Objective of this research is to investigate identity functions and empathetic tendencies of teacher candidates. Sample consists of 232 teacher candidates in social studies teacher education. Survey model is preferred to investigate the difference between identity functions and empathetic tendencies of teacher candidates. And also correlational…

Many of the mediation analyses reported in the literature are based on concurrent or single-occasion data sets. The 2 overarching themes of the present article are: Results of concurrent mediations are inherently ambiguous, and researchers would be wise to conduct mediations on longitudinal data sets instead. An example included here demonstrates…

This report presents results on a parallel implementation of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for multidimensional latent variable models. The developments presented here are based on code that parallelizes both the E step and the M step of the parallel-E parallel-M algorithm. Examples presented in this report include item response…

We propose a crowdsourcing-based framework to iteratively and rapidly bootstrap a dialog system from scratch for a new domain. We leverage the open-source modular HALEF dialog system to deploy dialog applications. We illustrate the usefulness of this framework using four different prototype dialog items with applications in the educational domain…

There are several user-written programs for performing meta-analysis in Stata (Stata Statistical Software: College Station, TX: Stata Corp LP). These include metan, metareg, mvmeta, and glst. However, there are several cases for which these programs do not suffice. For instance, there is no software for performing univariate meta-analysis with…

A direct approach to point and interval estimation of Cronbach's coefficient alpha for multiple component measuring instruments is outlined. The procedure is based on a latent variable modeling application with widely circulated software. As a by-product, using sample data the method permits ascertaining whether the population discrepancy…

The field of econometrics largely started with time series analysis because many early datasets were time-series macroeconomic data. As the field developed, more cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets were collected, which today dominate the majority of academic empirical research. In nonacademic (private sector, central bank, and governmental)…

Studies on collaborative memory have revealed an interesting phenomenon called collaborative inhibition (CI) (i.e., nominal groups recall more information than collaborative groups). However, the results of studies on false memories in collaborative memory tasks are controversial. This study aimed to understand the production of false memories in…

This report is based on an activity completed by 89 Grade 6 students carrying out a statistical investigation with a focus on posing an initial question given a context and then refining it for a chosen data set. Having reached a conclusion based on evidence from their data analysis, students were given additional information on the context and…

The technology adoption process model (TAPM) is applied to a new synchronous conference technology with 27 asynchronous courses involving 520 participants and 17 instructors. The TAPM resulted from a qualitative study reviewing webcam conference technology adoption. The TAPM is now tested using self-efficacy as the dependent variable. The…

The item-position effect describes how an item's position within a test, that is, the number of previous completed items, affects the response to this item. Previously, this effect was represented by constraints reflecting simple courses, for example, a linear increase. Due to the inflexibility of these representations our aim was to examine…

According to the UK Quality Assurance Agency, the adoption and use of learning outcomes has been complete across UK higher education since 2007, when it declared that "most departments and institutions have fully adopted the principles of learning outcomes". And yet, the evidence from the ground to support this statement is currently…

Since the 1990's, schools across the United States have been held accountable for increased student learning. Increased use of growth-based accountability models and a lack of clarity on what each model measures have resulted in a need for additional research focused on the real-world implications for teacher agency and school accountability. The…

When researchers fit statistical models to multiply imputed datasets, they have to fit the model separately for each imputed dataset. Since there are multiple datasets, there are always multiple sets of model results. It is possible for some of these sets of results not to converge while some do converge. This study examined occurrence of such a…

Educational data mining (EDM) has been a rapidly growing research field over the last decade and enabled researchers to discover patterns and trends in education with more sophisticated methods. EDM offers promising solutions to complex educational problems. Given the rapid increase in the availability of big data in education and software…