A method for incorporating maximum likelihood (ML) estimation into reliability analyses with item-level missing data is outlined. An ML estimate of the covariance matrix is first obtained using the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm, and coefficient alpha is subsequently computed using standard formulae. A simulation study demonstrated that…

This article discusses the effectiveness of a theoretical-based integrated learning environment (ILE) for training non-traditional learners to perform the skills required to be successful in entry-level jobs. The ILE places instruction in a real-world, workplace context with realistic settings, characters, and storylines. The multimedia interface…

Background: Terms such as 'clinical intuition' have often been applied to the practice of speech and language therapy. Various authors have aimed to make the process of therapy practice more explicit, and it is argued that recently developed descriptive/analytic frameworks have the potential to engender the critical mindset necessary for student…

While learning a complex skill in science using a computer-based simulation, optimal timing of information presentation facilitates learning and enhances test performance. An optimal information presentation format is proposed: supportive information is presented before practising a skill, and procedural information is presented during practice.…

This article reviews how and why the authors have used the cross-cultural simulation BAFA BAFA in a 1st-year social sciences inquiry course on social identity. The article discusses modifications made to Shirts's original script for BAFA BAFA, how the authors conduct the postsimulation debriefing, key aspects of the student-written reflection of…

Over the last several decades many systematic management approaches, such as Total Quality Management, aimed at improving organizational performance and employee satisfaction have captured organizations' attention. Given their origins in statistics, operations management, and engineering, many of the concepts and techniques are technical. When…

The performance of methods for detecting publication bias in meta-analysis was evaluated using Monte Carlo methods. Four methods of bias detection were investigated: Begg's rank correlation, Egger's regression, funnel plot regression, and trim and fill. Five factors were included in the simulation design: number of primary studies in each…

This study explored teachers' pedagogical strategies for using multimedia simulation to structure and support secondary science teaching. Expertise was investigated across a range of classroom settings to analyse how specialist knowledge is situated within and adapted to the teaching and learning context. Analysis of data arising from 10 lesson…

The impact of differences in maternal self-efficacy and infant difficulty on mothers' sensitivity to small changes in the fundamental frequency of an audiotaped infant's cry was explored in 2 experiments. The experiments share in common experimental manipulations of infant difficulty, a laboratory derived measure of maternal efficacy (low,…

The usefulness of assessing individual fit in latent growth curve models was examined. The study used simulated data based on an unconditional and a conditional latent growth curve model with a linear component and a small quadratic component and a linear model was fit to the data. Then the overall fit of linear and quadratic models to these data…

Measures of clinical significance are frequently used to evaluate client change during therapy. Several alternatives to the original method devised by N. S. Jacobson, W. C. Follette, & D. Revenstorf (1984) have been proposed, each purporting to increase accuracy. However, researchers have had little systematic guidance in choosing among…

The authors compare the operating characteristics of the bootstrap-F approach, a direct extension of the work of Berkovits, Hancock, and Nevitt, with Huynh's improved general approximation (IGA) and the Brown-Forsythe (BF) multivariate approach in a mixed repeated measures design when normality and multisample sphericity assumptions do not hold.…

Grounded theory can be effectively introduced in a survey course through a combination of lecture/demonstration and simulation. The class session presented here illustrates a way to introduce graduate students to the process of grounded theory and gain hands-on experience through simulation. The lesson utilizes concepts that the students are…

Like many forms of Pavlovian conditioning, eyelid conditioning displays robust extinction. We used a computer simulation of the cerebellum as a tool to consider the widely accepted view that extinction involves new, inhibitory learning rather than unlearning of acquisition. Previously, this simulation suggested basic mechanistic features of…

Ethnocentrism is a nearly universal syndrome of attitudes and behaviors, typically including in-group favoritism. Empirical evidence suggests that a predisposition to favor in-groups can be easily triggered by even arbitrary group distinctions and that preferential cooperation within groups occurs even when it is individually costly. The authors…