Clustering methods are often used in physics education research (PER) to identify subgroups of individuals within a population who share similar response patterns or characteristics. Among these, k-means (or k-modes, for categorical data) is one of the most commonly used clustering methods in PER. This algorithm, however, is distance-based rather…

Quantitative reasoning (QR) is a key skill for undergraduate biology education. Despite this, many students struggle with QR. Here, we use the theoretical framework of student noticing to investigate why some students struggle with QR in introductory biology labs. Under this framework, what students notice when given new information and data…

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a statistical method widely used in educational research to investigate relationships between variables. SEM models are typically constructed based on theoretical foundations and assessed through fit indices. However, a well-fitting SEM model alone is not sufficient to verify the causal inferences underlying…

In many educational intervention programs, it is not possible to randomly assign students to an experimental and control condition. For example, in our research we wanted to compare students who were enrolled in a biomedical pathway program to students who were not in such a program. However, students select their academic pathway program and a…

Learning in asynchronous online environments has gained importance over the last several decades, and educational environment shifts from the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have increased this need. Science educators and students need information about which approaches work in the asynchronous environment where informal feedback tends to be reduced,…

The purpose of this research is to identify the situation through content analysis of scale development studies conducted by Turkish researchers in the field of preschool education. Thus, the overall trend of scale development research in preschool education was established. This research is a document analysis study. The documents studied are…

Across the field of education research there has been an increased focus on the development, critique, and evaluation of statistical methods and data usage due to recently created, very large datasets and machine learning techniques. In physics education research (PER), this increased focus has recently been shown through the 2019 Physical Review…

Physics education researchers (PER) commonly use complete-case analysis to address missing data. For complete-case analysis, researchers discard all data from any student who is missing any data. Despite its frequent use, no PER article we reviewed that used complete-case analysis provided evidence that the data met the assumption of missing…

Assessment instruments that generate quantitative data on attributes (cognitive, affective, behavioral, "etc.") of participants are commonly used in the chemistry education community to draw conclusions in research studies or inform practice. Recently, articles and editorials have stressed the importance of providing evidence for the…

A priori power analyses allow researchers to estimate the number of participants needed to detect the effects of an intervention. However, power analyses are only as valid as the parameter estimates used. One such parameter, the expected effect size, can vary greatly depending on several study characteristics, including the nature of the…

Promoting understanding of the epistemologies of science has long been the primary objective in science education, and can be viewed as a form of science learning outcome. Many studies have attempted to understand learners' conceptions of epistemology in science from various perspectives and methods; however, no recent reviews have focused on the…

As the field of chemistry education moves toward greater inclusion and increased participation by underrepresented minorities, standards for investigating the differential impacts and outcomes of learning environments have to be considered. While quantitative methods may not be capable of generating the in-depth nuances of qualitative methods,…

While other fields such as statistics and education have examined various issues with quantitative work, few studies in physics education research (PER) have done so. We conducted a two-phase study to identify and to understand the extent of these issues in quantitative PER. During phase 1, we conducted a focus group of three experts in this area,…

The Monte Carlo method and related multiple imputation methods are traditionally used in math, physics and science to estimate and analyze data and are now becoming standard tools in analyzing business and financial problems. However, few sources explain the application of the Monte Carlo method for individuals and business professionals who are…

Experimental research in education and training programs typically involves administering treatment to whole groups of individuals. As such, researchers rely on the estimation of design parameter values to conduct power analyses to efficiently plan their studies to detect desired effects. In this study, we present design parameter estimates from a…