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This work presents two complementary studies that propose heuristic methods to capture characteristics of data using the ensemble learning method of random forest. The first study is motivated by the problem in education of determining teacher effectiveness in student achievement. Value-added models (VAMs), constructed as linear mixed models, use students’

This work presents two complementary studies that propose heuristic methods to capture characteristics of data using the ensemble learning method of random forest. The first study is motivated by the problem in education of determining teacher effectiveness in student achievement. Value-added models (VAMs), constructed as linear mixed models, use students’ test scores as outcome variables and teachers’ contributions as random effects to ascribe changes in student performance to the teachers who have taught them. The VAMs teacher score is the empirical best linear unbiased predictor (EBLUP). This approach is limited by the adequacy of the assumed model specification with respect to the unknown underlying model. In that regard, this study proposes alternative ways to rank teacher effects that are not dependent on a given model by introducing two variable importance measures (VIMs), the node-proportion and the covariate-proportion. These VIMs are novel because they take into account the final configuration of the terminal nodes in the constitutive trees in a random forest. In a simulation study, under a variety of conditions, true rankings of teacher effects are compared with estimated rankings obtained using three sources: the newly proposed VIMs, existing VIMs, and EBLUPs from the assumed linear model specification. The newly proposed VIMs outperform all others in various scenarios where the model was misspecified. The second study develops two novel interaction measures. These measures could be used within but are not restricted to the VAM framework. The distribution-based measure is constructed to identify interactions in a general setting where a model specification is not assumed in advance. In turn, the mean-based measure is built to estimate interactions when the model specification is assumed to be linear. Both measures are unique in their construction; they take into account not only the outcome values, but also the internal structure of the trees in a random forest. In a separate simulation study, under a variety of conditions, the proposed measures are found to identify and estimate second-order interactions.
ContributorsValdivia, Arturo (Author) / Eubank, Randall (Thesis advisor) / Young, Dennis (Committee member) / Reiser, Mark R. (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Broatch, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Dimensionality assessment is an important component of evaluating item response data. Existing approaches to evaluating common assumptions of unidimensionality, such as DIMTEST (Nandakumar & Stout, 1993; Stout, 1987; Stout, Froelich, & Gao, 2001), have been shown to work well under large-scale assessment conditions (e.g., large sample sizes and item pools;

Dimensionality assessment is an important component of evaluating item response data. Existing approaches to evaluating common assumptions of unidimensionality, such as DIMTEST (Nandakumar & Stout, 1993; Stout, 1987; Stout, Froelich, & Gao, 2001), have been shown to work well under large-scale assessment conditions (e.g., large sample sizes and item pools; see e.g., Froelich & Habing, 2007). It remains to be seen how such procedures perform in the context of small-scale assessments characterized by relatively small sample sizes and/or short tests. The fact that some procedures come with minimum allowable values for characteristics of the data, such as the number of items, may even render them unusable for some small-scale assessments. Other measures designed to assess dimensionality do not come with such limitations and, as such, may perform better under conditions that do not lend themselves to evaluation via statistics that rely on asymptotic theory. The current work aimed to evaluate the performance of one such metric, the standardized generalized dimensionality discrepancy measure (SGDDM; Levy & Svetina, 2011; Levy, Xu, Yel, & Svetina, 2012), under both large- and small-scale testing conditions. A Monte Carlo study was conducted to compare the performance of DIMTEST and the SGDDM statistic in terms of evaluating assumptions of unidimensionality in item response data under a variety of conditions, with an emphasis on the examination of these procedures in small-scale assessments. Similar to previous research, increases in either test length or sample size resulted in increased power. The DIMTEST procedure appeared to be a conservative test of the null hypothesis of unidimensionality. The SGDDM statistic exhibited rejection rates near the nominal rate of .05 under unidimensional conditions, though the reliability of these results may have been less than optimal due to high sampling variability resulting from a relatively limited number of replications. Power values were at or near 1.0 for many of the multidimensional conditions. It was only when the sample size was reduced to N = 100 that the two approaches diverged in performance. Results suggested that both procedures may be appropriate for sample sizes as low as N = 250 and tests as short as J = 12 (SGDDM) or J = 19 (DIMTEST). When used as a diagnostic tool, SGDDM may be appropriate with as few as N = 100 cases combined with J = 12 items. The study was somewhat limited in that it did not include any complex factorial designs, nor were the strength of item discrimination parameters or correlation between factors manipulated. It is recommended that further research be conducted with the inclusion of these factors, as well as an increase in the number of replications when using the SGDDM procedure.
ContributorsReichenberg, Ray E (Author) / Levy, Roy (Thesis advisor) / Thompson, Marilyn S. (Thesis advisor) / Green, Samuel B. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Parallel Monte Carlo applications require the pseudorandom numbers used on each processor to be independent in a probabilistic sense. The TestU01 software package is the standard testing suite for detecting stream dependence and other properties that make certain pseudorandom generators ineffective in parallel (as well as serial) settings. TestU01 employs

Parallel Monte Carlo applications require the pseudorandom numbers used on each processor to be independent in a probabilistic sense. The TestU01 software package is the standard testing suite for detecting stream dependence and other properties that make certain pseudorandom generators ineffective in parallel (as well as serial) settings. TestU01 employs two basic schemes for testing parallel generated streams. The first applies serial tests to the individual streams and then tests the resulting P-values for uniformity. The second turns all the parallel generated streams into one long vector and then applies serial tests to the resulting concatenated stream. Various forms of stream dependence can be missed by each approach because neither one fully addresses the multivariate nature of the accumulated data when generators are run in parallel. This dissertation identifies these potential faults in the parallel testing methodologies of TestU01 and investigates two different methods to better detect inter-stream dependencies: correlation motivated multivariate tests and vector time series based tests. These methods have been implemented in an extension to TestU01 built in C++ and the unique aspects of this extension are discussed. A variety of different generation scenarios are then examined using the TestU01 suite in concert with the extension. This enhanced software package is found to better detect certain forms of inter-stream dependencies than the original TestU01 suites of tests.
ContributorsIsmay, Chester (Author) / Eubank, Randall (Thesis advisor) / Young, Dennis (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Lanchier, Nicolas (Committee member) / Reiser, Mark R. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
This simulation study compared the utility of various discrepancy measures within a posterior predictive model checking (PPMC) framework for detecting different types of data-model misfit in multidimensional Bayesian network (BN) models. The investigated conditions were motivated by an applied research program utilizing an operational complex performance assessment within a digital-simulation

This simulation study compared the utility of various discrepancy measures within a posterior predictive model checking (PPMC) framework for detecting different types of data-model misfit in multidimensional Bayesian network (BN) models. The investigated conditions were motivated by an applied research program utilizing an operational complex performance assessment within a digital-simulation educational context grounded in theories of cognition and learning. BN models were manipulated along two factors: latent variable dependency structure and number of latent classes. Distributions of posterior predicted p-values (PPP-values) served as the primary outcome measure and were summarized in graphical presentations, by median values across replications, and by proportions of replications in which the PPP-values were extreme. An effect size measure for PPMC was introduced as a supplemental numerical summary to the PPP-value. Consistent with previous PPMC research, all investigated fit functions tended to perform conservatively, but Standardized Generalized Dimensionality Discrepancy Measure (SGDDM), Yen's Q3, and Hierarchy Consistency Index (HCI) only mildly so. Adequate power to detect at least some types of misfit was demonstrated by SGDDM, Q3, HCI, Item Consistency Index (ICI), and to a lesser extent Deviance, while proportion correct (PC), a chi-square-type item-fit measure, Ranked Probability Score (RPS), and Good's Logarithmic Scale (GLS) were powerless across all investigated factors. Bivariate SGDDM and Q3 were found to provide powerful and detailed feedback for all investigated types of misfit.
ContributorsCrawford, Aaron (Author) / Levy, Roy (Thesis advisor) / Green, Samuel (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Missing data are common in psychology research and can lead to bias and reduced power if not properly handled. Multiple imputation is a state-of-the-art missing data method recommended by methodologists. Multiple imputation methods can generally be divided into two broad categories: joint model (JM) imputation and fully conditional specification (FCS)

Missing data are common in psychology research and can lead to bias and reduced power if not properly handled. Multiple imputation is a state-of-the-art missing data method recommended by methodologists. Multiple imputation methods can generally be divided into two broad categories: joint model (JM) imputation and fully conditional specification (FCS) imputation. JM draws missing values simultaneously for all incomplete variables using a multivariate distribution (e.g., multivariate normal). FCS, on the other hand, imputes variables one at a time, drawing missing values from a series of univariate distributions. In the single-level context, these two approaches have been shown to be equivalent with multivariate normal data. However, less is known about the similarities and differences of these two approaches with multilevel data, and the methodological literature provides no insight into the situations under which the approaches would produce identical results. This document examined five multilevel multiple imputation approaches (three JM methods and two FCS methods) that have been proposed in the literature. An analytic section shows that only two of the methods (one JM method and one FCS method) used imputation models equivalent to a two-level joint population model that contained random intercepts and different associations across levels. The other three methods employed imputation models that differed from the population model primarily in their ability to preserve distinct level-1 and level-2 covariances. I verified the analytic work with computer simulations, and the simulation results also showed that imputation models that failed to preserve level-specific covariances produced biased estimates. The studies also highlighted conditions that exacerbated the amount of bias produced (e.g., bias was greater for conditions with small cluster sizes). The analytic work and simulations lead to a number of practical recommendations for researchers.
ContributorsMistler, Stephen (Author) / Enders, Craig K. (Thesis advisor) / Aiken, Leona (Committee member) / Levy, Roy (Committee member) / West, Stephen G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
Many methodological approaches have been utilized to predict student retention and persistence over the years, yet few have utilized a Bayesian framework. It is believed this is due in part to the absence of an established process for guiding educational researchers reared in a frequentist perspective into the realms of

Many methodological approaches have been utilized to predict student retention and persistence over the years, yet few have utilized a Bayesian framework. It is believed this is due in part to the absence of an established process for guiding educational researchers reared in a frequentist perspective into the realms of Bayesian analysis and educational data mining. The current study aimed to address this by providing a model-building process for developing a Bayesian network (BN) that leveraged educational data mining, Bayesian analysis, and traditional iterative model-building techniques in order to predict whether community college students will stop out at the completion of each of their first six terms. The study utilized exploratory and confirmatory techniques to reduce an initial pool of more than 50 potential predictor variables to a parsimonious final BN with only four predictor variables. The average in-sample classification accuracy rate for the model was 80% (Cohen's κ = 53%). The model was shown to be generalizable across samples with an average out-of-sample classification accuracy rate of 78% (Cohen's κ = 49%). The classification rates for the BN were also found to be superior to the classification rates produced by an analog frequentist discrete-time survival analysis model.
ContributorsArcuria, Philip (Author) / Levy, Roy (Thesis advisor) / Green, Samuel B (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn S (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
It is common in the analysis of data to provide a goodness-of-fit test to assess the performance of a model. In the analysis of contingency tables, goodness-of-fit statistics are frequently employed when modeling social science, educational or psychological data where the interest is often directed at investigating the association among

It is common in the analysis of data to provide a goodness-of-fit test to assess the performance of a model. In the analysis of contingency tables, goodness-of-fit statistics are frequently employed when modeling social science, educational or psychological data where the interest is often directed at investigating the association among multi-categorical variables. Pearson's chi-squared statistic is well-known in goodness-of-fit testing, but it is sometimes considered to produce an omnibus test as it gives little guidance to the source of poor fit once the null hypothesis is rejected. However, its components can provide powerful directional tests. In this dissertation, orthogonal components are used to develop goodness-of-fit tests for models fit to the counts obtained from the cross-classification of multi-category dependent variables. Ordinal categories are assumed. Orthogonal components defined on marginals are obtained when analyzing multi-dimensional contingency tables through the use of the QR decomposition. A subset of these orthogonal components can be used to construct limited-information tests that allow one to identify the source of lack-of-fit and provide an increase in power compared to Pearson's test. These tests can address the adverse effects presented when data are sparse. The tests rely on the set of first- and second-order marginals jointly, the set of second-order marginals only, and the random forest method, a popular algorithm for modeling large complex data sets. The performance of these tests is compared to the likelihood ratio test as well as to tests based on orthogonal polynomial components. The derived goodness-of-fit tests are evaluated with studies for detecting two- and three-way associations that are not accounted for by a categorical variable factor model with a single latent variable. In addition the tests are used to investigate the case when the model misspecification involves parameter constraints for large and sparse contingency tables. The methodology proposed here is applied to data from the 38th round of the State Survey conducted by the Institute for Public Policy and Michigan State University Social Research (2005) . The results illustrate the use of the proposed techniques in the context of a sparse data set.
ContributorsMilovanovic, Jelena (Author) / Young, Dennis (Thesis advisor) / Reiser, Mark R. (Thesis advisor) / Wilson, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Eubank, Randall (Committee member) / Yang, Yan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
This dissertation involves three problems that are all related by the use of the singular value decomposition (SVD) or generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD). The specific problems are (i) derivation of a generalized singular value expansion (GSVE), (ii) analysis of the properties of the chi-squared method for regularization parameter selection

This dissertation involves three problems that are all related by the use of the singular value decomposition (SVD) or generalized singular value decomposition (GSVD). The specific problems are (i) derivation of a generalized singular value expansion (GSVE), (ii) analysis of the properties of the chi-squared method for regularization parameter selection in the case of nonnormal data and (iii) formulation of a partial canonical correlation concept for continuous time stochastic processes. The finite dimensional SVD has an infinite dimensional generalization to compact operators. However, the form of the finite dimensional GSVD developed in, e.g., Van Loan does not extend directly to infinite dimensions as a result of a key step in the proof that is specific to the matrix case. Thus, the first problem of interest is to find an infinite dimensional version of the GSVD. One such GSVE for compact operators on separable Hilbert spaces is developed. The second problem concerns regularization parameter estimation. The chi-squared method for nonnormal data is considered. A form of the optimized regularization criterion that pertains to measured data or signals with nonnormal noise is derived. Large sample theory for phi-mixing processes is used to derive a central limit theorem for the chi-squared criterion that holds under certain conditions. Departures from normality are seen to manifest in the need for a possibly different scale factor in normalization rather than what would be used under the assumption of normality. The consequences of our large sample work are illustrated by empirical experiments. For the third problem, a new approach is examined for studying the relationships between a collection of functional random variables. The idea is based on the work of Sunder that provides mappings to connect the elements of algebraic and orthogonal direct sums of subspaces in a Hilbert space. When combined with a key isometry associated with a particular Hilbert space indexed stochastic process, this leads to a useful formulation for situations that involve the study of several second order processes. In particular, using our approach with two processes provides an independent derivation of the functional canonical correlation analysis (CCA) results of Eubank and Hsing. For more than two processes, a rigorous derivation of the functional partial canonical correlation analysis (PCCA) concept that applies to both finite and infinite dimensional settings is obtained.
ContributorsHuang, Qing (Author) / Eubank, Randall (Thesis advisor) / Renaut, Rosemary (Thesis advisor) / Cochran, Douglas (Committee member) / Gelb, Anne (Committee member) / Young, Dennis (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
A least total area of triangle method was proposed by Teissier (1948) for fitting a straight line to data from a pair of variables without treating either variable as the dependent variable while allowing each of the variables to have measurement errors. This method is commonly called Reduced Major Axis

A least total area of triangle method was proposed by Teissier (1948) for fitting a straight line to data from a pair of variables without treating either variable as the dependent variable while allowing each of the variables to have measurement errors. This method is commonly called Reduced Major Axis (RMA) regression and is often used instead of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression. Results for confidence intervals, hypothesis testing and asymptotic distributions of coefficient estimates in the bivariate case are reviewed. A generalization of RMA to more than two variables for fitting a plane to data is obtained by minimizing the sum of a function of the volumes obtained by drawing, from each data point, lines parallel to each coordinate axis to the fitted plane (Draper and Yang 1997; Goodman and Tofallis 2003). Generalized RMA results for the multivariate case obtained by Draper and Yang (1997) are reviewed and some investigations of multivariate RMA are given. A linear model is proposed that does not specify a dependent variable and allows for errors in the measurement of each variable. Coefficients in the model are estimated by minimization of the function of the volumes previously mentioned. Methods for obtaining coefficient estimates are discussed and simulations are used to investigate the distribution of coefficient estimates. The effects of sample size, sampling error and correlation among variables on the estimates are studied. Bootstrap methods are used to obtain confidence intervals for model coefficients. Residual analysis is considered for assessing model assumptions. Outlier and influential case diagnostics are developed and a forward selection method is proposed for subset selection of model variables. A real data example is provided that uses the methods developed. Topics for further research are discussed.
ContributorsLi, Jingjin (Author) / Young, Dennis (Thesis advisor) / Eubank, Randall (Thesis advisor) / Reiser, Mark R. (Committee member) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Yang, Yan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
Investigation of measurement invariance (MI) commonly assumes correct specification of dimensionality across multiple groups. Although research shows that violation of the dimensionality assumption can cause bias in model parameter estimation for single-group analyses, little research on this issue has been conducted for multiple-group analyses. This study explored the effects of

Investigation of measurement invariance (MI) commonly assumes correct specification of dimensionality across multiple groups. Although research shows that violation of the dimensionality assumption can cause bias in model parameter estimation for single-group analyses, little research on this issue has been conducted for multiple-group analyses. This study explored the effects of mismatch in dimensionality between data and analysis models with multiple-group analyses at the population and sample levels. Datasets were generated using a bifactor model with different factor structures and were analyzed with bifactor and single-factor models to assess misspecification effects on assessments of MI and latent mean differences. As baseline models, the bifactor models fit data well and had minimal bias in latent mean estimation. However, the low convergence rates of fitting bifactor models to data with complex structures and small sample sizes caused concern. On the other hand, effects of fitting the misspecified single-factor models on the assessments of MI and latent means differed by the bifactor structures underlying data. For data following one general factor and one group factor affecting a small set of indicators, the effects of ignoring the group factor in analysis models on the tests of MI and latent mean differences were mild. In contrast, for data following one general factor and several group factors, oversimplifications of analysis models can lead to inaccurate conclusions regarding MI assessment and latent mean estimation.
ContributorsXu, Yuning (Author) / Green, Samuel (Thesis advisor) / Levy, Roy (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018