This article examines an important and thorny problem in interview research: How to assess whether what people say motivated their actions actually did so? We ask three questions: What specific challenges are at play? How have researchers addressed them? And how should those strategies be evaluated? We argue that such research faces at least five…

Simulated standardized patients (SPs) are trained individuals who pose incognito as people seeking treatment in a health care setting. With the method's increasing use and popularity, we propose some standards to adapt the method to contextual considerations of feasibility, and we discuss current issues with the SP method and the experience of…

Purpose: This article presents focus groups as a method to enhance questionnaire design to frame and test items for a mass survey on corruption and austerity in democracy. Such methodology lacks systematization when it comes to the description of implementation procedures and the discussion of effective contribution to the development of survey…

Phishing is a common social engineering attack aimed to steal personal information. Universities attract phishing attacks because: (1) they store employees and students sensitive data; (2) they save confidential documents; and (3) their infrastructures often lack security. In this paper, we showcase a phishing assessment at the University of…

Understanding how computer users allocate attention to features of potentially dangerous emails could help mitigate costly errors. Which features are salient? How stable is attention allocation across variation in email features? We attempted to measure the mental salience of several email features common in spam and/or phishing emails. We created…

Online surveys are an efficient and relatively affordable way to collect data. However, there are issues associated with it, including potential fraudulent data due to accidental or deliberate duplicate entries. In this brief we describe a case study of deliberate duplicate entries in an ongoing study of community college students. Students from…

Google is a multinational technology company whose massive advertising profits have allowed them to expand into many areas, including education. While the company has increasingly faced public scrutiny, the use of Google software and hardware in schools has often resulted in little debate. In this paper, we conduct a technoethical audit of Google…

The rich data that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platforms collect on the behavior of millions of users provide a unique opportunity to study human learning and to develop data-driven methods that can address the needs of individual learners. This type of research falls into the emerging field of "learning analytics." However,…

Purpose: This paper aims to offer practical guidance on teaching about digital extremism -- defined here as the intersection of digital disinformation campaigns with political extremism -- by highlighting four pedagogical challenges: the danger of unintentionally "redpilling" students; the slippery slope to false equivalency and…

Purpose: This paper aims to provides a brief review of the dashboard literature, an account of the development of performance dashboards for field data collection at Westat, and more specifically for the first cycle of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). A brief concluding section offers suggestions for…

Although numerous survey-based studies have found that students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning (LGBQ) have elevated risk for many negative academic, disciplinary, psychological, and health outcomes, the validity of the types of data on which these results rest have come under increased scrutiny. Over the past several years,…

In accordance with the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, the OIG reports annually on the most serious management and performance challenges the Department faces. For FY 2024, we identified seven management challenges for the Department: (1) Implementing pandemic relief laws for elementary and secondary education; (2) Implementing pandemic relief…

Although all kinds of knowledge is valuable, some non-scientific knowledge can cause confusion on students' minds. Science-pseudoscience distinction should be taught in all levels of education to protect especially young age students from this confusion. It is hard to change gained beliefs so giving importance to demarcation from elementary to…

The Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010 defines major management challenges as programs or management functions that are vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, and where a failure to perform well could seriously affect the ability of the U.S. Department of Education (Department) to achieve its mission or…

In accordance with the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports annually on the most serious management and performance challenges the Department faces. OIG's reports include a brief assessment of the Department's progress in addressing the challenges. They also identify further actions that, if properly…