M-fluctuation tests are a recently proposed method for detecting differential item functioning in Rasch models. This article discusses a generalization of this method to two additional item response theory models: the two-parametric logistic model and the three-parametric logistic model with a common guessing parameter. The Type I error rate and…

Undoubtedly, every young dancer aspires to be an expert technician and artistically dazzling. Working toward that end, a dancer is aware that he or she needs to spend many hours of practice in technique classes and on the stage. However, a dancer might not consider the fact that to become the best dancer possible, he or she needs equal abilities…

Theoretical perspectives and empirical research suggest that acceptance of evolution may be contingent upon what is evolving (e.g., plants vs. humans) and the scale of change (microevolution vs. macroevolution). The Inventory of Student Evolution Acceptance (I-SEA) is the only instrument designed to measure acceptance at different evolutionary…

A question asked by many teachers, is "How do we motivate the unmotivated kid?" There are many theories about motivation in the classroom and in order for these theories to work, they must become actionable strategies. These theories can be organized into five different categories: Enthusiasm, Empowerment, Encouragement, Emotions and…

Teaching can be an emotionally exhausting profession, thus mechanisms that protect teachers from feeling emotionally overextended need to be investigated. In two studies, we examined the indirect role teacher-student relationships have on teachers' level of emotional exhaustion through teachers' experiences of enjoyment and anger. In the first, we…

This paper provides a comparative study of mathematics textbooks as the primary construct via the Anthropological Theory of Didactics (ATD), which was founded by Yves Chevallard. The aim is to suggest principles that can be incorporated to improve the designing of mathematics textbooks. Definitions, examples, and tasks dealing with the teaching…

Purpose: Previous work has found that both young and older adults exhibit a lexical bias in categorizing speech stimuli. In young adults, this has been argued to be an automatic influence of the lexicon on perceptual category boundaries. Older adults exhibit more top-down biases than younger adults, including an increased lexical bias. We…

In Germany, there are no self-report questionnaires assessing emotion awareness in youth under the age of 16 years or simultaneously with emotion suppression. The "Emotion Expression Scale for Children" (EESC) measuring lack of emotion awareness and reluctance to express emotions in 10- to 15-year-olds can fill this gap. Goal of this…

Current methods that simultaneously model differential testlet functioning (DTLF) and differential item functioning (DIF) constrain the variances of latent ability and testlet effects to be equal between the focal and the reference groups. Such a constraint can be stringent and unrealistic with real data. In this study, we propose a multigroup…

Delivering high rates of opportunities to respond (OTR) has been shown to improve student outcomes for students with challenging behavior. High rates of OTR can maximize student engagement while providing ways for teachers to quickly assess student content mastery. Given the increasing trend of technology use in schools, teachers can leverage…

Consistently, moderate to strong correlations between emotion regulation and depressive symptomology are well documented. This relationship is most often conceptualized as unidirectional, in that poor emotion regulation acts as a pre-existing risk factor for depressive symptomatology. However, explicit examinations of the direction of this…

Online surveys are frequently used in higher education to collect students' opinions. This study investigated the factors associated with students' willingness to respond to online surveys. Using 540 samples from undergraduate and graduate students in the United States, this study conducted a factor analysis to categorize the reasons that students…

The first time of many significant encounters is the most intense, raising awkwardness, anxiety and hope. This article presents data from doctoral students (n = 80) who described the first time that they submitted writing to their supervisor and received feedback. The first writing/feedback exchange is an initiation into the cultures of academia.…

The immediate extinction deficit describes a higher return of fear when extinction takes place immediately after fear acquisition compared to a delayed extinction design. One explanation for this phenomenon encompasses the remaining emotional arousal evoked by fear acquisition to be still present during immediate, but not delayed extinction. In…

We investigated how affective states influence expository text comprehension and whether text valence moderates the effects (i.e., mood congruency). In Experiment 1 participants were randomly assigned to a happy or sad affective state (elicited via films) before reading a positive or negative version of a scientific text on animal adaptations.…