Elevated rates of risky behavior among Latino youth have been linked to features of acculturation such as discrepant rates of acculturation between parents and adolescents. This study examined how parent-adolescent mainstream and Mexican cultural gaps are differentially related to adolescent risky behavior through family conflict, parental…

Purpose: This study aims to examine university students' acceptance of e-learning systems in Pakistan. A Web-based learning system is a new form of utilizing technological features. Although, developed countries have initiated and established the concept for e-learning, developing countries require empirical support to implement e-learning.…

In this study attempt was made to model the environmental literacy of Malaysian pre-university students enrolled in a matriculation college. Students enrolled in the matriculation colleges in Malaysia are the top notch students in the country. Environmental literacy of this group is perceived important because in the future these students will be…

Energy literacy is indispensable for a sustainable society, which is fostered and improved by formal and informal energy education. To achieve the goal of energy education, which develops a well-informed public with positive attitudes toward energy conservation and the ability to make appropriate decisions regarding future energy choices, we must…

Spline (or piecewise) regression models have been used in the past to account for patterns in observed data that exhibit distinct phases. The changepoint or knot marking the shift from one phase to the other, in many applications, is an unknown parameter to be estimated. As an extension of this framework, this research considers modeling the…

The full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) method makes it possible to estimate and analyze structural equation models (SEM) even when data are partially missing, enabling incomplete data to contribute to model estimation. The cornerstone of FIML is the missing-at-random (MAR) assumption. In (unidimensional) computerized adaptive testing…

This brief presents initial evidence about the reliability and validity of a novice teacher survey and a novice teacher supervisor survey. The novice teacher and novice teacher supervisor surveys assess how well prepared novice teachers are to meet the job requirements of teaching. The surveys are designed to provide educator preparation programs…

In this commentary, David Thissen states that "Goodness-of-fit assessment for IRT models is maturing; it has come a long way from zero." Thissen then references prior works on "goodness of fit" in the index of Lord and Novick's (1968) classic text; Yen (1984); Drasgow, Levine, Tsien, Williams, and Mead (1995); Chen and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the differentiation and correlates of shyness and unsociability during early adolescence in urban and rural China. Participants were 93 urban and 229 rural Chinese sixth- to eighth-graders. Students rated their shyness, unsociability, fear of negative evaluation, self-efficacy for peer interactions, and…

Student perceptions of the purposes of assessment have been shown to be significant predictors of self-regulated learning. Their relationship to achievement emotions is less well understood. This paper reports a survey study of Chinese middle and high school students (N = 1,393) self-reported conceptions of the purpose of assessment and their…

Openness to experience is a personality factor in the five-factor model of personality, and it is composed of six facets. Facets of openness appear conceptually analogous to overexcitabilities (OEs), which are displays of inner energy guiding individuals toward advanced potential according to the theory of positive disintegration. This study…

Objectives: This study examines three preparatory strategies that can be used during treatment sessions to bridge the gap between clinician recommendations for client participation in 12-step programs (TSPs) and client adherence to such recommendations. Methods: A sample of 284 clinicians completed an online survey. Clinicians responded to items…

Purpose: This research aims to examine the factors that may hinder or enable the adoption of e-learning systems by university students. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual framework was developed through extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, habit,…

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is now a generic modeling framework for many multivariate techniques applied in the social and behavioral sciences. Many statistical models can be considered either as special cases of SEM or as part of the latent variable modeling framework. One popular extension is the use of SEM to conduct linear mixed-effects…

Determining an appropriate sample size for use in latent variable modeling techniques has presented ongoing challenges to researchers. In particular, small sample sizes are known to present concerns over sampling error for the variances and covariances on which model estimation is based, as well as for fit indexes and convergence failures. The…