This book presents different data collection and representation techniques: elementary descriptive statistics, confirmatory statistics, multivariate approaches and statistical modeling. It exposes the possibility of giving more robustness to the classical methodologies of education sciences by adding a quantitative approach. The fundamentals of…

Eight different variable selection techniques for model-based and non-model-based clustering are evaluated across a wide range of cluster structures. It is shown that several methods have difficulties when non-informative variables (i.e., random noise) are included in the model. Furthermore, the distribution of the random noise greatly impacts the…

The use of multivariate statistics in behavioral research is investigated, with emphasis on the reasons why multivariate methods can be so important. The concepts of testwise and experimentwise error are explained, and it is noted that multivariate methods can be used to control the inflation of experimentwise Type I error. It is also noted that…

Use of "special" orthonormal mean contrasts and mean contrast variances can help educational researchers interpret a wide variety of repeated measures data. Most statistical packages allow educational researchers to test for differences across repeated measures using both the univariate mixed model F test and a multivariate test.…

This Monte Carlo study examines whether, given various numbers of variables, treatments, and sample sizes, in a one-way multivariate analysis of variance, Type I error rates of the test approximations provided by the BMDP program, the Statistical Analysis System (SAS), and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Roy's largest…

A growing controversy surrounds the strict interpretation of statistical significance tests in social research. Statistical significance tests fail in particular to provide estimates for the stability of research results. Methods that do provide such estimates are known as invariance or cross-validation procedures. Invariance analysis is largely…

A study used a multivariate approach to assessing college departmental excellence. Factor analysis identified three potentially useful factor clusters ("faculty research,""input," and "student") and seven indicators based on those clusters. Indicators combining faculty research and input and combining all three clusters were found to be the best…

Few studies have comprehensively examined possible gender differences in the school functioning of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study investigated differences in academic, social, and emotional and behavioral functioning between 133 male and 42 female elementary school students who met research diagnostic…

Making decisions about residential or day program placement for adults with developmental disabilities requires examination of multidimensional measures of behavior and thus the use of multivariate statistical techniques along with expert opinion. This study used adaptive and maladaptive cluster scores on the Inventory for Client and Agency…

The Memphis Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT), one of seven ACOT locations, was a joint project of the city schools and Apple Computer. The ACOT consisted of a class of 30 fifth grade students in an inner city school, who were selected on the basis of the willingness of the students and their parents to participate and to use computers in the…

Many black students, female students, and students of low socioeconomic status do not achieve up to their potential in mathematics. A model to explain group differences in performance is presented. Relevant research results are included, along with suggestions for future research to test the model. (PK)