The design and psychometric methodology of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is constantly evolving to meet the changing interests and demands stemming from a rapidly shifting educational landscape. NAEP has been built on strong research foundations that include conducting extensive evaluations and comparisons before new…

When using the Rasch model, equating with a nonequivalent groups anchor test design is commonly achieved by adjustment of new form item difficulty using an additive equating constant. Using simulated 5-year data, this report compares 4 approaches to calculating the equating constants and the subsequent impact on equating results. The 4 approaches…

The usefulness of item response theory (IRT) models depends, in large part, on the accuracy of item and person parameter estimates. For the standard 3 parameter logistic model, for example, these parameters include the item parameters of difficulty, discrimination, and pseudo-chance, as well as the person ability parameter. Several factors impact…

In the causal inference literature, evaluating blocking from a potential outcomes perspective has two main branches of work. The first focuses on larger blocks, with multiple treatment and control units in each block. The second focuses on matched pairs, with a single treatment and control unit in each block. These literatures not only provide…

Measuring socioeconomic status (SES) is very important in educational research, as researchers often use this information to contextualize the results of an assessment or to control for SES when analyzing the relationship between academic achievement and other variables. However, any cross-country comparisons using SES data from international…

The random-effects model, applied in most meta-analyses nowadays, typically assumes normality of the distribution of the effect parameters. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of various random-effects methods (standard method, Hartung's method, profile likelihood method, and bootstrapping) for computing an average effect size…

When testing a statistical mediation model, it is assumed that factorial measurement invariance holds for the mediating construct across levels of the independent variable X. The consequences of failing to address the violations of measurement invariance in mediation models are largely unknown. The purpose of the present study was to…

This study investigated the effects of linking potentially multidimensional test forms using the fixed item parameter calibration. Forms had equal or unequal total test difficulty with and without confounding difficulty. The mean square errors and bias of estimated item and ability parameters were compared across the various confounding tests. The…

Autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation, which provide a mathematical tool to understand repeating patterns in time series data, are often used to facilitate the identification of model orders of time series models (e.g., moving average and autoregressive models). Asymptotic methods for testing autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation such…

As the field of chemistry education moves toward greater inclusion and increased participation by underrepresented minorities, standards for investigating the differential impacts and outcomes of learning environments have to be considered. While quantitative methods may not be capable of generating the in-depth nuances of qualitative methods,…

Although the root-mean squared deviation (RMSD) is a popular statistical measure for evaluating country-specific item-level misfit (i.e., differential item functioning [DIF]) in international large-scale assessment, this paper shows that its sensitivity to detect misfit may depend strongly on the proficiency distribution of the considered…

Systematic reviewers conducting pairwise meta-analyses sometimes encounter multi-arm studies. To include these studies, and to avoid a unit-of-analysis error, often two or more arms are combined or the control arm is split. In this tutorial, we present 5 different approaches that can be used. Particularly, we present a novel approach (method 4)…

Researchers attempting to survey refugees over time face methodological issues because of the transient nature of the target population. In this article, we examine whether applying smartphone technology could alleviate these issues. We interviewed 529 refugees and afterward invited them to four follow-up mobile web surveys and to install a…

The increase of cross-cultural studies and intervention programs, based on the self-determination theory, highlights the urge for validated scales to ensure high-quality research, particularly in the domain of physical education. The present study aimed at evaluating the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the revised Perceived…

Researchers seeking to make valid conclusions about engagement for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) must first determine the reliability of estimates obtained across the conditions sampled. Working from that premise, we conducted a secondary data analysis of shared book readings between caregivers and their children with ASD,…