Dynamic structural equation models (DSEM) are designed for time series analysis of latent structures. Inherent to the application of DSEM is model parameter estimation, which has to be addressed in many applications by a single time series. In this context, however, the methods currently available either lack estimation quality or are…

In recent years, readability formulas have gained new prominence as a basis for selecting texts for learning and assessment. Variables that quantitative tools count (e.g., word frequency, sentence length) provide valid measures of text complexity insofar as they accurately predict representative and high-quality criteria. The longstanding…

During the transition period between the use of exclusively old SAT® scores and the use of exclusively new SAT scores, college admission offices will be receiving both types of scores from students. Making an admission decision based on new SAT scores can be challenging at first because institutions have methods, procedures, and models based on…

Dynamic assessment methods, initially developed by Feuerstein in the 1970s, have been recommended as being more equitable for identifying the academic abilities of students who may not perform well on traditional assessments due to these learners' cultural, linguistic, or economic differences from the population for whom the traditional measures…

This work asks one simple question: "how reliable is the method used by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) to estimate projected rates of VET program completion?" In other words, how well do early projections align with actual completion rates some years later? Completion rates are simple to calculate with a…

Community college students are often placed in developmental math courses based on the results of a single placement test. However, concerns about accurate placement have recently led states and colleges across the country to consider using other measures to inform placement decisions. While the relationships between college outcomes and such…

We study the properties of two specification tests that have been applied to a variety of estimators in the context of value-added measures (VAMs) of teacher and school quality: the Hausman test for choosing between random and fixed effects and a test for feedback (sometimes called a "falsification test"). We discuss theoretical…

College students ("N" = 215) completed a self-report instrument designed to assess different regulation of motivation strategies as well as aspects of their motivational beliefs, use of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies, and procrastination. The study serves to extend the research on the self-regulation of motivation…

Consistent with previous research, the authors found that the combined use of undergraduate grade point average and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) verbal and quantitative sections successfully predicted performance in a master of business administration (MBA) program. However, these measures did not successfully predict the…

We use unique administrative data from a leading Italian university to estimate whether the use of admission tests and conditional progression schemes are effective strategies to select high-performing students. Previous work, which has been predominantly correlational, has focused on the effect of selectivity policies on widening university…

In their seminal paper, Edwards and Parry (1993) presented the polynomial regression as a better alternative to applying difference score in the study of congruence. Although this method is increasingly applied in congruence research, its complexity relative to other methods for assessing congruence (e.g., difference score methods) was one of the…

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…

Purpose: The purpose of this research is twofold. The first purpose is to utilize a new methodology (Bayesian networks) for aggregating various quality indicators to measure the overall quality of care in nursing homes. The second is to provide new insight into the relationships that exist among various measures of quality and how such measures…

This report describes work using nationally representative 2005 data from the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment-III (SNDA-III) study to develop a simulation model to predict the potential implications of changes in policies or practices related to school meals and school food environments. The model focuses on three domains of outcomes: (1) the…

This research examined whether the SAT and ACT would predict college grade point average (GPA) after removing g from the tests. SAT and ACT scores and freshman GPAs were obtained from a university sample (N=161) and the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (N=8984). Structural equation modeling was used to examine relationships among g, GPA,…