Computational learning theory studies the design and analysis of learning algorithms, and it is integral to the foundation of machine learning. In the modern era, classical computational learning theory is growingly unable to catch up with new practical demands. In particular, problems arise in the following aspects: i). "scalability":…

With the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI), smart education has become an attractive topic. In a smart education system, automated classrooms and examination rooms could help reduce the economic cost of teaching, and thus improve teaching efficiency. However, existing AI algorithms suffer from low surveillance accuracies and high…

Multivariate Functional Principal Component Analysis (MFPCA) is a valuable tool for exploring relationships and identifying shared patterns of variation in multivariate functional data. However, interpreting these functional principal components (PCs) can sometimes be challenging due to issues such as roughness and sparsity. In this dissertation,…

In organizational and academic settings, the strategic formation of teams is paramount, necessitating an approach that transcends conventional methodologies. This study introduces a novel application of multicriteria integer programming (MCIP), which simultaneously accommodates multiple criteria, thereby innovatively addressing the complex task of…

In this article, we delve into a hermeneutic process that analyzes the term "Computational Thinking" as it was constructed through Wing's series of iterations in conceptualization attempts (2006, 2008, 2011 and 2014). On the one hand, this brings us to analyze the relations and intersections between different process of thought…

Multidimensional achievement tests are recently gaining more importance in educational and psychological measurements. For example, multidimensional diagnostic tests can help students to determine which particular domain of knowledge they need to improve for better performance. To estimate the characteristics of candidate items (calibration) for…

Computational thinking (CT) is becoming increasingly important for K-12 science education, thus warranting new integrations of CT and science content. This intervention study integrated CT through unplugged, or handwritten, algorithmic explanations of natural selection. As students investigated natural selection in varying contexts (specific and…

Attribute hierarchy, the underlying prerequisite relationship among attributes, plays an important role in applying cognitive diagnosis models (CDM) for designing efficient cognitive diagnostic assessments. However, there are limited statistical tools to directly estimate attribute hierarchy from response data. In this study, we proposed a…

Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT) has been widely used in educational and psychological assessments. It estimates multiple constructs simultaneously and models the correlations among latent constructs. While it provides more accurate results, the unidimensional IRT model is still dominant in real applications. One major reason is that…

Cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) are the assessment tools that provide valuable formative feedback about skill mastery at both the individual and population level. Recent work has explored the performance of CDMs with small sample sizes but has focused solely on the estimates of individual profiles. The current research focuses on obtaining…

Purpose: This study examined how physical education majors used computational thinking (CT) skills in a movement concept course. Method: Twenty-two physical education majors were tasked to create two gymnastics routines (i.e., algorithm design), analyze their routines (i.e., decomposition and abstraction), create and follow a personalized fitness…

Random item effects item response theory (IRT) models, which treat both person and item effects as random, have received much attention for more than a decade. The random item effects approach has several advantages in many practical settings. The present study introduced an explanatory multidimensional random item effects rating scale model. The…

Computer adaptive testing (CAT) is an increasingly common mode of test administration offering improved test security, better measurement precision, and the potential for shorter testing experiences. This article presents a new item selection algorithm based on a generalized objective function to support multiple types of testing conditions and…

How can we measure the resource mobilization (RM) efforts of social movements on Twitter? In this article, we create the first ever measure of social movements' RM efforts on a social media platform. To this aim, we create a four-conditional lexicon that can parse through tweets and identify those concerned with RM. We also create a simple RM…

Contribution: This research illuminates information entropy's efficacy as a pivotal educational tool in programming, enabling the precise quantification of algorithmic complexity and student abstraction levels for solving problems. This approach can provide students quantitative, comparative insights into the differences between optimal and…