Measurement of latent constructs is one of the most challenging tasks in psychological research. Unlike physical variables, latent constructs are not directly observable but are inferred through individuals' responses to a set of items often referred to as measurement instruments, tests, surveys, or assessments. For decades, exploratory factor…

Spatio-temporal processes are ubiquitous and prevalent across disciplines. Understanding the mechanisms underlying processes and integrating this information into models is of great interest, as it can improve forecasting accuracy and align with scientific motivation. Examples of such models include Partial Differential Equation (PDE) Models or…

Scientific modeling is a scientific practice that uses models to prepare elementary and middle school science teachers to engage students using scientific inquiry. Model-based inquiry (MBI) is a pedagogical teaching approach that engages students using scientific inquiry during scientific modeling. However, preservice teachers lack understanding…

Due to the unique and advantageous physiochemical properties of nanoparticles, they have been increasingly incorporated into consumer products and emerging technologies. The manufacture, wear and tear of use, and disposal of these nano-enabled products will likely result in the release of nanoparticles into the environment. Unfortunately,…

Research conducted at scientifically significant sites produces an abundance of important and highly valuable data. Yet, though sites are logical points for coordinating the curation of these data, their unique needs have been under supported. Previous studies have shown that two principal stakeholder groups -- scientific researchers and local…

This dissertation contains a collection of essays centered on the relationship between theoretical model-building and empirical evidence-gathering in linguistics and related language sciences. The first chapter sets the stage by demonstrating that the subject matter of linguistics is manifold, and contending that discussion of relationships…

Scientific collaboration networks are a special kind of social and communication networks in which nodes represents authors, and they are connected in pairs by an edge if they have worked together to publish a paper. Collaboration networks grow and change over time as new authors join the networks and new collaborative connections are formed…

This thesis describes how intellectual boundary spanning can be identified in the written ideas of millions of scholars, and finds that such efforts encounter translational problems which can hinder faculty careers. In particular, the work presented develops textual metrics of intellectual boundary spanning (interdisciplinarity) and field…

This dissertation seeks to contribute to a fuller understanding of how international scientific collaboration has affected national scientific systems. It does this by developing three methodological approaches grounded in social complexity theory and applying them to the evaluation of national scientific systems. The first methodology identifies…

Annotations play an increasingly crucial role in scientific exploration and discovery, as the amount of data and the level of collaboration among scientists increases. There are many systems today focusing on annotation management, querying, and propagation. Although all such systems are implemented to take user input (i.e., the annotations…

This multi-sited ethnography analyzes challenges and opportunities in the design and development of digital media systems in the Office of Research and Development (ORD) at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Drawing heavily from interviews conducted over the course of three years, primarily with scientists at the ORD's…

Physicians, nurses, and other clinical staff rely on alarms from various bedside monitors and sensors to alert when there is a change in the patient's clinical status, typically when urgent intervention is necessary. These alarms are usually embedded directly within the sensor or monitor and lacks the context of the patient's medical history and…

This study describes and tests a model of scientific inquiry as an evolving, organizational phenomenon. Arguments are derived from organizational ecology and evolutionary theory. The empirical subject of study is an "epistemic community" of scientists publishing on a research topic in physics: the string theoretic concept of…

This dissertation contains several projects, each addressing different questions with different techniques. In chapter 1, I argue that they are unified thematically by their goal of "scaling up psycholinguistics"; they are all aimed at analyzing large data-sets using tools that reveal patterns to propose and test mechanism-neutral hypotheses about…

Biomedical research has produced vast amounts of new information in the last decade but has been slow to find its use in clinical applications. Data from disparate sources such as genetic studies and summary data from published literature have been amassed, but there is a significant gap, primarily due to a lack of normative methods, in combining…