Microblogging social networks (µBSNs) provide the opportunity to communicate worldwide while using a small number of characters; this is an apparent limitation that forces users to share only essential information when linking to the world with which they interact. These platforms can serve to motivate students by narrowing the physical and…

The present two-wave longitudinal study examined the extent to which physical education (PE) teachers' democratic and socially supportive behavior, pupils' goal orientations, and the perceived motivational climate in PE explained differences in pupils' intended helping behavior by gender in PE classes. The results of 105 boys and 109 girls based…

Researchers in career and technical education often ignore more effective ways of reporting and treating missing data and instead implement traditional, but ineffective, missing data methods (Gemici, Rojewski, & Lee, 2012). The recent methodological, and even the non-methodological, literature has increasingly emphasized the importance of…

A well-known ad-hoc approach to conducting structural equation modeling with missing data is to obtain a saturated maximum likelihood (ML) estimate of the population covariance matrix and then to use this estimate in the complete data ML fitting function to obtain parameter estimates. This 2-stage (TS) approach is appealing because it minimizes a…

When data are not missing at random (NMAR), maximum likelihood (ML) procedure will not generate consistent parameter estimates unless the missing data mechanism is correctly modeled. Understanding NMAR mechanism in a data set would allow one to better use the ML methodology. A survey or questionnaire may contain many items; certain items may be…

Through the rapid expansion of information technologies, Learning Management Systems have become one of the most important innovations for delivering education. However, successful implementation and management of these systems are primarily based on the instructors' adoption. In this context, this study aims to understand behavioral intentions…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to understand the attitudes of Taiwanese adult citizens over 18 years of age toward science and technology. A theoretical model is constructed and evaluated to identify factors that affect public attitudes. Differences in citizens' gender, age, and educational level are also examined to determine whether…

A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to investigate the robustness of 4 latent variable interaction modeling approaches (Constrained Product Indicator [CPI], Generalized Appended Product Indicator [GAPI], Unconstrained Product Indicator [UPI], and Latent Moderated Structural Equations [LMS]) under high degrees of nonnormality of the observed…

In multilevel structural equation modeling, the "standard" approach to evaluating the goodness of model fit has a potential limitation in detecting the lack of fit at the higher level. Level-specific model fit evaluation can address this limitation and is more informative in locating the source of lack of model fit. We proposed level-specific test…

The purpose of this study was to explore the learning strategies used by ethnically diverse learners and to investigate the relationships among the constructs of classroom goal structure, achievement goal orientation, motivation and self-regulated learning in an ethnically diverse population of fourth and fifth grade learners (n = 396). Goal…

There has been considerable interest in nonlinear latent variable models specifying interaction between latent variables. Although it seems to be only slightly more complex than linear regression without the interaction, the model that includes a product of latent variables cannot be estimated by maximum likelihood assuming normality.…

Recent missing data studies have argued in favor of an "inclusive analytic strategy" that incorporates auxiliary variables into the estimation routine, and Graham (2003) outlined methods for incorporating auxiliary variables into structural equation analyses. In practice, the auxiliary variables often have missing values, so it is reasonable to…

The study investigates different models of personality and cognitive factors in teacher training courses at Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) and universities. We used Ego Identity (EI), Professional Identity (PI) of teachers, and Self Regulated Learning (SRL) as personality measures, and Metacognitive Knowledge (MAI), Field Experience Grades…

Evaluating the fit of a structural equation model via bootstrap requires a transformation of the data so that the null hypothesis holds exactly in the sample. For complete data, such a transformation was proposed by Beran and Srivastava (1985) for general covariance structure models and applied to structural equation modeling by Bollen and Stine…

Mindfulness, an ancient spiritual practice, is becoming an increasingly popular component of communication courses, training individuals to reserve judgment in their dealings with others. However, the effects of mindfulness in communication courses are not well researched. We compared students taking an introductory communication course that…