In market research, companies want to know where shoppers will be most likely to buy their product. In medicine, geneticists study the genome and gene expression to determine a priori who may develop Alzheimer’s, survive cancer, or have amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease. In psychiatry, physicians have examined patient response patterns on depression questionnaires to differentiate those patients with chronic, personality-stable depression from those with situation-specific or acute depression. Hundreds of additional examples can be found demonstrating the application of cluster analysis (e.g., Aldenderfer & Blashfield, 1984; Everitt, Landau, Leese & Stahl, 2011).
Practitioners in the fields of psychology, biology, physiology, sociology, astronomy, and many other disciplines utilize taxonomy—the practice of classifying information or objects into generally similar groups based on their characteristics (Everitt et al., 2011). The researcher collects data (or if lucky enough, he or she has access to some data set), then researcher examines data looking for a specific pattern within the results; that search is a cluster analysis. The analysis may yield internally homogeneous groups of data, or clusters (e.g., having little variability within the group’s characteristics), externally separated from the other clusters (Everitt et al., 2011). If the researcher is only interested in working with (or targeting) those specific groups, then the cluster analysis can inform him or her whether those specific groups do, in fact, exist. Individuals having characteristics in common implies a similarity, for example Caucasian mothers who have a high school education, type of material in pottery from Ancient Greece...
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...), Handbook of developmental research methods (pp. 645-666). New York: Guilford.
Everitt, B. S., Landau, S., Leese, M., & Stahl, D. (2011). Cluster analysis (5th Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, Ltd. doi: 10.1002/9780470977811
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Keith, T. Z. & Reynolds, C. R. (2003). Measurement and design issues in child assessment research. In C. Reynolds & R. Kamphaus (Eds.), Handbook of psychological & educational assessment of children: Intelligence, aptitude, and achievement (2nd Ed.) (pp. 79-111). New York: Guilford.
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The Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Third Edition (KTEA-3) is a revised and updated comprehensive test of academic achievement (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2014). Authored by Drs. Alan and Nadeen Kaufman and published by Pearson, the KTEA-3 remains an individually administered test of achievement intended for use with examinees ages 4 through 25 years, or those in grades Pre-Kindergarten (PK) through 12 and above. The KTEA-3 is based on a clinical model of academic skills assessment in the broad areas of reading, mathematics, and written and oral language. It was designed to support clinicians utilizing a Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) or Information Processing theoretical approach to assessment and detailed information regarding the structure
Construct validity is the degree to which scores measure an intended construct. Construct validity is demonstrated by the correlation with other established intelligence and school achievement tests, and item performance. Developers computed correlation coefficients between scores on the TONI-4 and scores on two nonverbal intelligence tests, the Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence–Second Edition (CTONI-2; Hammill, Pearson, & Wiederholt, 2009) and the TONI-3 (Brown, Sherbenou, & Johnsen, 1997). For the CTONI-2 study, there were 72 participants 6 to 17 years old. Form A scores were correlated with scores on the CTONI-2 Pictorial Scale, CTONI-2 Geometric Scale, and CTONI-2 Full Scale. The corresponding corrected coefficients between the TONI-4 and these scales were .74, .73, and .79, respectively. In the TONI-3 study, 56 participants were randomly sampled from the standardization sample. Participants’ item-level data were rescored to obtain TONI-3 scores. The corrected correlation coefficient between the TONI-4 and TONI-3 was .74. Developers also calculated average correlation coefficients between TONI-4 scores and scores on three school achievement tests ranging from .55 to .78. The resulting correlations confirm construct validity. These results show the TONI-4 scores are generally more correlated with other intelligence test scores than with achievement test scores. Item
Xu, Jennifer and Hsinchun Chen. Criminal Network Analysis and Visualization: A Data Mining Perspective. Retrieved from http://ai.eller.arizona.edu/COPLINK/publications/crimenet/Xu_CACM.doc
I have always had a keen interest in observing children as they play and learn and using the observations to support the child’s growth. This is partly based on my past professional experiences and observations of my own children. I believe that my other strength in assessment is in analyzing data and using the data to make decisions. While I feel, this area is a strength, my exposure to the vast array of assessment tools used to support student learning has been
How many of us really believe that a child's intelligence, achievement, and confidence can be represented adequately by standardized tests? How can any distribution curve classify all children? What about all we have learned about children?s growth and their response to education? Few teachers and parents would accept that a single test score could define any child (Russel, 2002). We must ask if these tests address the educational concerns of teachers and parents and do they provide useful information about individual children or the class. Almost all teachers feel pressure to teach to the tests and feel that tests clearly limit educational possibilities for students (Russel, 2002). We feel it is detrimental to a child's education to enjoy reading. An article reported by the BBC news (2003) entitle...
Studies have proven that no human being is born with knowledge or skills; however, every individual’s has a learned behavior that is either influenced or genetic inherited. Therefore, every individual born into a social and cultural environment are more likely to be effected by, family members, other social groups, religion, as well as languages. Most research psychologists study the genetic inheritance of an individual’s behavior while others focus on an individual’s development stage. However, during the process of psychological research, psychologists also focus on examining the influence that a community can have on one social behavior.
production for use in society. When children first enter the education system, they are given several psychological tests to identify their intelligence quotient (IQ) score. This score allows educators to slot students on an accelerated, normal, or modified track which will follow them for their entire life. Students on an accelerated trajectory are identified throug...
Popham, W. James. “Standardized Achievement Tests: Misnamed and Misleading.” Education Week. September 2001. Web. 28 June 2015.
Stiggins, R. (1991). Facing challenges of a new era of educational assessment. Applied Measurement in Education 4(4), 263+. Retrieved September 25, 2003 from Academic Search/EBSCO database.
One of the reasons why standardized tests are used is for measuring a child’s scholastic performance. But how accurately do they do this? A standardized test is made up of consistent questions and procedures for scoring and administration. They are always made according to identical rules so the procedures are the same for everybody who takes the tests. They come in many forms: on paper, on computer, questionnaires, etc. These tests are very contentious because many people have different opinions about them. Some critics feel that the tests help parents and teachers act as guides to assist students on expanding their knowledge in a particular subject. They are also needed to enter Ivy- League schools which further explains why international schools and schools in the United States take them. However, most do argue that these tests do not take into consideration a child’s traits and what the child can give. The tests judge students based on their performance on that day, not on their growth as educational participants, and places many in stressful situations due to the amount of studying needed to prepare for the tests. Standardized tests give scores that predict how “smart” a person is, although intelligence comes in many forms. To a large extent, standardized testing is not an effective way of measuring a child’s intellectual potential because it focuses mainly on the performance instead of the child’s growth and it doesn’t take into account the child’s personality and what they have to give. On the other hand, they can be necessary because they act as guides to help parents and teachers aid children on what they don’t have knowledge on in a specific subject.
The primary factors that are important in conducting statistical test are variables (categorical or quantitative) and the number of (IVs) independent variables and (DVs) dependant variables. To facilitate the identification process the chapter provides two decision- making tools so that it is easier to make a decision. The chapter presents the decision making tools and gives an overview of the statistical techniques addressed in this text as well as basic univariate test, all of which will be organized by the four types of research questions: degree of relationship, significance of group differences, prediction of group membership, and structure. Statistical test that analyze the degree of relationship include bivariate correlation and regression, multiple regression and path analysis. Research questions addressing degree of relationship all have quantitative variables. Methods that examine the significance of group differences are t test, one-way and factorial ANOVA, one-way and factorial ANCOVA, one- way and factorial MANOVA, and one-way and factorial MANCOVA. Research questions that address group differences have categorical IVs. Statistical tests that predict group membership are discriminate analysis and logistic regression. Research questions that address prediction of group membership have a categorical DV. Statistical
The study of IQ and how it operates in the education field has been argued through various theories. Theorist such as Howard Garner, R...
Sattler, Jerome, and Robert Hoge. Assessment of Children: Behaviorial, Social, and Clinical Foundation. La Mesa:Sattler, 2006. Print.
The teacher will also make norm-referenced and criterion referenced interpretations of assessment through this website. They have graph and color-coded bands that show widely held expectations for children’s development and learning. The teacher will use this website and graph to communicate twice a year with the parents about the child’s strength, weakness or any area of
Datasets of retails, bars, schools, churches, and recreational areas were also used to determine the likelihood of a robbery to take place. For the crime data, since robberies were the focus, the robberies were highlighted and exported as points on the map with the rest of the crime data removed to only show robberies. For hotel data sets, first the addresses of all hotels were listed on a spreadsheet followed by each hotels’ coordinates within the city. Then the spreadsheet was added to the map as a data set and turned into a shapefile that appears on the map. The techniques used to establish the spatial relationship between hotels and robberies was through the spatial analysis tools. This would be done using Euclidean Distancing to determine the distance correlation on how far robberies occur just around hotels and beyond the path its’ occupants and employees take. It is then broken up into 5 classes with class 1 being in proximity to the hotels and class 5 being the