Undergraduate grade point average (GPA) is a commonly employed measure in educational research, serving as a criterion or as a predictor depending on the research question. Over the decades, researchers have used a variety of reliability coefficients to estimate the reliability of undergraduate GPA, which suggests that there has been no consensus…

This study compares the results of a developmental co-requisite program with those of a traditional pre-requisite program in an attempt to determine whether the two models provide equivalent levels of effectiveness and efficiency. The research focused on gateway course completion scores and final exam scores for undergraduate students enrolled in…

The use of categorical dependent variables with the classical linear regression model (CLRM) violates many of the model's assumptions and may result in biased estimates (Long, 1997; O'Connell, Goldstein, Rogers, & Peng, 2008). Many dependent variables of interest to educational researchers (e.g., professorial rank, educational attainment) are…

Since SAT and ACT tests have been long-suspected and then shown to contain class and race biases while not accurately predicting retention, the Schedler Honors College at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) shifted to a holistic, multi-criterion selection process, de-emphasizing standardized tests, and then analyzed the outcomes. This essay…

Education officials and journalists frequently track changes over time in the average ACT® College Readiness Assessment Composite scores and ACT College Readiness Benchmark attainment rates of individual high schools. Using standard statistical methods, I examined how often changes in these statistics are unambiguously positive or negative, rather…

The lack of clear and manageable implementation models for individualized instruction continued to exist in high schools. Formal individualized teaching (FIT), a differentiated instructional model, was studied to determine its impact on student learning. The FIT model included analyzing student data using a Pareto analysis to identify individual…

This paper describes a multistep Enhanced Formative Assessment Program (EFAP) that features a Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) component. The program, which teaches students to become more effective learners, has been applied in a wide range of academic disciplines. In this paper we report on how the EFAP-SRL model can be applied to the area of…

Recent studies have found a large earnings premium to attending a more selective college, but the mechanisms underlying this premium have received little attention and remain unclear. In order to shed light on this question, I develop a multidimensional signaling model relying on college grades and selectivity that rationalizes students' choices…

Presented at the national conference for AERA (American Educational Research Association) in April 2009. The large variability of SAT taker population across states makes state-by-state comparisons of the SAT scores challenging. Using a mixture modeling approach, therefore, the current study presents a method of identifying subpopulations in terms…