In many parts of the less developed world it is women and girls who are expected to provide water for their family. Frequently, young girls are unable to complete school or get jobs because water scarcity means they are forced to walk miles daily to obtain this most basic need. Since the creation of the United Nations Millennium Goals, progress…

In this article, we focus on the contributions that a simulated jury-based activity might have for pre-service teachers, especially for their active participation and learning in teacher education. We observed a teacher educator using a series of simulated juries as teaching resources to help pre-service teachers develop their pedagogical…

Classification evaluation metrics are often used to evaluate adaptive tutoring systems-- programs that teach and adapt to humans. Unfortunately, it is not clear how intuitive these metrics are for practitioners with little machine learning background. Moreover, our experiments suggest that existing convention for evaluating tutoring systems may…

Dependent effect size estimates are a common problem in meta-analysis. Recently, a robust variance estimation method was introduced that can be used whenever effect sizes in a meta-analysis are not independent. This problem arises, for example, when effect sizes are nested or when multiple measures are collected on the same individuals. In this…

Objective: This article examines the benefit and feasibility of introducing a new, simulation-based learning intervention for junior psychiatry residents. Method: Junior psychiatry residents were invited to participate in a new simulation-based learning intervention focusing on agitated patients. Questionnaires were used to explore the success of…

In this paper, we investigate how elementary school students develop multi-level explanations of population dynamics in a simple predator-prey ecosystem, through scaffolded interactions with a multi-agent-based computational model (MABM). The term "agent" in an MABM indicates individual computational objects or actors (e.g., cars), and these…

Mixtures of item response theory (IRT) models have been proposed as a technique to explore response patterns in test data related to cognitive strategies, instructional sensitivity, and differential item functioning (DIF). Estimation proves challenging due to difficulties in identification and questions of effect size needed to recover underlying…

This article describes an activity whose objective is for students to gain self-awareness related to the ways in which humans (consciously or not) alter their self-presentation depending upon the context, thereby maintaining different "faces." Also, this activity aims to highlight effectiveness related to different modes of nonverbal…

We present a test for cluster bias, which can be used to detect violations of measurement invariance across clusters in 2-level data. We show how measurement invariance assumptions across clusters imply measurement invariance across levels in a 2-level factor model. Cluster bias is investigated by testing whether the within-level factor loadings…

This paper investigates four methods of linear equating under the common item nonequivalent groups design. Three of the methods are well known: Tucker, Angoff-Levine, and Congeneric-Levine. A fourth method is presented as a variant of the Congeneric-Levine method. Using simulation data generated from the three-parameter logistic IRT model we…

Three educational interventions were simulated in a system dynamics model of the medical use, trafficking, and nonmedical use of pharmaceutical opioids. The study relied on secondary data obtained in the literature for the period of 1995 to 2008 as well as expert panel recommendations regarding model parameters and structure. The behavior of the…

Simulations and games can offer valuable insight into the management of conflict and the achievement of peace. This special symposium issue of "Simulation & Gaming" examines several such approaches, used in both educational settings and to prepare practitioners to deal with the concrete challenges of peacebuilding. In the introduction, the authors…

The authors believe that the adoption of virtual worlds is suitable for electronic government applications as it can increase the capillarity of public services, facilitate the access to government services and provide citizens with a natural and immersive experience. They present a Government Virtual Institution Model (GVI) for the provision of…

The internet gives individuals access to learning through online technologies. The prolific use of Learning Management Systems (LMSs) in higher education institutions makes Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills or e-skills very important. ICT skill levels have been positively related to students' effectiveness and efficiency in…

High-fidelity simulation is frequently used in nursing education to provide students with simulated experiences prior to and throughout clinical coursework that involves direct patient care. These high-tech exercises take advantage of the benefits of a standardized patient or mock patient encounter, while eliminating some of the drawbacks…