When exposed to principal components analysis for the first time, students can sometimes miss the primary purpose of the analysis. Often the focus is solely on data reduction and what to do after the dimensions of the data have been reduced is ignored. The datasets discussed here can be used as an in-class example, a homework assignment, or a…

When a psychologist announces a new research finding, it is often based on a rejected null hypothesis. However, if that hypothesis is true, the claim is a false alarm. Many students mistakenly believe that the probability of committing a false alarm equals alpha, the criterion for statistical significance, which is typically set at 5%. Instructors…

In the United States, increased pressure through accountability policy and through the production and dissemination of scientifically based research are intended to create conditions for improving research use. Concurrently, researchers, education agencies, and funders have mounted efforts to strengthen relationships between research and…

When comparing social science phenomena through a time perspective, absolute and relative difference (RD) are the two typical presentation formats used to communicate interpretations to the audience, while time distance (TD) is the least frequently used of such formats. This article argues that the chosen presentation format is extremely important…

This study investigated the process of instructional change required to translate data on student progress along learning trajectories (LTs) into relevant instructional modifications. Researchers conducted a professional development session on ratio LTs, which included analyzing 3 years of district-level data from Math-Mapper 6-8, a digital…

St. Pierre (2015) suggested that researchers consider entering into research through an interest in, and a deep investigation of, a specific concept. Deleuze and Guattari (1994) maintained that a concept is a nebulous structure of a network of ideas that continuously remains unfolding. Therefore, researching a concept becomes an attempt at…

Physics education research (PER) has long used concept inventories to investigate student learning over time and to compare performance across various student subpopulations. PER has traditionally used normalized gain to explore these questions but has begun to use established methods from other fields, including Cohen's "d," multiple…

School-based teams are a core method for stakeholder collaboration and coordination. Although school teams are responsible for making numerous decisions, a limited number of measures exist to support the evaluation of these meetings, none of which span the full range of hypothesized meeting quality variables (e.g., meeting structure, use of data).…

In this paper, Signild Vallgårda (SV) investigates why a ban against the use of industrially produced trans fatty acids in foods was introduced in Denmark as the first country in the world. SV correctly states that our part of, and activity in that process, represent a combination of scientific work and 'policymaking'. We, however object to some…

A distinction is made between scores as measures of a construct and predictions of a criterion or outcome variable. The interpretation attached to predictions of criteria, such as job performance or college grade point average (GPA), differs from that attached to scores that are measures of a construct, such as reading proficiency or knowledge…

Introducing kindergarten children to the engineering design process (EDP) is an important objective of early STEM education. Studies indicate that children often miss the crucial steps of testing and optimising during the EDP and do not persist in making solutions better. The present study explores how children's goal awareness, self-evaluation…

Racial bias in research impacts a study's relevancy, validity and reliability, though presently this aspect is not addressed in critical appraisal tools, and consequently appraisers may not take racial bias into account when assessing a paper's quality. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT) tenets that racism is ubiquitous and race a social…

With the present forum contribution, I respond to the paper "Discerning contextual complexities in STEM career pathways--Insights from successful Latinas" by Alejandro Gallard Martínez, Wesley Pitts, Silvia Lizette Ramos de Robles, Katie L. Milton Brkich, Belinda Flores Bustos, and Lorena Claeys. I aim to augment the thoughts of Gallard…

Activity Theory (AT) is increasingly employed as a lens to guide data analysis in information systems (IS) studies. The theory is also applied to assess and evaluate information systems and technologies (IS/IT) in organisations. Even though its popularity continues to increase in both business and academic domains, there is no formal or assessment…

In recent years, the emphasis on interaction in data use has grown because of its potential to support individual teachers. However, in practice, teachers do not appear to interact widely in their use of data, either formally or informally. To gain knowledge of how sustainable data use interactions can be facilitated, this study investigated how…