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Quantitative Forum
Faculty coordinator: Dr. Robert MacCallum
Student coordinator: Li Cai
Meetings are held Monday at 12:00 p.m. in
Davie 347
unless otherwise noted.
Scheduled Meetings for Fall 2005:
- 08/29/05
Title:
Welcome and what I did this summer
- 09/05/05
Labor Day. No Meeting.
- 09/26/05
Title:
Incongruence between the Statistical
Theory and Substantive
Application
of Growth Mixture Models in Psychological Research
Dr. Dan Bauer
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
- 10/03/05
PART ONE
Title:
A Multilevel Approach to the
Relationship between Birth Order
and Intelligence
Dr. Robert MacCallum1
Aaron Wichman2
Dr. Joseph Rodgers3
1University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
2Ohio State University
3University of Oklahoma
PART TWO
Title:
A Curious Discrepancy between
Multilevel and Structural
Equation Growth Curve Models with Time-Varying Covariates
Dr. Patrick Curran
Michael Peterman
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
- 10/10/05
Title:
An Evaluation of the North Carolina
TRU Media Campaign
Kelly Kandra
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
- 10/17/05
Title:
SEM
of Another Flavor:
Two New Applications of the Supplemented EM Algorithm
Li Cai
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
- 10/24/05
Title: When Clinical
Description Becomes Statistical Prediction:
A Discussion
of Weston & Weinberger (2004)
John Sideris
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Link to
Weston
and Weinberger (2004)
- 10/31/05
Title: Notes from the Front Line:
A Psychometric Warrior Does Battle
Dr. Nathan Vandergrift
FPG Child Development Institute
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
- 11/07/05
Title:
When Good Matrices Go Bad: Two
solutions to the problem of NPD estimates in the Linear Mixed Model
Daniel Serrano
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
- 11/14/05
Quant lunch presentation (12:00PM
Davie 347)
Title: Three Statistical
Paradoxes in the Interpretation of Group
Differences: Illustrated with Medical School Admission and Licensing
Data
Dr. Howard Wainer
National Board of Medical Examiners
Abstract
Interpreting group differences observed in aggregated data is a
practice that must be done with enormous care. Often the truth
underlying such data is quite different than a naïve first look
would indicate. The confusions that can arise are so perplexing that
some of the more frequently occurring ones have been dubbed paradoxes.
In this paper we describe three of the best known of these paradoxes
--Simpson's Paradox, Kelley's Paradox, and Lord's Paradox -- and
illustrate them in a single data set. The data set contains the score
distributions, separated by race, on the biological sciences component
of the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and Step 1 of the United
States Medical Licensing Examination™ (USMLE). Our goal in examining
these data was to move toward a greater understanding of race
differences in admissions policies in medical schools. As we
demonstrate, the path toward this goal is hindered by differences in
the score distributions which gives rise to these three paradoxes. The
ease with which we were able to illustrate all of these paradoxes
within a single data set is indicative of how wide spread they are
likely to be in practice.
Departmental Colloquium (3:30PM Davie 112)
Title:
Value-Added Assessment and three
challenges to its practicality
Dr. Howard Wainer
National Board of Medical Examiners
Abstract
Over the past decade there has been a growing desire among educational
policy makers to measure the extent to which the performance of
students has been transformed by the educational process. It was felt
that the indirect approach of looking at yearly average performance
provided by most
assessments was insufficient and that a more direct assessment of
individual student change could prove helpful in assessing the efficacy
of various sorts of educational programs. Toward this end states began
to use some form of longitudinal measurement. Tennessee enacted the use
of Value Added Assessment (VAA) in 1992, the first report for districts
was prepared in 1993; for schools in 1994 and for teachers in 1996.
At about the same time North Carolina, Florida and Arizona began to
include a growth component in their accountability systems. Just this
year
Ohio passed a law including a value-added component into their state
accountability system by no later than 2007. They are currently
pre-testing
the system within 64 schools under the Battelle for Kids initiative.
Pennsylvania's Department of Education is currently sponsoring a pilot
study of VAA within 32 school districts. Similar programs are underway
in Colorado, New Hampshire and Iowa. Many other states are considering
adding VAA and are watching carefully the effect introducing this new
methodology has on the efficacy of the education systems of these
states.
In this talk I will briefly describe what is value-added assessment and
discuss three problems that need to be overcome before it can be used
for
the purposes its developers envisioned.
- 11/21/05 (Thanksgiving Lunch)
- 11/28/05
Title:
Preparing for an Academic Position in Quantitative Psychology
Dr. Patrick Curran
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
- 12/05/05
Title:
Introducing Model Error in Simulation Studies
Dr. Donna Coffman
Department of Psychology
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
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