A method for medical screening is adapted to differential item functioning (DIF). Its essential elements are explicit declarations of the level of DIF that is acceptable and of the loss function that quantifies the consequences of the two kinds of inappropriate classification of an item. Instead of a single level and a single function, sets of…

A promising "underlying bivariate normal" approach was proposed by Jöreskog and Moustaki for use in the factor analysis of ordinal data. This was a limited information approach that involved the maximization of a composite likelihood function. Its advantage over full-information maximum likelihood was that very much less computation was…

When studying educational aspirations of adolescents, it is unrealistic to assume that the aspirations of pupils are independent of those of their friends. Considerable attention has also been given to the study of peer influence in the educational and behavioral literature. Typically, in empirical studies, the friendship networks have either been…

A new effect size representing the predictive power of an independent variable from a multiple regression model is presented. The index, denoted as r[subscript sp], is the semipartial correlation of the predictor with the outcome of interest. This effect size can be computed when multiple predictor variables are included in the regression model…

Measuring teacher effectiveness is challenging since no direct estimate exists; teacher effectiveness can be measured only indirectly through student responses. Traditional value-added assessment (VAA) models generally attempt to estimate the value that an individual teacher adds to students' knowledge as measured by scores on successive…

This paper focuses on two likelihood-based indices of person fit, the index "l[subscript z]" and the Snijders's modified index "l[subscript z]*". The first one is commonly used in practical assessment of person fit, although its asymptotic standard normal distribution is not valid when true abilities are replaced by sample ability estimates. The…

The traditional approach to measuring segregation is based upon descriptive, non-model-based indices. A recently proposed alternative is multilevel modeling. The authors further develop the argument for a multilevel modeling approach by first describing and expanding upon its notable advantages, which include an ability to model segregation at a…

The literature in modern test theory on procedures for identifying items with differential item functioning (DIF) among two groups of persons includes the Mantel-Haenszel (MH) procedure. Generally, it is not recognized explicitly that if there is real DIF in some items which favor one group, then as an artifact of this procedure, artificial DIF…

Andersen (1995, 2002) proves a theorem relating variances of parameter estimates from samples and subsamples and shows its use as an adjunct to standard statistical analyses. The authors show an application where the theorem is central to the hypothesis tested, namely, whether random guessing to multiple choice items affects their estimates in the…

Adjusted Wald intervals for binomial proportions in one-sample and two-sample designs have been shown to perform about as well as the best available methods. The adjusted Wald intervals are easy to compute and have been incorporated into introductory statistics courses. An adjusted Wald interval for paired binomial proportions is proposed here and…

In this article, the authors suggest a profile-likelihood approach for estimating complex models by maximum likelihood (ML) using standard software and minimal programming. The method works whenever setting some of the parameters of the model to known constants turns the model into a standard model. An important class of models that can be…

We extend a recent didactic by Magis, Raiche, and Beland on the use of the l[subscript z] and l[subscript z]* person-fit statistics. We discuss a number of possibly confusing details and show that it is important to first investigate item response theory model fit before assessing person fit. Furthermore, it is argued that appropriate…

Studies on event occurrence aim to investigate if and when subjects experience a particular event. The timing of events may be measured continuously using thin precise units or discretely using time periods. The latter metric of time is often used in social science research and the generalized linear model (GLM) is an appropriate model for data…

Test scores are commonly reported in a small number of ordered categories. Examples of such reporting include state accountability testing, Advanced Placement tests, and English proficiency tests. This article introduces and evaluates methods for estimating achievement gaps on a familiar standard-deviation-unit metric using data from these ordered…

Does reduced class size cause higher academic achievement for both Black and other students in reading, mathematics, listening, and word recognition skills? Do Black students benefit more than other students from reduced class size? Does the magnitude of the minority advantages vary significantly across schools? This article addresses the causal…