The valuable insights of game theory sometimes remain out of reach for students who are overwhelmed by the subject's complexity. Comic book applications of game theory, with superheroes as players, can facilitate enthusiasm and classroom interaction to enhance the learning of game theory. Drawing from content in superhero movies and books, the…

The patterns of cumulated structured volleyball practice and other structured sports activities of elite adult Brazilian players, considering age of specialization in volleyball and achievement of international competition representing the national team, were examined using Bayesian multilevel models. Elite volleyball players (n = 78) with an…

Data from student learning provide learning curves that, ideally, demonstrate improvement in student performance over time. Existing data mining methods can leverage these data to characterize and improve the domain models that support a learning environment, and these methods have been validated both with already-collected data, and in…

Situation awareness is a key construct in human factors and arises from a process of situation assessment (SA). SA comprises the perception of information, its integration with existing knowledge, the search for new information, and the prediction of the future state of the world, including the consequences of planned actions. Causal models…

Statistical mediation allows researchers to investigate potential causal effects of experimental manipulations through intervening variables. It is a powerful tool for assessing the presence and strength of postulated causal mechanisms. Although mediation is used in certain areas of psychology, it is rarely applied in cognitive psychology and…

Network meta-analysis (NMA) combines direct and indirect evidence comparing more than 2 treatments. Inconsistency arises when these 2 information sources differ. Previous work focuses on inconsistency detection, but little has been done on how to proceed after identifying inconsistency. The key issue is whether inconsistency changes an NMA's…

Because of the continuing debates about statistics, many researchers may feel confused about how to analyze and interpret data. Current guidelines in psychology advocate the use of effect sizes and confidence intervals (CIs). However, researchers may be unsure about how to extract effect sizes from factorial designs. Contrast analysis is helpful…

Recall of remembered locations reliably reflects a compromise between a target's true position and its region's prototypical position. The effect is quite robust, and a standard interpretation for these data is that the metric and categorical codings blend in a Bayesian combinatory fashion. However, there has been no direct experimental evidence…

This article introduces a Bayesian method for testing the axioms of additive conjoint measurement. The method is based on an importance sampling algorithm that performs likelihood-free, approximate Bayesian inference using a synthetic likelihood to overcome the analytical intractability of this testing problem. This new method improves upon…

Single-case design is a repeated-measures research approach for the study of the effect of an intervention, and its importance is increasingly being recognized in education and psychology. We propose a Bayesian approach for estimating intervention effects in SCD. A Bayesian inference does not rely on large sample theories and thus is particularly…

This Monte Carlo simulation study aimed to investigate confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) estimation methods under different conditions, such as sample size, distribution of indicators, test length, average factor loading, and factor structure. Binary data were generated to compare the performance of maximum likelihood (ML), mean and variance…

Item nonresponses are prevalent in standardized testing. They happen either when students fail to reach the end of a test due to a time limit or quitting, or when students choose to omit some items strategically. Oftentimes, item nonresponses are nonrandom, and hence, the missing data mechanism needs to be properly modeled. In this paper, we…

Based on the framework of testlet models, the current study suggests the Bayesian random block item response theory (BRB IRT) model to fit forced-choice formats where an item block is composed of three or more items. To account for local dependence among items within a block, the BRB IRT model incorporated a random block effect into the response…

Despite broad applications of growth curve models, few studies have dealt with a practical issue -- nonnormality of data. Previous studies have used Student's "t" distributions to remedy the nonnormal problems. In this study, robust distributional growth curve models are proposed from a semiparametric Bayesian perspective, in which…

Coherent mental models for successful comprehension require inferences that establish semantic "bridges" between discourse constituents and "elaborations" that incorporate relevant background knowledge. While it is established that individual differences in the extent to which postsecondary students engage in these processes…