Statistical tests have been an important tool for interpreting the results of research correctly. The factors that influence the determination of the statistical test are research purpose, hypothesis and data. Today, statistical tests are used more frequently, and they aim to analyze whether statistical tests are used in accordance with research.…

The present guide provides a practical guide to conducting latent profile analysis (LPA) in the Mplus software system. This guide is intended for researchers familiar with some latent variable modeling but not LPA specifically. A general procedure for conducting LPA is provided in six steps: (a) data inspection, (b) iterative evaluation of models,…

Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) is a useful tool when analyzing data collected from groups. There are many decisions to be made when constructing and estimating a model in HLM including which estimation technique to use. Three of the estimation techniques available when analyzing data with HLM are maximum likelihood, restricted maximum…

In light of the emergence of statistical analysis techniques based on data mining in education sciences, and the potential they offer to detect non-trivial information in large databases, this paper presents a procedure used to detect factors linked to academic achievement in large-scale assessments. The study is based on a non-experimental,…

In this paper the use of the Rasch model is explored as a transparent, systematic and theoretically underpinned response to quality issues that are widely recognised as problematic in the refinement of Likert scale questionnaires. Key issues are the choice of length of scale, the pursuit of a favourable estimate of Cronbach's alpha at the possible…