External representations powerfully support and augment complex human behavior. When navigating, people often consult external representations to help them find the way to go, but do maps or verbal instructions improve spatial knowledge or support effective wayfinding? Here, we examine spatial knowledge with and without external representations in…

In today's world, lifelong learning (LLL) is a key element of individual and societal success. However, despite knowing potential determinants of LLL, we do not yet understand how they interact to facilitate LLL. Therefore, the present study aims to verify the usefulness of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in predicting LLL. We applied a…

The decomposition of the overall effect of a treatment into direct and indirect effects is here investigated with reference to a recursive system of binary random variables. We show how, for the single mediator context, the marginal effect measured on the log odds scale can be written as the sum of the indirect and direct effects plus a residual…

The negative effects of media multitasking have been addressed in previous studies, and the widespread adoption of online learning to control the outbreak of COVID-19 has further increased concerns about the media use, especially media multitasking, among adolescent students. However, very few studies have explored the protective factors against…

For over two decades now, the application of Citizen Science to Education has been evolving, and fundamental topics, such as the drivers of motivation to participate in Citizen Science projects, are still under discussion. Some recent developments, though, like the use of Artificial Intelligence to support data collection and validation, seem to…

The present work focuses on the performance of two types of shrinkage priors--the horseshoe prior and the recently developed regularized horseshoe prior--in the context of inducing sparsity in path analysis and growth curve models. Prior research has shown that these horseshoe priors induce sparsity by at least as much as the "gold…

Mediation models have been widely used in many disciplines to better understand the underlying processes between independent and dependent variables. Despite their popularity and importance, the appropriate sample sizes for estimating those models are not well known. Although several approaches (such as Monte Carlo methods) exist, applied…

Predictors of academic success at university are of great interest to educators, researchers and policymakers. With more students studying online, it is important to understand whether traditional predictors of academic outcomes in face-to-face settings are relevant to online learning. This study modelled self-regulatory and demographic predictors…

Recent critiques of physics education research (PER) studies have revoiced the critical issues when drawing causal inferences from observational data where no intervention is present. In response to a call for a "causal reasoning primer" in PER, this paper discusses some of the fundamental issues in statistical causal inference. In…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between epistemological beliefs and learning approaches of university students. The mediator effect of gender was also tested. A theoretical model was created, and considering the literature personality types' effects on learning approaches were kept under control. A total of 244…

Path analysis is used to provide estimates of the magnitude and significance of hypothesized causal connections among sets of variables displayed using path diagrams. It is an extension of multiple regression analysis and holds strength as a methodology as it allows researchers to assess both direct and indirect effects of multiple independent…

Teacher training mainly involves acquisition of knowledge and skills. For the 21st-century classroom, student teachers must acquire complex knowledge of pedagogy, subject and technology. Beliefs influence decisions on using what is learned. The present study aims to find a model describing how Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)…

Meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) refers to fitting structural equation models (SEMs) (such as path models or factor models) to meta-analytic data. Currently, fitting MASEMs may be challenging for researchers that are not accustomed to working with R software and packages. Therefore, we developed webMASEM; a web application for…

This two-year follow-up study examined the predictive relationships of theory of mind (ToM) to social interaction by reciprocal social behaviors (RSBs) and social functioning (SF) in 106 children with ASD. The results of the path analysis showed that the earlier ToM predicted children's current component RSBs (B = 3.53, SE = 1.86, p = 0.039) and…

School motivation is key to promoting optimal educational pathways. Some studies suggest that parental monitoring behaviors foster school motivation among adolescents; however, they did not examine the potential role of adolescents' motivation in shaping parental monitoring behaviors. This longitudinal study aimed to examine the bidirectional…