This multiple-manuscript dissertation explored the measurement invariance (MI) testing with multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA) approach from different perspectives. Study 1 explored MI from a theoretical perspective by conducting a systematic review study on MI practices in education. The findings of this study indicated…

Analyses that reveal how treatment effects vary allow researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to better understand the efficacy of educational interventions. In practice, however, standard statistical methods for addressing heterogeneous treatment effects (HTE) fail to address the HTE that may exist "within" outcome measures. In…

Traditional IRT characteristic curve linking methods ignore parameter estimation errors, which may undermine the accuracy of estimated linking constants. Two new linking methods are proposed that take into account parameter estimation errors. The item- (IWCC) and test-information-weighted characteristic curve (TWCC) methods employ weighting…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the Type I Error findings and power rates of the methods used to determine dimensionality in unidimensional and bidimensional psychological constructs for various conditions (characteristic of the distribution, sample size, length of the test, and interdimensional correlation) and to examine the joint…

Staggered adoption of policies by different units at different times creates promising opportunities for observational causal inference. Estimation remains challenging, however, and common regression methods can give misleading results. A promising alternative is the synthetic control method (SCM), which finds a weighted average of control units…

Background and Context: In 2016, our team designed and implemented a cluster-randomized trial of a school-based empowerment training program, targeting adolescent girls in Nairobi, Kenya (Baiocchi et al., 2019; Rosenman et al., 2020). In that study, the primary outcome was the experience of sexual violence in the prior year. Participants disclosed…

Measures of agreement are compared to measures of prediction accuracy within a general context. Differences in appropriate use are emphasized, and approaches are examined for both numerical and nominal variables. General estimation methods are developed, and their large-sample properties are compared.

Attention and executive function (EF) dysregulation are common in a number of disorders including autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Better understanding of the relationship between indirect and direct measures of attention and EF and common neurodevelopmental diagnoses may contribute to more efficient and effective…

Despite several psychometric advantages over the 50-item Autism Spectrum Quotient, an instrument used to measure autistic traits, the abridged AQ-28 and its cross-cultural validity have not been examined as extensively. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the factor structure and measurement invariance of the AQ-28 in 818 Dutch (M[subscript…

Mediation analysis plays an important role in understanding causal processes in social and behavioral sciences. While path analysis with composite scores was criticized to yield biased parameter estimates when variables contain measurement errors, recent literature has pointed out that the population values of parameters of latent-variable models…

The current study aims to evaluate the performance of three non-IRT procedures (i.e., normal approximation, Livingston-Lewis, and compound multinomial) for estimating classification indices when the observed score distribution shows atypical patterns: (a) bimodality, (b) structural (i.e., systematic) bumpiness, or (c) structural zeros (i.e., no…

One question frequently included in surveys asks about respondents' earnings. As this information serves, for example, as a basis for evaluating policy interventions, it must be of high quality. This study aims to advance knowledge about possible measurement errors in earnings data and the potential of data linkage to improve substantive…

A common belief is that the Bookmark method is a cognitively simpler standard-setting method than the modified Angoff method. However, a limited amount of research has investigated panelist's ability to perform well the Bookmark method, and whether some of the challenges panelists face with the Angoff method may also be present in the Bookmark…

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of chance success on test equalization. For this purpose, artificially generated 500 and 1000 sample size data sets were synchronized using linear equalization and equal percentage equalization methods. In the data which were produced as a simulative, a total of four cases were created with no…

The purpose of the current article is to introduce the equating and evaluation methods used in this special issue. Although a comprehensive review of all existing models and methodologies would be impractical given the format, a brief introduction to some of the more popular models will be provided. A brief discussion of the conditions required…