Online education continues to become an increasingly prominent part of higher education, but many students struggle in distance courses. For this reason, there has been considerable interest in predicting which students will succeed in online courses and which will receive poor grades or drop out prior to completion. Effective intervention depends…

Assessments represent an important component of undergraduate courses because they affect how students interact with course content and gauge student achievement of course objectives. To make decisions on assessment design, instructors must understand the affordances and limitations of available question formats. Here, we use a crossover…

Measures of variability are successfully used in predictive modeling in research areas outside of education. This study examined how standard deviations can be used to address research questions not easily addressed using traditional measures such as group means based on index variables. Student survey data were obtained from the Organisation for…

Educational institutions and governing practices are increasingly augmented with digital database technologies that function as new kinds of policy instruments. This article surveys and maps the landscape of digital policy instrumentation in education and provides two detailed case studies of new digital data systems. The Learning Curve is a…

Students routinely ignore negative feedback regarding their performances early in college science courses. In this study we analyzed the extent to which two standard forms of feedback, midterm and first-exam grades, correlated with final grades in several biology courses. The courses ranged from an introductory course for nonmajors to upper…

This article investigates three types of stage-sequential growth mixture models in the structural equation modeling framework for the analysis of multiple-phase longitudinal data. These models can be important tools for situations in which a single-phase growth mixture model produces distorted results and can allow researchers to better understand…

First-year students are still failing at an alarming rate. This is an international issue that universities face and there is currently no clear indication of the cause of the problem as universities move from being elite to providing mass education. This article examines the possible correlation between students' high school performance and…

The following report of descriptive statistics addresses the attendance of the 2012 class and the average Actual and Predicted 1L Grade Point Averages (GPAs). Correlational and Inferential statistics are also run on the variables of Attendance (Y/N), Attendance Number of Times, Actual GPA, and Predictive GPA (Predictive GPA is defined as the Index…

This study examines whether MidYIS and YELLIS cognitive ability tests (CATs) are appropriate methods for the identification of giftedness in Design and Technology. A key rationale for the study was whether CATs and able to identify those students with the aptitudes considered of importance to identifying giftedness in Design and Technology and…

Several advantages to the use of factor scores as independent variables in a multiple regression equation were found. To help select the most desirable type of factor score on which to calculate a regression equation, computer-based Monte Carlo methods were used to compare the predictive accuracy upon replication of regression of five…

This study sought to ascertain the effect on student behavior of two approaches to visual information transmission. These approaches involved varying the sequence of messages transmitted through the visual communications channel and varying the redundancy of messages presented through this channel. The investigation was conducted as a four-group…

To justify the use of a particular teaching method it should be followed up with a measurement of student achievement. Thus, the primary objective of this study was to determine whether the project method of instruction is accomplishing its task of training young men and women to enter the world of work without the benefit of first hand experience…

The predictive analysis approach to adaptive testing originated in the idea of statistical predictive analysis suggested by J. Aitchison and I.R. Dunsmore (1975). The adaptive testing model proposed is based on parameter-free predictive distribution. Aitchison and Dunsmore define statistical prediction analysis as the use of data obtained from an…

In distinguishing the characteristics of message systems, it was found that middle-class messages were generally more difficult to predict while working-class systems were more predictable and stereotyped. (Author/MB)

The study's purpose was to: (1) identify factors affecting college students' academic performance measured by college grade point average (GPA) and persistence identified by whether or not withdrawn from the university initially attended; and (2) compare these factors among Black, Mexican American, and Anglo students. Data were obtained from the…