was used to construct the sampling distributions of the profile coordinates and the empirical…

Relative weight analysis is a procedure for estimating the relative importance of correlated predictors in a regression equation. Because the sampling distribution of relative weights is unknown, researchers using relative weight analysis are unable to make judgments regarding the statistical significance of the relative weights. J. W. Johnson…

Educators in large-enrollment courses are faced with the challenge of effectively disseminating information to their students to ensure that they learn the content provided. A related issue involves the means by which instructors evaluate student performance. Offering effective forms of performance feedback may be one technique to provide students…

The observational study was conducted to see the impact of teachers' nonverbal behavior on academic achievement of learners. This also investigated the relationship of nonverbal communication of teachers working in different educational institutions. Main objectives of study were to measure nonverbal behavior of teachers' both male and female…

We use the PISA 2006 results to analyse students' proficiency in EU countries with regard to two indexes that represent the home background, viz the educational resources available at home and the family background of students. However, many factors affect proficiency and therefore, using a DEA-bootstrap, we intend to measure the efficiency of the…

To characterise statistical inference in the workplace this paper compares a prototypical type of statistical inference at work, statistical process control (SPC), with a type of statistical inference that is better known in educational settings, hypothesis testing. Although there are some similarities between the reasoning structure involved in…

Students who have failed a core course that is required for graduation often re-take the course they failed. In recent years, school districts have been using on-line courses for the purpose of allowing their students to recover the credits they need. This study was an ex post facto exploratory examination of descriptive and inferential statistics…

This paper illustrates how information collected through interviews can develop a richer understanding of the assignment mechanism, which can result in more plausible causal effect estimates from observational studies and provides a roadmap for sensitivity analysis. Focusing on the issue of assignment to algebra in 8th grade, the author shows how…

A variety of studies have demonstrated that organizing stimuli into categories can affect the way the stimuli are perceived. We explore the influence of categories on perception through one such phenomenon, the perceptual magnet effect, in which discriminability between vowels is reduced near prototypical vowel sounds. We present a Bayesian model…

A resampling-based method of inference--permutation tests--is often used when distributional assumptions are questionable or unmet. Not only are these methods useful for obvious departures from parametric assumptions (e.g., normality) and small sample sizes, but they are also more robust than their parametric counterparts in the presences of…

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) areas in university settings; however this may be the result of attitude rather than aptitude. There is widespread agreement that quantitative problem-solving is essential for graduate competence and preparedness in science and other STEM subjects. The research…

The following report gives the statistical findings of the 2009-2010 Watson-Glaser test. Data is pre-existing and was given to the Evaluator by email from the Director, Center for Legal Pedagogy. Statistical analyses were run using SPSS 17 to address the following questions: 1. What are the statistical descriptors of the Watson-Glaser results of…

Statisticians and Statistics teachers often have to push back against the popular impression that Statistics teaches how to lie with data. Those who believe incorrectly that Statistics is solely a branch of Mathematics (and thus algorithmic), often see the use of judgment in Statistics as evidence that we do indeed manipulate our results. In the…

This article discusses issues associated with statistical testing conducted with data from clustered school samples. Empirical researchers often conduct tests of statistical inference on sample data to ascertain the extent to which differences exist within groups in the population. Typically, much school-related data are collected from students.…