This rejoinder keeps the original focus on statistical computing pertaining to the correlation of student achievement between mathematics and science from the Trend in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Albeit the availability of student performance data in TIMSS and the emphasis of the inter-subject connection in the Next Generation Science…

Equating methods make use of an appropriate transformation function to map the scores of one test form into the scale of another so that scores are comparable and can be used interchangeably. The equating literature shows that the ways of judging the success of an equating (i.e., the score transformation) might differ depending on the adopted…

When constructing multiple test forms, the number of items and the total test difficulty are often equivalent. Not all test developers match the number of items and/or average item difficulty within subcontent areas. In this simulation study, six test forms were constructed having an equal number of items and average item difficulty overall.…

The impact of response styles such as extreme response style (ERS) on trait estimation has long been a matter of concern to researchers and practitioners. This simulation study investigated three methods that have been proposed for the correction of trait estimates for ERS effects: (a) mixed Rasch models, (b) multidimensional item response models,…

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is a useful tool when analyzing data collected from groups. There are many decisions to be made when constructing and estimating a model in HLM including which estimation technique to use. Three of the estimation techniques available when analyzing data with HLM are maximum likelihood, restricted maximum…

The traditional approach to estimating the consistency of school effects across subject areas and the stability of school effects across time is to fit separate value-added multilevel models to each subject or cohort and to correlate the resulting empirical Bayes predictions. We show that this gives biased correlations and these biases cannot be…

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…

Utilizing a longitudinal item response model, this study investigated the effect of item parameter drift (IPD) on item parameters and person scores via a Monte Carlo study. Item parameter recovery was investigated for various IPD patterns in terms of bias and root mean-square error (RMSE), and percentage of time the 95% confidence interval covered…

Do children spontaneously represent spatial-numeric features of a task, even when it does not include printed numbers (Mix et al., 2016)? Sixty first grade students completed a novel spatial estimation task by seeking and finding pages in a 100-page book without printed page numbers. Children were shown pages 1 through 6 and 100, and then were…

Researchers are often interested in testing the effectiveness of an intervention on multiple outcomes, for multiple subgroups, at multiple points in time, or across multiple treatment groups. The resulting multiplicity of statistical hypothesis tests can lead to spurious findings of effects. Multiple testing procedures (MTPs) are statistical…

The present article provides a synthesis of the conceptual and statistical issues involved in using multisite randomized trials to learn about and from a distribution of heterogeneous program impacts across individuals and/or program sites. Learning "about" such a distribution involves estimating its mean value, detecting and quantifying…

The aim of this study is to determine the extent at which students' computational thinking (CT) skills are explained by certain variables. To this end, the existence of explanatory and predictive relationships between students' CT skills and the variables in question has been examined and Structural Equation Model was employed for building a model…

Methods to assess the significance of mediated effects in education and the social sciences are well studied and fall into two categories: single sample methods and computer-intensive methods. A popular single sample method to detect the significance of the mediated effect is the test of joint significance, and a popular computer-intensive method…

In this article we develop a methodology for the joint value added analysis of multiple outcomes that takes into account the inherent correlation between them. This is especially crucial in the analysis of higher education institutions. We use a unique Colombian database on universities, which contains scores in five domains tested in a…

Large differences often exist between a college's sticker price and net price after accounting for financial aid. Net price calculators (NPCs) were designed to help students more accurately estimate their actual costs to attend a given college. This study assesses the accuracy of information provided by net price calculators. Specifically, we…