When planning a cluster randomized trial, evaluators often have access to an enumerated cohort representing the target population of clusters. Practicalities of conducting the trial, such as the need to oversample clusters with certain characteristics in order to improve trial economy or support inferences about subgroups of clusters, may preclude…

This theoretical, methodological, and empirical networking study investigated the potential of inferentialism to contribute to the study of meaning and collective argumentation in mathematics. I carefully attended to my worldview and explicated my philosophical process for identifying inferentialism as my theory of choice. I then drew on Prediger…

Under the noisy-channel framework of language comprehension, comprehenders infer the speaker's intended meaning by integrating the perceived utterance with their knowledge of the language, the world, and the kinds of errors that can occur in communication. Previous research has shown that, when sentences are improbable under the meaning prior…

Given decision-makers often prioritize causal research that identifies the impact of treatments on the people they serve, a key question in education research is, "Does it work?". Today, however, researchers are paying increasing attention to successive questions that are equally important from a practical standpoint--not only does it…

The ability to predict upcoming events is essential in infancy because it enables babies to process information optimally and have successful goal-directed interactions with their environment. In this article, we examine how infants generate predictions in perception, cognition, and action, and address whether and how their predictions are…

Differential equations (DEs) are a powerful tool for modeling real-world contexts. Most research in this area has examined students' understanding and reasoning with pre-packaged DEs, with little attention being given to setting up sophisticated DEs to model complicated real-world situations. This study contributes through a collective case study…

With the latest advances in conversational agents like Siri and Alexa, and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and PaLM, Question Answering (QA) systems have become more important. Users submit millions of queries per day and it is up to the system to provide reliable, to-the-point answers. In this dissertation, we explore various aspects to…

Uncertainty undermines causal claims; however, the nature of causal claims decides what counts as relevant uncertainty. Empirical robustness is imperative in regularity theories of causality. Regularity theory features strongly in QCA, making its case sensitivity a weakness. Following qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) founder Charles Ragin's…

Teaching reading can be simplistically divided into two sections: learning how to read, known as decoding, and deriving meaning from the printed word, known as comprehension. Many educators still hold to the position that these skills should be taught linearly with an emphasis on comprehension lagging considerably behind the teaching of decoding.…

Technical difficulties and other unforeseen events occasionally lead to incomplete data on educational tests, which necessitates the reporting of imputed scores to some examinees. While there exist several approaches for reporting imputed scores, there is a lack of any guidance on the reporting of the uncertainty of imputed scores. In this paper,…

Descriptions of durational relations can be ambiguous, for example, the description "one meeting happened during another" could mean that one meeting started before the other ended, or it could mean that the meetings started and ended simultaneously. A recent theory posits that people mentally simulate descriptions of durational events…

Though previously unacknowledged, a SMART (Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial) design uses both regression discontinuity (RD) and randomized controlled trial (RCT) designs. This combination structure creates a conceptual symbiosis between the two designs that enables both RCT- and previously unrecognized, RD-based inferential claims.…

During a study in a Kindergarten classroom, wordless and almost wordless picturebooks were presented as aesthetic objects that are read for pleasure, reward slow looking, and require engagement in significant semiotic work. Instruction about and adult mediation of picturebooks throughout the research communicated to the children that elements of…

Making inferences is essential to comprehending text. Teachers can ask inferential questions, model their thinking, and teach specific strategies to support upper elementary students in making inferences while reading.

Dynamic Item Response Models extend the standard Item Response Theory (IRT) to capture temporal dynamics in learner ability. While these models have the potential to allow instructional systems to actively monitor the evolution of learner proficiency in real time, existing dynamic item response models rely on expensive inference algorithms that…