In 1881, Donald MacAlister posed a problem in the "Educational Times" that remains relevant today. The problem centers on the statistical evidence for the effectiveness of a treatment based on a comparison between two proportions. A brief historical sketch is followed by a discussion of two default Bayesian solutions, one based on a…

In introductory statistics courses, the concept of power is usually presented in the context of testing hypotheses about the population mean. We instead propose an exercise that uses a binomial probability table to introduce the idea of power in the context of testing a population proportion. (Contains 2 tables, and 2 figures.)

Between 2003 and 2013, the proportion of California 8th graders enrolled in Algebra or a more advanced course nearly doubled to 65 percent. In this paper, we consider the organizational processes that accompanied this curricular intensification. Facing a complex set of accountability, institutional, technical/functional, and internal political…

This study examines a 118-year continuous record of retention and graduation rates at a public university for long-term trends not observable in shorter studies. While the first year retention rates stayed level over much of this period, second year rates increased steadily by 1.2% per decade. In contrast, graduation rates at 4 years compared to 6…

In this article, a Bayesian model selection approach is introduced that can select the best of a set of inequality and equality constrained hypotheses for contingency tables. The hypotheses are presented in terms of cell probabilities allowing researchers to test (in)equality constrained hypotheses in a format that is directly related to the data.…

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to understand psychological help-seeking intention for 3 common concerns: anxiety or depression, career choice concerns, and alcohol or drug use. Eight hundred eighty-nine university students completed surveys for the TPB variables plus belief in personal efficacy and control to solve the problems.…

Relations among test anxiety, performance on a complex task, and task behavior were investigated within a simulated teaching situation. It was predicted that test anxiety would relate negatively to performance accuracy and level of active task involvement. (Editor)

Attempts to determine what effect, if any, a color's hue or value has on the elementary school child's perception of apparent weight. (Author/RK)

Thirty-nine normal pre-school and 48 older mentally handicapped children of similar vocabulary age were tested on a sentence comprehension test under three different presentation conditions. Results showed that presentation conditions did not affect normal children, but mentally handicapped children were adversely affected by the condition in…

To gather data on the effects of different modes of instruction on physician achievement in plotting mean P, O, RS, and T receptiors in electrocardiography, researchers chose a random sample of physicians who had taken a correspondence course on electrocardiography during the previous 5 years from the University of Southern California School of…

A concise method for computing areas under the normal curve using only functions typically found on desk and hand calculators is given. One version of this method will give three-decimal-pace accuracy, and a second, simpler version gives accuracy to two places. (Author/JKS)

A computer program for testing the association of two nominal variables using Fisher's exact probability test is described. Theoretical corrections according to recent literature are made. Various methods of discovering the source of association at the cellwise level are given. (Author/JKS)

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of the animation of visual information when used in conjunction with text and static visuals in microcomputer-based instruction. Of particular interest were consequent performance on higher level learning tasks as a result of viewing these forms of visual presentation, and those levels of…

DSYSTM is an interactive computer program designed to perform a linear-graph analysis of contingency table data. The program is especially suitable for the analysis of change models. (Author/JKS)

This research investigated the use of the Rasch simple logistic model in obtaining test-free ability estimates. Tests employing word, picture, symbol and number analogies were administered to college and high school students. The results show that the Rasch model does not offer an improvement over the use of percentile ranks in estimating…