This dissertation examined classification outcome differences among four popular individual supervised machine learning (ISML) models (logistic regression, decision tree, support vector machine, and multilayer perceptron) when predicting minor class membership within imbalanced datasets. The study context and the theoretical population sampled…

Using data from multiple informants has long been considered best practice in education. However, multiple informants often disagree on similar constructs, complicating decision-making. Polynomial regression and response-surface analysis (PRA) is often used to test the congruence effect between multiple informants on an outcome. However, PRA…

This study aims at highlighting the relationship between mastery learning models and academic performance in mathematics, moderated by the number of hours allotted to studying mathematics. There are 305 first to eighth-grade students who learn at "Nae A. Ghica Middle School" in Romania. Students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades…

Mixture IRT models address the heterogeneity in a population by extracting latent classes and allowing item parameters to vary between latent classes. Once the latent classes are extracted, they need to be further examined to be characterized. Some approaches have been adopted in the literature for this purpose. These approaches examine either the…

The ongoing literacy crisis in the U.S. highlights an urgent need for effective, scalable literacy instruction. REED Charitable Foundation (RCF) is a non-profit organization that provides structured literacy training informed by Orton-Gillingham, along with ongoing professional coaching and comprehensive implementation support to help all students…

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of existing insolvency predictive models employed for non-profit Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and test a proposed predictive model utilizing statistical and ratio analysis by comparing HEIs in operations with those that closed from 2017 to 2020. The researcher incorporated a non-experimental,…

This study investigated the relationships between perceived teacher empowerment, job satisfaction, and organizational climate among 206 randomly sampled kindergarten teachers in Shanghai, China. Chinese versions of the School Participant Empowerment Scale, the Teacher Work Satisfaction Survey, and the Organizational Climate Scale were validated…

This study aims to develop a competitiveness assessment index for global aviation training organizations. The study utilizes the four factors of the Diamond model developed by Michael Porter. To select candidate indices, expert consultations were made, and two stages of Delphi survey were conducted on 24 experts in the area of global aviation…

Two material 3D printing is becoming increasingly popular, inexpensive and accessible. In this paper, freely available printable files and dual extrusion fused deposition modelling were combined to create a number of functional anatomical models. To represent muscle and bone FilaFlex[superscript 3D] flexible filament and polylactic acid (PLA)…

Structured means analysis is a very useful approach for testing hypotheses about population means on latent constructs. In such models, a z test is most commonly used for testing the statistical significance of the relevant parameter estimates or of the differences between parameter estimates, where a z value is computed based on the asymptotic…

The theoretical reason for the presence of differential item functioning (DIF) is that data are multidimensional and two groups of examinees differ in their underlying ability distribution for the secondary dimension(s). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine how much the secondary ability distributions must differ before DIF is…

The need to understand how prospective students decide which higher education institution to attend is becoming of paramount importance as the policy context for higher education moves towards market-based systems in many countries. This paper provides a novel methodology by which student preferences between institutions can be assessed, using the…

This study evaluates the effectiveness of math placement policies for entering community college students on these students' academic success in math. We estimate the impact of placement decisions by using a discrete-time survival model within a regression discontinuity framework. The primary conclusion that emerges is that initial placement in a…

This exercise helps instructors teach students how to perform a simple event study. The study tests to see if stocks earn abnormal returns when added to the S&P 500. Students select a random sample of stocks that were added to the index between January 2000 and July 2015. The accompanying spreadsheet calculates cumulative abnormal returns and…

A latent variable modeling procedure is discussed that can be used to test if two or more homogeneous multicomponent instruments with distinct components are measuring the same underlying construct. The method is widely applicable in scale construction and development research and can also be of special interest in construct validation studies.…