We distinguish two conceptions of sample and sampling that emerged in the context of a teaching experiment conducted in a high school statistics class. In one conception "sample as a quasi-proportional, small-scale version of the population" is the encompassing image. This conception entails images of repeating the sampling process and…

Theoretical hypotheses generated from data analysis of a single sample should not be advanced until the replicability issue is treated. At least one of three questions usually arises when evaluating the invariance of results obtained from a canonical correlation analysis (CCA): (1) "Will an effect occur in subsequent studies?"; (2)…

The meaningful investigation of many problems in statistics can be solved through Monte Carlo methods. Monte Carlo studies can help solve problems that are mathematically intractable through the analysis of random samples from populations whose characteristics are known to the researcher. Using Monte Carlo simulation, the values of a statistic are…

Eta-Squared (ES) is often used as a measure of strength of association of an effect, a measure often associated with effect size. It is also considered the proportion of total variance accounted for by an independent variable. It is simple to compute and interpret. However, it has one critical weakness cited by several authors (C. Huberty, 1994;…

The primary objective of this study was to investigate how incorporating prior information improves estimation of item parameters in two small samples. The factors that were investigated were sample size and the type of prior information. To investigate the accuracy with which item parameters in the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) are estimated,…

The popularity of sample surveys in evaluation and research makes it necessary for consumers to tell a good survey from a poor one. Several sources were identified that gave advice on how to evaluate a sample design used in a survey study. The sources are either too limited or too extensive to be useful practically. The purpose of this paper is to…

"This study involving 1,452 liberal Arts College science graduates has shown that a personalized approach can elicit an excellent response to a mailed questionnaire. (Author)

Results indicate that scale values can be approximated satisfactorily through item-examinee sampling. Defining one observation as the response made by one examinee to one item, the similarity between the estimated scale values and normative scale values increased generally with increases in the number of observations acquired by the sampling plan.…

Explained for parents is the logic involved in the design of psychological tests. (KW)