Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to discuss the "Q-Step in the Community" programme, part of the Q-Step Centre based in the Sociology Department at Manchester Metropolitan University, designed to help address the skills gap in quantitative methods (QM) that is evident across parts of the UK higher-education sector. "Q-Step in…

Objective: Health is an important factor in college student success yet is not as well understood in two-year colleges as it is in traditional, four-year institutions. This systematic literature review aimed to determine the health topics that have been studied in community colleges and what data sources have been used. Additionally, this paper…

In organizations that are seeking a high degree of maturity, it is necessary to achieve a statistical control of software processes and to know their behavior and operational performance. The approach adopted for the research involves reading articles and experience performance reports, practical cases, discussion, the use of games and simulators,…

The current study examines whether R or SPSS output induces greater initial anxiety in students and whether anxiety toward one or both changes after being taught one type of software output throughout the course. The authors each taught an introductory statistics course, with the first course (n = 43) teaching R output exclusively and the second…

When a psychologist announces a new research finding, it is often based on a rejected null hypothesis. However, if that hypothesis is true, the claim is a false alarm. Many students mistakenly believe that the probability of committing a false alarm equals alpha, the criterion for statistical significance, which is typically set at 5%. Instructors…

There has been increased interest in assessing the quality and usefulness of short versions of the Raven's Progressive Matrices. A recent proposal, composed of the last twelve matrices of the Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM-LS), has been depicted as a valid measure of "g." Nonetheless, the results provided in the initial validation…

This comment discusses some issues about the use and reporting of experimental studies in education, illustrated by a recently published study that claimed (i) that an educational innovation was effective despite outcomes not reaching statistical significance, and (ii) that this refuted the findings of an earlier study. The two key issues raised…

The hierarchical model of van der Linden is the most popular model for responses and response times in tests. It is composed of two separate submodels--one for the responses and one for the response times--that are joined at a higher level. The submodel for the response times is based on the lognormal distribution. The lognormal distribution is a…

The analysis of exemplars of different quality is a potentially powerful tool in enabling students to understand assessment expectations and appreciate academic standards. Through a systematic review methodology, this paper synthesises exemplar-based research designs, exemplar implementation and the educational effects of exemplars. The review of…

From the end of the 1970s, all teacher education programmes have been a part of academic higher education in Finland. Thus, TE has been implemented in universities and all Finnish comprehensive and upper-secondary school teachers have a master's degree. Research methods courses have been an essential part of teacher education courses for over 40…

The nine appendices in this publication accompany the full report, "High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) Postsecondary Education Transcript Study and Student Financial Aid Records Collection. Data File Documentation. NCES 2020-004" (ED607366). They include: (1) Glossary of Terms; (2) Student Financial Aid Records Instrument…

Across all social science disciplines, but in particular public administration, there is a shared concern about the costs of using traditional random samples to generate data, and its impact on researchers' ability to engage in "quality" research. As a result of these costs, more academics, practitioners, and students are turning to…

Periodically, articles reporting research on student ratings of instruction (SRI), aka student evaluations of teaching, appear in the higher-education press. This literature often summarizes studies that challenge the validity and reliability of SRI. However, before drawing a conclusion about a quantitative study touted in the media, readers…

The Upward Bound Math and Science (UBMS) program at Temple University (TU) seeks to guide first-generation, low-income high school students from Philadelphia in their quest to obtain postsecondary STEM degrees that lead to related careers. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of the program by analyzing its students' performance in light of…

This study aims to find a simulation project-based learning model for the Minangkabau Natural Culture subject in higher education. This research method uses the research and development (R and D) development procedure using the Plomp development design that goes through 3 steps, namely: Preliminary Research, Prototyping Phase, and Assessment…