In their response to our paper, Nicholson and Ridgway agree with the majority of what we wrote. They echo our concerns about the misuse of inferential statistics and NHST in particular. Very little of their response explicitly challenges the points we made but where it does their defence of the use of inferential techniques does not stand up to…

In this interview, we discuss my early uses of meta-analytic procedures, first to combine "p"-values and then to combine effect sizes as well. My interest in quantifying the magnitude and the statistical significance of the effect of interpersonal expectations probably grew out of the following: (1) a long-held interest in the concept of…

In this rejoinder, von Eye and DeShon discuss the decision strategies proposed in their original article ("Directional Dependence in Developmental Research," this issue), as well as the ones proposed by the authors of the commentary (Pornprasertmanit and Little, "Determining Directional Dependency in Causal Associations," this issue). In addition,…

In this article, the authors provide a methodological critique of the current standard of value-added modeling forwarded in educational policy contexts as a means of measuring teacher effectiveness. Conventional value-added estimates of teacher quality are attempts to determine to what degree a teacher would theoretically contribute, on average,…

What is validity? A simple question but apparently one with many answers, as Paul Newton highlights in his review of the history of validity. The current definition of validity, as entertained in the 1999 "Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" is indeed a consensus, one between the classical notion of attributes, and measures…

Birnbaum raised important challenges to testing transitivity. We summarize why an approach based on counting response patterns does not solve these challenges. Foremost, we show why parsimonious tests of transitivity require at least 5 choice alternatives. While the approach of Regenwetter, Dana, and Davis-Stober achieves high power with modest…

The future of civil society in the world rests on the promotion of positive development and a commitment to positive and socially just community contributions by the young (Lerner, 2004). Adolescents represent, at any point in history, the generational cohort that must be prepared to assume the quality of leadership of self, family, community, and…

Bell-curve thinking, as a model of distribution of success and failure in society, enjoys a perennial (ahistorical, objective, and law-like) status in education. As such it provides a rationale for sorting (tracking or streaming) practices in education, which has led many educators to criticize both bell-curve thinking and associated sorting…

The recognition heuristic is a prime example of a boundedly rational mind tool that rests on an evolved capacity, recognition, and exploits environmental structures. When originally proposed, it was conjectured that no other probabilistic cue reverses the recognition-based inference (D. G. Goldstein & G. Gigerenzer, 2002). More recent studies…

Probability is an essential tool for understanding heredity and modern genetics, yet many students have difficulty with this topic due to the abstract and quantitative nature of the subject. To facilitate student learning of probability in genetics, we have developed a set of hands-on, cooperative activities that allow students to determine…

The underlying proposition for any experimental/therapeutic trial is the uncertainty that the risks of treatment will be outweighed by its benefits. For some therapeutic interventions (e.g., exercise programs, vitamin supplementation), the potential for treatment-emergent adverse events may prima facie be low or negligible, whereas for others…

Mr. Johnson has discovered that the higher the level of student engagement and creativity, the lower the probability of plagiarism. For teachers who would like to see such desirable results, he describes the characteristics of assignments that are most likely to produce them. Two scenarios of types of assignments that avoid plagiarism are…

Modeling the process by which participants are selected into groups, rather than adjusting for preexisting group differences, provides the basis for several new approaches to the analysis of data from nonrandomized studies. Econometric approaches, the propensity scores approach, and the relative assignment variable approach to the modeling of…

Discusses the importance of a knowledge of basic statistical concepts for a librarian's education, and the problem of implementing such an introductory course. Two class exercises dealing with sampling and probability and the Central Limit Theorem are described, and 11 references are included. (BK)

Describes generativity theory based on the probabilities of many behaviors that are in competition and considers its effect on creativity. Topics discussed include previous and current generativity research, including behavior charts and frequency profiles; computer simulations; skills that improve generative processes; and creativity training in…