The expectation that teachers will use student achievement data to improve their instruction is a major feature of national and local reform agendas. The theory of action behind data-driven decision making is a mostly causal model of professional action, whereby teachers diagnose weaknesses and implement solutions. The purpose of this article is…

The purpose of this study is to explain constructed theoretical models that organizational cynicism perceptions of primary school teachers affect school culture and academic achievement, by using structural equation modeling. With the assumption that there is a cause-effect relationship between three main variables, the study was constructed with…

This excellent set of papers is comprehensive and very well written. The Kane et al. paper lays out the theory for linear equating with the NEAT design using a clever but simple framework. The Suh et al. paper is an excellent empirical study of the various methods. The Mroch et al. paper provides an insightful evaluation of the methods as…

Missing data, especially when coupled with noncompliance, are a challenge even in the setting of randomized experiments. Although some existing methods can address each complication, it can be difficult to handle both of them simultaneously. This is true in the example of the New York City School Choice Scholarship Program, where both the…

The functional link between genetic alteration and behavioral end-state is rarely straightforward and never linear. Cases where neurodevlopmental conditions defined by a distinct genetic etiology share behavioral phenotypes are exemplary, as is the case for autism and Fragile X Syndrome (FXS). In this paper and its companion paper, we propose a…

Mediation is usually assessed by a regression-based or structural equation modeling (SEM) approach that we refer to as the classical approach. This approach relies on the assumption that there are no confounders that influence both the mediator, "M", and the outcome, "Y". This assumption holds if individuals are randomly…

This article presents a systemic, research-based cause analysis model for use in the field of human performance technology (HPT). The model organizes the most prominent barriers to workplace learning and performance into a conceptual framework that explains and illuminates the architecture of these barriers that exist within the fabric of everyday…

Maxwell, Cole, and Mitchell (2011) extended the work of Maxwell and Cole (2007), which raised important questions about whether mediation analyses based on cross-sectional data can shed light on longitudinal mediation process. The latest article considers longitudinal processes that can only be partially explained by an intervening variable, and…

A fundamental issue for theories of human induction is to specify constraints on potential inferences. For inferences based on shared category membership, an analogy, and/or a relational schema, it appears that the basic goal of induction is to make accurate and goal-relevant inferences that are sensitive to uncertainty. People can use source…

The central goal of our study was to explore the nature of the explanations generated by science and engineering majors with basic training in chemistry to account for the colligative properties of solutions. The work was motivated by our broader interest in the characterisation of the dominant types of explanations that science college students…

Legitimate knowledge claims about causation have been a central concern among evaluators and applied researchers for several decades and often have been the subject of heated debates. In recent years these debates have resurfaced with a renewed intensity, due in part to the priority currently being given to randomized experiments by many funders…

Constructing a computational model of conceptual change for a computer-based scientific inquiry learning environment is difficult due to two challenges: (i) externalizing the variables of conceptual change and its related variables is difficult. In addition, defining the causal dependencies among the variables is also not trivial. Such difficulty…

The present study aimed to explain elementary teacher candidates' energy conservation behaviors by using Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) Theory. Participants in this study were 512 students at Faculty of Education from two public universities in Turkey. Of the 512 students, 35.5% were enrolled in the early childhood education program, 30.9% were in the…

To assess the value of individual students' subscores on the Major Field Test in Business (MFT Business), I examined the test's internal structure with factor analysis and structural equation model methods, and analyzed the subscore reliabilities using the augmented scores method. Analyses of the internal structure suggested that the MFT Business…

Background: Both achievement goals and study processing strategies theories have been shown to contribute to the prediction of students' academic performance. Existing research studies (Fenollar, Roman, & Cuestas, 2007; Liem, Lau, & Nie, 2008; Simons, Dewitte, & Lens, 2004) amalgamating these two theoretical orientations in different causal models…