In applications of item response theory (IRT) models, it is known that empirical violations of the local independence (LI) assumption can significantly bias parameter estimates. To address this issue, we propose a threshold-autoregressive item response theory (TAR-IRT) model that additionally accounts for order dependence among the item responses…

In continuous testing programs, some items are repeatedly used across test administrations, and statistical methods are often used to evaluate whether items become compromised due to examinees' preknowledge. In this study, we proposed a residual method to detect compromised items when a test can be partitioned into two subsets of items: secure…

Researchers are traditionally advised to plan for their required sample size such that achieving a sufficient level of statistical power is ensured (Cohen, 1988). While this method helps distinguishing statistically significant effects from the nonsignificant ones, it does not help achieving the higher goal of accurately estimating the actual size…

Social science datasets usually have missing cases, and missing values. All such missing data has the potential to bias future research findings. However, many research reports ignore the issue of missing data, only consider some aspects of it, or do not report how it is handled. This paper rehearses the damage caused by missing data. The paper…

Smoothing is designed to yield smoother equating results that can reduce random equating error without introducing very much systematic error. The main objective of this study is to propose a new statistic and to compare its performance to the performance of the Akaike information criterion and likelihood ratio chi-square difference statistics in…

Examples of the impact of statistical theory on assessment practice are provided from the perspective of a statistician trained in theoretical statistics who began to work on assessments. Goodness of fit of item-response models is examined in terms of restricted likelihood-ratio tests and generalized residuals. Minimum discriminant information…

Pairwise comparison is becoming increasingly popular as a holistic measurement method in education. Unfortunately, many comparisons are required for reliable measurement. To reduce the number of required comparisons, we developed an adaptive selection algorithm (ASA) that selects the most informative comparisons while taking the uncertainty of the…

Background: Educational and developmental psychologists often examine how groups change over time. Two analytic procedures -- analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and the gain score model -- each seem well suited for the simplest situation, with just two groups and two time points. They can produce different results, what is known as Lord's paradox.…

Purpose: The purpose was to examine and determine effect size distributions reported in published audiology and speech-language pathology research in order to provide researchers and clinicians with more relevant guidelines for the interpretation of potentially clinically meaningful findings. Method: Cohen's d, Hedges' g, Pearson r, and sample…

When well-implemented, mediation analyses play a critical role in probing theories of action because their results help lay the ground work for the critical development of a treatment and the iterative advancement of theories that are foundational to a discipline. Despite strong interest in designs that incorporate mediation, few studies have…

Mixed-effects models can be used to examine the association between a categorical moderator and the magnitude of the effect size. Two approaches are available to estimate the residual between-studies variance, t[superscript 2][subscript res] --namely, separate estimation within each category of the moderator versus pooled estimation across all…

Intelligence tests produce composite scores that are interpreted as indexes of psychometric g. Like all measures, general intelligence composites are not pure representations of their intended construct, so it is important to evaluate the score characteristics that affect accuracy in measurement. In this study, we identified three characteristics…

Concept mapping is a popular tool for knowledge structure assessment. In recent years, both the amount of research about concept maps and their measurement ability have grown. It has been shown that concept maps with different types of tasks, for instance, links between concepts given or selected by a respondent, provide information about the…

In the contemporary society a massive amount of data is generated continuously by various means, and they are called Big-Data sets. Big Data has potential and limits which need to be understood by statisticians and statistics consumers, therefore it is a challenge to develop Big-Data Literacy to support the needs of constructive, concerned, and…

Research approaches are general techniques that researchers follow when conducting a study. Employing research approaches in information research is noted to vary from one researcher to another based on the investigator's choice as well as the nature of the topic under investigation. The differences in the use of research approaches in information…