Statistical significance reporting and use in educational and psychological research is reviewed. An assessment of the use of statistical significance in articles published in MECD from 1990-1996 is presented. The elements of statistical significance (including sample size, effect size, and power), interpretation of results, common erroneous…

Addresses the state of the art in use of statistical significance tests and effect size interpretation, explicating the current debate regarding hypothesis testing; reviewing the newly published American Psychological Association Task Force on Statistical Inference report on statistical inference; examining current trends in reporting practices in…

Considers how if literacy is envisioned as a sort of competence in a set of social and intellectual practices, then scientific literacy must encompass the realization that "statistical significance," the cardinal arbiter of social scientific knowledge, was not born out of an immanent logic of mathematics but socially constructed and…

The present article reviews and distinguishes three related but different types of significance: "statistical,""practical," and "clinical." A framework for conceptualizing the many 'Practical" effect size indices is described. Several effect size indices that counseling researchers can use are summarized. (Contains 58 references.) (GCP)

Despite its widespread use in evaluation data analysis, statistical testing has come under persistent criticism resulting in calls for its rethinking, and even possible elimination (Carver, 1978, 1993). Saxon and Boylan issue a call "to strengthen developmental education research and to make it more accessible" (2003, p. 2). Among the types of…

Some researchers have found that students who have obtained undergraduate degrees in business perform worse in MBA programs than do students without undergraduate business degrees. This study splits a sample of MBA graduates into two groups--those with and without BBA degrees. Separate regressions are run for each group to determine which factors…

This paper reviews criticism on misinterpretation and overuse of significance testing in the social sciences and examines use of effect size measures to enhance interpretation of significance testing. Review of typical effect size measures and their application is followed by analysis of use of effect size measures in studies reported over 10…

How is sociological research practice learned? Because much of the tacit knowledge required to succeed in professions such as academia cannot be obtained formally, informal channels of learning--such as interaction with advisors--may be crucial. In this paper I test the extent to which graduate school advisors influence the development of their…

The purpose of this paper is to examine economic significance as a fourth measure of significance. In addition to describing and operationalising the concept of economic significance, a typology of economic significance indices is presented, including an example of how to compute these measures, as well as how to utilise them in applied research.…

Since 1990 the New York-based Teach for America (TFA) program has placed more than 7,000 teachers in some of the nation's most challenging school districts. Most TFA recruits serve in schools that qualify for funding under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act due to their high concentrations of students living in poverty. These…

This report presents highlights of the results for fourth-and eighth-grade students in Puerto Rico for the 2003 and 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics. The NAEP mathematics assessment was administered to public school students in Puerto Rico for the first time in 2003. Although NAEP had previously administered…

This study identified determinants of effective and ineffective supervision in schools. A forty-two items questionnaire was administered on 1150 teachers used in this study. Two research questions were raised and answered using percentages. Two null hypotheses were formulated and tested using spearman rho and z-test statistics at 0.05 level of…

School psychologists' perceptions of how reading disabilities (RD) should be operationalized were examined and compared to those of journal editorial board members in the learning disabilities field (Speece & Shekitka, 2002). Participants were practicing school psychologists drawn from the membership directory of the National Association of School…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe a study which investigated the relationship between the "health-promoting school" (HPS) approach and social capital and tested the proposition that the implementation of an HPS intervention leads to a significant improvement in HPS features and social capital. Design/methodology/approach:…

Background: Previous investigations have shown that low academic achievers are more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and use marijuana and other illicit drugs. This study investigated the relationship between academic performance and substance use among public high school students in Mississippi. Methods: The sampling frame for the 2003…