In the rapidly changing atmosphere of the global economy, productivity has become a very important concept for long-term economic growth, development, regional and global competitiveness, raising social living standards and increasing the level of welfare for countries. In the 21st century, when scientific knowledge, technology, innovation,…

We provide tools for identification and exploration of data with very large variability having power law tails. Such data describe extreme features of processes such as fire losses, flood, drought, financial gain/loss, hurricanes, population of cities, among others. Prediction and quantification of extreme events are at the forefront of the…

Introduction: This study aimed to estimate the causal effect of face-to-face learning on student performance in anatomy, compared to online learning, by analysing examination marks under a causal structure. Methods: We specified a causal graph to indicate how the mode of learning affected student performance. We sampled purposively to obtain…

Students with mature number sense make sense of numbers and operations, use reasoning to notice patterns, and flexibly select the most effective and efficient problem-solving strategies (McIntosh et al., 1997; Yang, 2005). Despite being highlighted in national standards and policy documents (CCSS, 2010; NCTM, 2000), the association between…

Mediation has played a critical role in developmental theory and research. Yet, developmentalists rarely discuss the methodological challenges of establishing causality in mediation analysis or potential strategies to improve the identification of causal mediation effects. In this article, we discuss the potential outcomes framework from…

Machine learning (ML) methods for causal inference have gained popularity due to their flexibility to predict the outcome model and the propensity score. In this article, we provide a within-group approach for ML-based causal inference methods in order to robustly estimate average treatment effects in multilevel studies when there is cluster-level…

The pedagogy aspect of education has been the key factor influencing the effectiveness and quality of e-learning platforms. However, there is a lack of systematic review with an emphasis on the pedagogical aspect when it comes to e-learning in higher education. This research aims to systematically review seven major databases to identify the…

Electronic product use among preschool children is gradually widespread. To explore whether and how electronic product use causes problem behaviours in preschool children, this study analyses the relationships between the degree of electronic product use, problem behaviours, and the roles of parenting styles and parent-child relationships in…

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) introduced creative thinking as an innovative domain in 2022. This paper examines the unique methodological issues in international assessments and the implications of measuring creative thinking within PISA's framework, including stratified sampling, rotated form designs, and a distinct…

China's recent implementation of the three-child policy is expected to have profound implications for population dynamics, leading to potential changes in preschool enrollment and subsequent demand for preschool teachers. This study addresses this issue by utilizing population forecasting software (PADIS-INT) to project population growth trends…

By design, randomized experiments (XPs) rule out bias from confounded selection of participants into conditions. Quasi-experiments (QEs) are often considered second-best because they do not share this benefit. However, when results from XPs are used to generalize causal impacts, the benefit from unconfounded selection into conditions may be offset…

There is limited literature on the association between parenting practices, parenting stress and externalising behaviours in autistic children. We investigated whether parenting practices mediate the association between parenting stress and externalising behaviours. Parents of school-aged autistic children (n = 138) completed an online survey on…

Previous research suggests that preschoolers struggle with understanding abstract relations and with "reasoning by analogy." Four experiments find, in contrast, that 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 168) are surprisingly adept at relational and analogical reasoning within a causal context. In earlier studies preschoolers routinely favored images…

A conscious shaping of entrepreneurial competence is a relevant element of entrepreneurial education. In order to recognize which of the competencies regarded as entrepreneurial are characteristic of members of entrepreneurial teams, which is crucial for the work of those teams, it is necessary to identify the structure of those competencies. This…

Does "X" affect "Y"? Answering this question is particularly difficult if reverse causality is looming. Many social scientists turn to panel data to address such questions of causal ordering. Yet even in longitudinal analyses, reverse causality threatens causal inference based on conventional panel models. Whereas the…