Random forests are a nonparametric machine learning method, which is currently gaining popularity in the behavioral sciences. Despite random forests' potential advantages over more conventional statistical methods, a remaining question is how reliably informative predictor variables can be identified by means of random forests. The present study…

Colleges have increasingly turned to predictive analytics to target at-risk students for additional support. Most of the predictive analytic applications in higher education are proprietary, with private companies offering little transparency about their underlying models. We address this lack of transparency by systematically comparing two…

Background and Aims: The fastest growing group of students with disabilities are those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). States annually report on post-high school outcomes (PSO) of exited students. This study sought to fill two gaps in the literature related to PSO for exited high-school students with ASD and the use of state data and…

Listening comprehension involves the ability to understand and extract meaning from spoken sentences, stories, and instruction. This skill is vital for young children and has long-term effects on school achievement, employability, income, and participation in society. There is a lack of measures of young children's listening comprehension skills.…

Methods for identifying dyslexia in adults vary widely between studies. Researchers have to decide how many tests to use, which tests are considered to be the most reliable, and how to determine cut-off scores. The aim of this study was to develop an objective and powerful method for diagnosing dyslexia. We took various methodological measures,…

This study documents the reliability and validity of a new infant-toddler authentic assessment, the Learning Through Relating Child Assets Record (LTR-CAR), and its feasibility of use by infant-toddler caregivers in an Early Head Start program. In a sample of 136 children, results indicated a strong internal structure of the LTR-CAR as evidenced…

P. R. Killeen's (2005a) probability of replication ("p[subscript rep]") of an experimental result is the fiducial Bayesian predictive probability of finding a same-sign effect in a replication of an experiment. "p[subscript rep]" is now routinely reported in "Psychological Science" and has also begun to appear in…

Examines the kind of analysis performed for material on the job prospects in the Occupational Outlook Handbook and evaluates the accuracy of previous projections. Discusses why projections of job outlook are made, methods used in their development, and their accuracy. (JOW)

The Mean Cost Rating, P(A) from Signal Detection Theory, Kendall's rank correlation coefficient tau, and Goodman and Kruskal's gamma measures of predictive power are compared and shown to be different transformations of the statistic S. Gamma is generally preferred for hypothesis testing. Measures of association for ordered contingency tables are…

Changes, like single scores, are demonstrated to be valid and reliable and potentially predictable by independent variables. Change and growth measures determined from individual examinees' test scores indicated excellent predictive value. (Author/PN)

Three studies investigated comfortable loudness levels with particular reference to their application to hearing aid gain prescriptions. The studies, involving 33 normal hearing adults and 77 adults with hearing impairments, suggest that comfortable loudness levels for continuous speech bands can be estimated rather accurately, quickly, and with…

Investigated neuropsychological and cognitive basis of achievement and determined the stability of this relation. Addressed the power of the McCarthy Scales and portions of the Reitan-Indiana Test Battery for predicting academic achievement in kindergarten, and first grade; stability over a 2-year period; the ability of tests administered in…

The examination of credibility effects in predicting achievement, an important step in the study of source credibility effects on attributions, substantiates Birnbaum's findings that variation in the credibility of information can be represented by changes in the weight of the information. Undergraduate subjects (N=65) predicted the performance of…

The purposes of this study were to assess the usefulness of a variety of readability formulas in predicting the relative difficulty of passages, and to explore the contribution of pupils' background to text difficulty. Subjects were 285 special education students in grades 1-9, 117 of whom were based in rural and suburban Minnesota (MN) and 168 of…

Reviews issues of reliability (especially test-retest reliability) in newborn assessment, discusses predictive models based on newborn assessment, and presents information on modifications of the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale which may help in pursuing fruitful questions involving prediction of development. (Author/BH)