In many psychological and educational applications, it is imperative to obtain valid and reliable score estimates of multilevel processes. For example, in order to assess the quality and characteristics of high impact learning processes, one must compute accurate scores representative of student- and classroom-level constructs. Currently, there…

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Precalculus Concept Assessment (PCA), a 25-item multiple-choice instrument designed to assess student reasoning abilities and understanding of foundational calculus concepts (Carlson et al., 2010). When this study was conducted, the extant research on the PCA and the PCA…

The advantages of administering an adaptive test battery, a collection of multiple adaptive subtests that are specifically tailored to examinees' abilities, include shortening the subtest length and maintaining the accuracy of individual subtest scores. The test battery can incorporate a range of subjects, though this study focused primarily on…

Wing (2010) says computational thinking (CT) is the "new literacy of the 21st century" (p. 3), but yet computational thinking does not have a widely accepted definition making it difficult to know what are its associated skills. Understanding what these skills are is important to be able to teach this new literacy. Various populations…

This study investigated the effects of WML and automaticity on mental addition through an examination of both task and individual characteristics within the framework of cognitive load theory. Seventy-three fourth-grade students in New York City public schools completed the Digit Span-Backward task of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for…

In three experiments, I first examined the correlation between the presence of transformation of stimulus function (TSF) across computation and the presence of TSF across saying and writing for spelling words, and then tested the effects of the establishment of TSF across saying and writing on the establishment of TSF across math operants. Eight…

This study was conducted to analyze potential item parameter drift (IPD) impact on person ability estimates and classification accuracy when drift affects an examinee sub-group. Using a series of simulations, three factors were manipulated: (a) percentage of IPD items in the CAT exam, (b) percentage of examinees affected by IPD, and (c) item pool…

The problem addressed in this study was students who have not been able to demonstrate proficiency in performing mathematical computation, algebraic and geometrical reasoning, number sense proficiency and mathematical processing while in grades 3 through 8 are not prepared to successfully complete the high school high stakes Algebra 1 ECA…

The development in information science has enabled an explosive growth of data, which attracts more and more researchers to engage in the field of big data analytics. Noticeably, in many real-world applications, large amounts of data are imbalanced data since the events of interests occur infrequently. Classification of imbalanced data is an…

This study examined the predictive relationship of a brief computation measure administered in the fall, winter, and spring of first, second, and third grade with the mathematic portion of a state-mandated academic achievement test administered in the spring of third grade. The relationship between mathematical achievement and resource…

This study aims to evaluate a multidimensional latent trait model to determine how well the model works in various empirical contexts. Contrary to the assumption of these latent trait models that the traits are normally distributed, situations in which the latent trait is not shaped with a normal distribution may occur (Sass et al, 2008; Woods…

This dissertation concerns the secure processing of distributed data by multiple terminals, using interactive public communication among themselves, in order to accomplish a given computational task. In the setting of a probabilistic multiterminal source model in which several terminals observe correlated random signals, we analyze secure…

Item response theory (IRT) has gained an increasing popularity in large-scale educational and psychological testing situations because of its theoretical advantages over classical test theory. Unidimensional graded response models (GRMs) are useful when polytomous response items are designed to measure a unified latent trait. They are limited in…

This research focused on performance indicators for elementary and middle school students. Performance indicators are factors that could hinder or enhance early childhood education. For instance, poverty affects a child's development and educational outcomes beginning in the formative years, both directly and indirectly through mediated,…

Educational attainment sits at the core of research on social stratification in the United States. An extensive literature details the inequalities in access to levels of education, the socioeconomic rewards conferred upon those reaching higher levels of schooling, and the prospects for social mobility among those able to attain a college degree.…