The aims of the present study were to measure the effects of individual answer (correct vs. incorrect), individual answer of group members (no vs. some vs. all correct), self-confidence about the responses (low vs. mid vs. high), sex (female vs. male students), and group size (2-4 students) on the odds for change and for correctness after peer…

This study aimed at providing explanation and prediction of principals' inclusive education intentions and practices under the framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). A sample of 209 principals from Hong Kong schools was surveyed using five scales that were developed to assess the five components of TPB: attitude, subjective norm,…

When a child does not seem to be ready for primary school, a popular practice is to grant the child more time by letting it repeat kindergarten. However, previous quasi-experimental research demonstrated negative, though diminishing, effects of kindergarten retention on academic learning during the first years of primary school. The present study…

A randomized control trial was conducted to study whether providing 10th grade students with information about the returns to upper secondary and tertiary education, and a source of financial aid for tertiary education, can contribute to improve student performance. The study finds that the intervention had no effects on the probability of taking…

We describe a web-based interactive graphic that can be used as a resource in introductory classes in mathematical statistics. This interactive graphic presents 76 common univariate distributions and gives details on (a) various features of the distribution such as the functional form of the probability density function and cumulative distribution…

Domestic attempts to use financial incentives for teachers to increase student achievement have been ineffective. In this paper, we demonstrate that exploiting the power of loss aversion--teachers are paid in advance and asked to give back the money if their students do not improve sufficiently--increases math test scores between 0.201 (0.076) and…

Background: The Emergency Severity Index (ESI) is an emergency department (ED) triage classification system based on estimated patient-specific resource utilization. Rules for a computerized clinical decision support (CDS) system based on a patient's chief complaint were developed and tested using a stochastic model for predicting ESI scores.…

Recent curricular developments suggest that students at all levels need to be statistically literate and able to efficiently and accurately make probabilistic decisions. Furthermore, statistical literacy is a requirement to being a well-informed citizen of society. Research also recognizes that the ability to reason probabilistically is supported…

In this dissertation research, we argue that spatial alarms and activity-based social networks are two fundamentally new types of information and influence diffusion channels. Such new channels have the potential of enriching our professional experiences and our personal life quality in many unprecedented ways. First, we develop an activity driven…

This article discusses results from interviews with two undergraduate students in an introductory proofs course. The researcher assessed the participants' general proof schemes and built models of the participants' conception of probabilistic independence and mutual exclusivity. The participants were then tasked with asserting a relationship…

It is good scientific practice to the report an appropriate estimate of effect size and a confidence interval (CI) to indicate the precision with which a population effect was estimated. For comparisons of 2 independent groups, a probability-based effect size estimator (A) that is equal to the area under a receiver operating characteristic curve…

This article discusses 3 ways in which adaptive developmental mechanisms may produce maladaptive outcomes. First, natural selection may favor risky strategies that enhance fitness on average but which have detrimental consequences for a subset of individuals. Second, mismatch may result when organisms experience environmental change during…

Although the trend of marital dissolution has diverged by education in recent decades, literature was not clear about whether African Americans experienced a significant educational difference in marital dissolution. This study hypothesized that educational differences within the African American community have emerged and that the growth in this…

Few studies have examined the effects of the high-probability instructional sequence in the treatment of food selectivity, and results of these studies have been mixed (e.g., Dawson et al., 2003; Patel et al., 2007). The present study extended previous research on the high-probability instructional sequence by combining this procedure with…

In this paper, we discuss the importance of teaching power considerations in statistical hypothesis testing. Statistical power analysis determines the ability of a study to detect a meaningful effect size, where the effect size is the difference between the hypothesized value of the population parameter under the null hypothesis and the true value…