The 0.05 boundary within Null Hypothesis Statistical Testing (NHST) "has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move" (to quote Douglas Adams). Here, we move past meta-scientific arguments and ask an empirical question: What is the psychological standing of the 0.05 boundary for statistical significance? We…

Using data from multiple informants has long been considered best practice in education. However, multiple informants often disagree on similar constructs, complicating decision-making. Polynomial regression and response-surface analysis (PRA) is often used to test the congruence effect between multiple informants on an outcome. However, PRA…

Sampling distributions are fundamental for statistical inference, yet their abstract nature poses challenges for students. This research investigates the development of high school students' conceptions of sampling distribution through informal significance tests with the aid of digital technology. The study focuses on how technological tools…

In this paper, we address the following questions: What misconceptions do high school students exhibit in their first encounter with significance test problems through a repeated sampling approach? Which theory or framework could explain the presence and features of such patterns? With brief prior instruction on the use of Fathom software to…

The early detection of item drift is an important issue for frequently administered testing programs because items are reused over time. Unfortunately, operational data tend to be very sparse and do not lend themselves to frequent monitoring analyses, particularly for on-demand testing. Building on existing residual analyses, the authors propose…

This study was aimed to find out from the teachers in Nigeria, their perception of the functionalism and their participation in the internal testing programme of secondary schools special reference to a state in southern Nigeria. A sample of 1,000 teachers was randomly stratified from the entire teachers' population of 6,000 in government-own…

In a recent study we found that testing as a final activity in a skills course increases the learning outcome compared to spending an equal amount of time practicing. Whether this testing effect measured as skills performance can be demonstrated on long-term basis is not known. The research question was: does testing as a final activity in a…

A theory-driven approach to evaluation (TDE) emphasizes the development and empirical testing of conceptual models to understand the processes and mechanisms through which programs achieve their intended goals. However, most reported applications of TDE are limited to large-scale experimental/quasi-experimental program evaluation designs. Very few…

This study investigated the influence of host community on industrial relations practices and policies using Agbara community and Power Holding Company of Nigeria PLC as a case. The study adopted both the qualitative and quantitative methods. A total of 120 samples were drawn from the population using the simple random sampling technique in which…

Storytelling may be a powerful instructional approach for engaging learners and facilitating e-learning. However, relatively little is known about how to apply story within the context of systematic instructional design processes and claims for the effectiveness of storytelling in training and education have been primarily anecdotal and…

This study contributes a novel perspective on grade retention by empirically examining how classroom composition relates to the standardized-testing performance of grade-retained students in their post-retained years. This evaluation employed a sample of entire cohorts of urban elementary school children in the Philadelphia School District over 6…

A statistical test for cheating is developed. The case of a single examinee who has taken parallel forms of the same selection test on three occasions, obtaining scores x, y, z, is used to illustrate the development. It is assumed that each score is normally distributed with the same known variance, that is, the variance of the errors of…

A computer simulation compared significance tests of correlation coefficients calculated from initial scores, from ranks assigned by the Spearman method, and from three kinds of modified ranks. Implications of findings for the idea that rank correlation is a nonparametric correlation method are discussed. (SLD)

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…

Research indicates that both home literacy activities and direct instruction of reading skills promote reading development. The current study investigates how parent-led direct teaching activities impact emergent literacy. Preschool children (n = 47) were administered subtests from the Test of Early Reading Ability-3 and the Kaufman Survey of…