We developed an interactive online textbook that interleaves R programming activities with text as a way to facilitate students' understanding of statistical ideas while minimizing the cognitive and emotional burden of learning programming. In this exploratory study, we characterize the attitudes and experiences of 672 undergraduate students as…

The data presented in this report provide facts about the extent to which local, state, and national governments commit resources to public education. As one might expect in a nation as diverse as the United States--with respect to economics, geography, and politics--the level of commitment to education varies on a state-by-state basis. Thus, NEA…

Learner engagement is well-established as critical for learning online. Professional development for online instructors emphasizes techniques for engaging students, and learning technology products tout features intended to promote engagement (e.g., adaptive content, video, gamification). But the influence of particular instructor practices and of…

Tests of statistical significance often play a decisive role in establishing the empirical warrant of evidence-based research in education. The results from pattern-based assessment items, as introduced in this paper, are categorical and multimodal and do not immediately support the use of measures of central tendency as typically related to…

This dissertation asks how to improve science education and science communication, and suggests that digital storytelling techniques can be used to better engage learners in the process of knowledge making. Digital storytelling refers to both the use of high-quality digital media content as learning materials, and also to the use of social…

This paper analyzes how changes in school expenditures affect dropout rates based on data from 466 school districts in New York during the 2003/04 to the 2007/08 school years. Past traditional regression approaches show mixed results in part because school expenditures are likely endogenous, so that one cannot disentangle cause and effect. The…

Families are essential partners in efforts to elevate the employment outcomes of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). We examined the employment-related expectations, preferences, and concerns of 673 parents and other family members of adults with IDD. Participants prioritized paid integrated employment over sheltered…

Every year, over 20,000 Hispanics enlist in the U.S. military. Their military experiences influence their long-term educational outcomes. This exploratory study estimates the effect of military service on education level completed by men up to 15 years after initial enlistment. Findings suggest that technical military jobs, more than nontechnical…

Assessment is necessary, but difficult, in statistics education. Multiple choice assessments are common, particularly for research purposes. Open-ended assessments may be more adept at revealing student understanding, but ensuring their validity can be difficult. The study presented here examines differences in student descriptions of histograms…

Recent research has established that teachers matter for student achievements, albeit because of dimensions of 'teacher quality' that are largely unexplained. A less closely investigated issue is whether teacher turnover directly harms student academic achievement. In this paper, we examine whether teacher turnover affects academic achievement of…

Recently, the number of regression models has dramatically increased in several academic fields. However, within the context of meta-analysis, synthesis methods for such models have not been developed in a commensurate trend. One of the difficulties hindering the development is the disparity in sets of covariates among literature models. If the…

Meta-analysis can necessitate the combination of parallel and cross-over trial designs. Because of the differences in the trial designs and potential biases notably associated with the crossover trials, one often combines trials of the same designs only, which decreases the power of the meta-analysis. To combine results of clinical trials from…

Unidimensionality and local independence are two common assumptions of item response theory. The former implies that all items measure a common latent trait, while the latter implies that responses are independent, conditional on respondents' location on the latent trait. Yet, few tests are truly unidimensional. Unmodeled dimensions may result in…

Response accuracy and response time data can be analyzed with a joint model to measure ability and speed of working, while accounting for relationships between item and person characteristics. In this study, person-fit statistics are proposed for joint models to detect aberrant response accuracy and/or response time patterns. The person-fit tests…

Purpose: This quantitative study aims to examine the impact of accumulated knowledge of accounting on the academic performance of Cost Accounting students. Design/methodology/approach The sample consisted of 89 students enrolled in the Accounting program run by a business college in Kuwait during 2015. Correlation and linear least squares…