Given the increased risk factors in the transition from middle school to high school, this study tracked academic and school discipline records for students receiving general and special education services as they transitioned from Grade 8 to Grade 9. The authors employed analysis of variance and structural equation modeling to determine the…

A sample of 58 students in career and technology teacher education and training and development was surveyed to determine self-perception as to their competency in five constructs containing 43 elements related to personal computer knowledge and skills. In an analysis of all computer knowledge and skill elements combined, there was no…

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the effects of remedial reading instruction on the basic reading skills of elementary and middle school students with high-incidence disabilities (n = 45) and their comparison condition counterparts (n = 23); and (b) to examine the relative responsiveness of participating students with…

This investigation examined the comparative effects of "Reading Success Level B" on the reading comprehension skills of 78 fifth graders across three general education classrooms. Three student subgroups were formed based on pretest Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) reading levels including high (n = 14), average (n = 50), and low (n = 14)…

This study evaluates the reliability of self-assessment as a measure of computer competence. This evaluation is carried out in response to recent research which has employed self-reported ratings as the sole indicator of students' computer competence. To evaluate the reliability of self-assessed computer competence, the scores achieved by students…

Population invariance is an important requirement of test equating. An equating function is said to be population invariant when the choice of (sub)population used to compute the equating function does not matter. In recent studies, the extent to which equating functions are population invariant is typically addressed in terms of practical…

P. A. Frazier, A. P. Tix, and K. E. Barron (2004) highlighted a normal theory method popularized by R. M. Baron and D. A. Kenny (1986) for testing the statistical significance of indirect effects (i.e., mediator variables) in multiple regression contexts. However, simulation studies suggest that this method lacks statistical power relative to some…

This paper begins with a general discussion of statistical significance, effect size, and power analysis; and concludes by extending the discussion to the multivariate case (MANOVA). Historically, traditional statistical significance testing has guided researchers' thinking about the meaningfulness of their data. The use of significance testing…

Problems inherent in relying solely on statistical significance testing as a means of data interpretation are reviewed. The biggest problem with statistical significance testing is that researchers have used the results of this testing to ascribe importance or meaning to their studies where such meaning often does not exist. Often researchers…

The original nine programs for semantic differential analysis have been condensed into three programs which have been further refined and augmented. They yield: (1) means, standard deviations, and standard errors for each subscale on each concept; (2) Evaluation, Potency, and Activity (EPA) means, standard deviations, and standard errors; (3)…

Researchers increasingly recognize that significance tests are limited in their ability to inform scientific practice. Common errors in interpreting significance tests and three strategies for augmenting the interpretation of significance test results are illustrated. The first strategy for augmenting the interpretation of significance tests…

Use of "special" orthonormal mean contrasts and mean contrast variances can help educational researchers interpret a wide variety of repeated measures data. Most statistical packages allow educational researchers to test for differences across repeated measures using both the univariate mixed model F test and a multivariate test.…

Power is an indicator of the ability of a statistical analysis to detect a phenomenon that does in fact exist. The issue of power is crucial for social science research because sample size, effects, and relationships studied tend to be small and the power of a study relates directly to the size of the effect of interest and the sample size.…