This study attempted to increase the size of the correlation between person-environment (P-E) fit and job satisfaction by rescaling the instrumentation of the Theory of Work Adjustment using the Bradley-Terry-Luce method and a probability-based fit index. This approach worked as well as, but failed to outperform, the currently used…

The authors argue that a robust version of Cohen's effect size constructed by replacing population means with 20% trimmed means and the population standard deviation with the square root of a 20% Winsorized variance is a better measure of population separation than is Cohen's effect size. The authors investigated coverage probability for…

In their comment on D. Trafimow, M. D. Lee and E. Wagenmakers argued that the requisite probabilities to use in Bayes's theorem can always be found. In the present reply, the author asserts that M. D. Lee and E. Wagenmakers use a problematic assumption and that finding the requisite probabilities is not straightforward. After describing the…

In Bayesian statistics, the choice of the prior distribution is often controversial. Different rules for selecting priors have been suggested in the literature, which, sometimes, produce priors that are difficult for the students to understand intuitively. In this article, we use a simple heuristic to illustrate to the students the rather…

Courses in clinical epidemiology usually include acquainting students with a single 2X2 table. All diagnostic test characteristics are explained using this table. This pedagogic approach may be misleading. A new didactic approach is hereby proposed, using two tables, each with specific analogous notations (uppercase and lowercase) and derived…

The treatment of uncertainty in the business classroom has been dominated by the application of risk theory to the utility-maximization framework. Nonetheless, the relevance of the standard risk model as a positive description of economic decision making often has been called into question in theoretical work. In this article, the authors offer an…

An activity using a game-related setting is presented for students to investigate probability and statistics.

In Experiment 1 with rats, a left lever press led to a 5-s delay and then a possible reinforcer. A right lever press led to an adjusting delay and then a certain reinforcer. This delay was adjusted over trials to estimate an indifference point, or a delay at which the two alternatives were chosen about equally often. Indifference points increased…

Gilbert Gottlieb's theory of probabilistic epigenesis replaced the nature-nurture dichotomy, and similar oppositions, with an integrated account of the development of the entire behavioral phenotype. In that theory, invariant developmental outcomes cannot be identified with an organism's 'nature,' if by that term is meant a set of predetermined…

When behavior suggests that the value of a reinforcer depends inversely on the value of the events that precede or follow it, the behavior has been described as a "contrast" effect. Three major forms of contrast have been studied: "incentive contrast," in which a downward (or upward) shift in the magnitude of reinforcement produces a relatively…

Most traditional models, frameworks, and findings that apply to the majority of students and faculty do not adequately apply to important subpopulations. The recommendations here will help researchers become more sensitive to the nuances among various educational subgroups, and to pay more attention to outliers.

A truancy intervention pilot project was implemented in an urban high school and incorporated two innovative approaches: (a) student enrollment in a school-based health center for comprehensive health services, and (b) recruitment of teachers from within the students' school to engage in mentored relationships. Students with 15 or more days of…

The No Child Left Behind Act has brought great attention to the effectiveness of math and literacy program in U.S. Schools. Literacy instruction was the hot topic of the 1990s, but numeracy has taken center stage in current education debates. Although the importance of literacy skills in other subject areas is quite obvious, the connection between…

Objective: The problems children have upon entering foster care can potentially explain prior research findings that frequent placement changes are associated with poor outcomes. This study sought to disentangle this cascading relationship in order to identify the independent impact of placement stability on behavioral outcomes downstream.…

In many mathematics classes, students are asked to learn via the discovery method, in the hope that the intrinsic beauty of mathematics becomes more accessible and that making conjectures, forming hypotheses, and analyzing patterns will help them compute fluently and solve problems creatively and resourcefully (NCTM 2000). The activity discussed…