Thomas A. DeVaney

Statistical Significance, Effect Size, and Replication: What Do the Journals Say?.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of journal representatives toward the reporting of results from statistical significance tests and the use of techniques such as effect size and replication. An electronic survey was completed by 194 journal representatives. The results suggest that the majority of journals do not have written policies concerning the reporting of results from statistical significance testing. However, the respondents indicated a willingness to accept manuscripts containing statistically nonsignificant results, supported effect-size reporting, and believed replications were acceptable for publication.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale With Online Graduate Students

The Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale was examined using data from a convenience sample of 450 female and 65 male students enrolled in online, graduate-level introductory statistics courses. The mean age of the students was 33.1 (SD = 8.2), and 58.3% had completed six or fewer online courses. The majority of students were enrolled in education or counseling degree programs. Confirmatory factor analysis using unweighted least squares estimation was used to test three proposed models, and alpha coefficients were used to examine the internal consistency. The confirmatory factor analysis results supported the six-factor structure and indicated that proper models should include correlations among the six factors or two second-order factors (anxiety and attitude). Internal consistency estimates ranged from .82 to .95 and were consistent with values reported by previous researchers. The findings suggest that, when measuring statistics anxiety of online students using Statistical Anxiety Rating Scale, researchers and instructors can use scores from the individual subscales or generate two composite scores, anxiety and attitude, instead of a total score.

Investigating aspects of an emerging digital ethnicity: Development of the Digital Ethnicity Scale (DES)

The Digital Ethnicity Scale (DES), utilizing Longstreet (1978) model of the aspects of ethnicity, was developed to describe the impact human interaction with digital communication technologies is having on cultural development. Longstreets definition of ethnicity focuses on cultural development during the earliest stages of human development, prior to the onset of childrens abstract thinking. The ultimate goal for the development of the Digital Ethnicity Scale is to describe those aspects of digital ethnicity and collect these descriptions along with demographic data to achieve profiles of various digital ethnicities. These digital ethnic profiles may provide insight into the social and educational needs of rapidly changing societal groupings with hopes of providing guidance for future practice. A 5-phase development process, including the development and validation of both Likert-type items and semantic differentials, was conducted with more than 2000 respondents. Both theoretical and practical results of this inquiry are presented.

Digital ethnicity: discussion of a concept and implications for education

Interaction with the rapidly expanding digital technologies for education, work, and play has drastically changed the processes and practices of world populations. As societies evolve in response to these new communication and calculation tools, the need arises to understand the sometimes unique but increasingly common change in cultures. The Digital Ethnicity Scale (DES), utilizing Longstreet’s (1978, Aspects of Ethnicity (New York: Teachers College Press) model of the Aspects of Ethnicity, was developed to describe the emergence of new cultural patterns of behavior that result from the influence of human interaction with digital communication technologies (Adams, DeVaney, and Longstreet (2010) Comput. Hum. Behav. 26(6): 1822–1830). Longstreet’s definition of ethnicity focuses on cultural development during the earliest stages of human development, prior to the onset of children’s abstract thinking. The ultimate goal for the development of the DES is to describe those aspects of digital ethnicity and collect these descriptions along with demographic data to achieve profiles of various digital ethnicities. A discussion of the guiding concept and overview of the development of the DES seeks to present a description of these digital ethnic profiles that may provide insight into the educational needs of rapidly changing societal groupings with hopes of providing guidance for educational practice.