Meta-analyzing individual participant data from studies with complex survey designs: A tutorial on using the two-stage approach for data from educational large-scale assessments.

Descriptive analyses of socially important or theoretically interesting phenomena and trends are a vital component of research in the behavioral, social, economic, and health sciences. Such analyses yield reliable results when using representative individual participant data (IPD) from studies with complex survey designs, including educational large-scale assessments (ELSAs) or social, health, and economic survey and panel studies. The meta-analytic integration of these results offers unique and novel research opportunities to provide strong empirical evidence of the consistency and generalizability of important phenomena and trends.

Quality Criteria for Real-world Data in Pharmaceutical Research and Health Care Decision-making: Austrian Expert Consensus.

Real-world data (RWD) collected in routine health care processes and transformed to real-world evidence have become increasingly interesting within the research and medical communities to enhance medical research and support regulatory decision-making. Despite numerous European initiatives, there is still no cross-border consensus or guideline determining which qualities RWD must meet in order to be acceptable for decision-making within regulatory or routine clinical decision support. In the absence of guidelines defining the quality standards for RWD, an overview and first recommendations for quality criteria for RWD in pharmaceutical research and health care decision-making is needed in Austria.

How sensitive are the evaluations of a school's effectiveness to the selection of covariates in the applied value-added model?

Unlabelled: There is no final consensus regarding which covariates should be used (in addition to prior achievement) when estimating value-added (VA) scores to evaluate a school's effectiveness. Therefore, we examined the sensitivity of evaluations of schools' effectiveness in math and language achievement to covariate selection in the applied VA model. Four covariate sets were systematically combined, including prior achievement from the same or different domain, sociodemographic and sociocultural background characteristics, and domain-specific achievement motivation.

A Dynamic Structural Equation Approach to Modeling Wage Dynamics and Cumulative Advantage across the Lifespan.

Wages and wage dynamics directly affect individuals' and families' daily lives. In this article, we show how major theoretical branches of research on wages and inequality-that is, cumulative advantage (CA), human capital theory, and the lifespan perspective-can be integrated into a coherent statistical framework and analyzed with multilevel dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM). This opens up a new way to empirically investigate the mechanisms that drive growing inequality over time.

Tversky and Kahneman's Cognitive Illusions: Who Can Solve Them, and Why?

In the present paper we empirically investigate the psychometric properties of some of the most famous statistical and logical cognitive illusions from the "heuristics and biases" research program by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who nearly 50 years ago introduced fascinating brain teasers such as the famous Linda problem, the Wason card selection task, and so-called Bayesian reasoning problems (e.g., the mammography task).

Age and ability differentiation in children: A review and empirical investigation.

Differentiation hypotheses concern changes in the structural organization of cognitive abilities that depend on the level of general intelligence (ability differentiation) or age (developmental differentiation). Part 1 of this article presents a review of the literature on ability and developmental differentiation effects in children, revealing the need for studies that examine both effects simultaneously in this age group with appropriate statistical methods. Part 2 presents an empirical study in which nonlinear factor analytic models were applied to the standardization sample ( = 2,619 German elementary schoolchildren; 48% female; age: = 8.

Contrasting Classical and Machine Learning Approaches in the Estimation of Value-Added Scores in Large-Scale Educational Data.

There is no consensus on which statistical model estimates school value-added (VA) most accurately. To date, the two most common statistical models used for the calculation of VA scores are two classical methods: linear regression and multilevel models. These models have the advantage of being relatively transparent and thus understandable for most researchers and practitioners.

Vibrational coupling to hydration shell - Mechanism to performance enhancement of qualitative analysis in NIR spectroscopy of carbohydrates in aqueous environment.

Vibrational coupling between carbohydrates and the hydration shell is unveiled as the underlying mechanism that improves wavenumber-selectively the carbohydrate discrimination performance by near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. The investigation is based on measurement of six carbohydrates (fructose, glucose, mannose, ribose, xylose and sorbitol) in aqueous solution in different concentration levels (5 mg/L, ~0.03 mmol/dm and 20 mg/L, ~0.

General intelligence and specific cognitive abilities in adolescence: Tests of age differentiation, ability differentiation, and their interaction in two large samples.

Differentiation of intelligence refers to changes in the structure of intelligence that depend on individuals' level of general cognitive ability (ability differentiation hypothesis) or age (developmental differentiation hypothesis). The present article aimed to investigate ability differentiation, developmental differentiation, and their interaction with nonlinear factor analytic models in 2 studies. Study 1 was comprised of a nationally representative sample of 7,127 U.

Investigating core assumptions of the "American Dream": Historical changes in how adolescents' socioeconomic status, IQ, and GPA are related to key life outcomes in adulthood.

The present study examines how historical changes in the U.S. socioeconomic environment in the 20th century may have affected core assumptions of the "American Dream.

FUNDAMANT: an interventional 72-week phase 1 follow-up study of AADvac1, an active immunotherapy against tau protein pathology in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Neurofibrillary pathology composed of tau protein is closely correlated with severity and phenotype of cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer's disease and non-Alzheimer's tauopathies. Targeting pathological tau proteins via immunotherapy is a promising strategy for disease-modifying treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Previously, we reported a 24-week phase 1 trial on the active vaccine AADvac1 against pathological tau protein; here, we present the results of a further 72 weeks of follow-up on those patients.

Effects of achievement differences for internal/external frame of reference model investigations: A test of robustness of findings over diverse student samples.

Background: Achievement in math and achievement in verbal school subjects are more strongly correlated than the respective academic self-concepts. The internal/external frame of reference model (I/E model; Marsh, 1986, Am. Educ.

Profile formation of academic self-concept in elementary school students in grades 1 to 4.

Academic self-concept (ASC) is comprised of individual perceptions of one's own academic ability. In a cross-sectional quasi-representative sample of 3,779 German elementary school children in grades 1 to 4, we investigated (a) the structure of ASC, (b) ASC profile formation, an aspect of differentiation that is reflected in lower correlations between domain-specific ASCs with increasing grade level, (c) the impact of (internal) dimensional comparisons of one's own ability in different school subjects for profile formation of ASC, and (d) the role played by differences in school grades between subjects for these dimensional comparisons. The nested Marsh/Shavelson model, with general ASC at the apex and math, writing, and reading ASC as specific factors nested under general ASC fitted the data at all grade levels.

Safety and immunogenicity of the tau vaccine AADvac1 in patients with Alzheimer's disease: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 1 trial.

Background: Neurofibrillary pathology composed of tau protein is a main correlate of cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Immunotherapy targeting pathological tau proteins is therefore a promising strategy for disease-modifying treatment of Alzheimer's disease. We have developed an active vaccine, AADvac1, against pathological tau proteins and assessed it in a phase 1 trial.

Relative Age Effects in Mathematics and Reading: Investigating the Generalizability across Students, Time and Classes.

A child's age in comparison to the age of her or his classmates (relative age) has been found to be an influential factor on academic achievement, particularly but not exclusively at the beginning of formal schooling. However, few studies have focused on the generalizability of relative age effects. To close this gap, the present study analyzes the generalizability across students with and without immigrant backgrounds, across three student cohorts that entered school under a changing law of school enrollment, and across classes.

Speaking two languages with different number naming systems: What implications for magnitude judgments in bilinguals at different stages of language acquisition?

Differences between languages in terms of number naming systems may lead to performance differences in number processing. The current study focused on differences concerning the order of decades and units in two-digit number words (i.e.

Developmental Dynamics of General and School-Subject-Specific Components of Academic Self-Concept, Academic Interest, and Academic Anxiety.

The present study investigated the developmental dynamics of general and subject-specific (i.e., mathematics, French, and German) components of students' academic self-concept, anxiety, and interest.

Forearm vasodilator reactivity in healthy male carriers of the 3q22.3 rs9818870 polymorphism.

Background: A genome wide association study has identified a robust risk locus for cardiovascular disease on 3q22.3. However, the mechanisms by which the [C]/[T] polymorphism rs9818870 increases cardiovascular risk are unknown.

Assessing the influence of diurnal variations and selective Xa inhibition on whole blood aggregometry.

A biological rhythm in platelet function is well known. Multiple electrode aggregometry (MEA) is a widely used assay to measure platelet aggregability. Rivaroxaban is a new oral anticoagulant frequently used in an increasing number of indications.

Student characteristics and behaviors at age 12 predict occupational success 40 years later over and above childhood IQ and parental socioeconomic status.

Drawing on a 2-wave longitudinal sample spanning 40 years from childhood (age 12) to middle adulthood (age 52), the present study was designed to examine how student characteristics and behaviors in late childhood (assessed in Wave 1 in 1968) predict career success in adulthood (assessed in Wave 2 in 2008). We examined the influence of parental socioeconomic status (SES), childhood intelligence, and student characteristics and behaviors (inattentiveness, school entitlement, responsible student, sense of inferiority, impatience, pessimism, rule breaking and defiance of parental authority, and teacher-rated studiousness) on 2 important real-life outcomes (i.e.

The Kind of Student You Were in Elementary School Predicts Mortality.

We examined the association of self-reported and teacher-rated student characteristics assessed at the end of primary school with all-cause mortality assessed through age 52. Data stem from a representative sample of students from Luxembourg assessed in 1968 (N = 2,543; M = 11.9 years, SD = 0.

The relation between language and arithmetic in bilinguals: insights from different stages of language acquisition.

Solving arithmetic problems is a cognitive task that heavily relies on language processing. One might thus wonder whether this language-reliance leads to qualitative differences (e.g.

Influence of proton pump inhibitors and VKORC1 mutations on CYP2C9-mediated dose requirements of vitamin K antagonist therapy: a pilot study.

Interindividual variations in dose requirements of oral vitamin K antagonists (VKA) are attributed to several factors, including genetic variant alleles of vitamin K epoxide reductase complex subunit 1 (VKORC1) and cytochrome P450 2C9 (CYP2C9), but also interaction with co-medications. In this context, proton pump inhibitor (PPI)-related alterations of VKA maintenance dose requirements have been published. The present investigation aimed to test for an interaction profile of oral VKA-therapy and PPIs in relation to the CYP2C9 genotype.

Predicting first-grade mathematics achievement: the contributions of domain-general cognitive abilities, nonverbal number sense, and early number competence.

Early number competence, grounded in number-specific and domain-general cognitive abilities, is theorized to lay the foundation for later math achievement. Few longitudinal studies have tested a comprehensive model for early math development. Using structural equation modeling and mediation analyses, the present work examined the influence of kindergarteners' nonverbal number sense and domain-general abilities (i.

Self-concept in adolescence: a longitudinal study on reciprocal effects of self-perceptions in academic and social domains.

Fostering social and academic self-concepts are central educational goals. During mid-adolescence academic engagement and success seem to be devalued by peers and to be negatively associated with students' social standing. For this age group, is the development of a positive academic self-concept compatible with the development of a positive social self-concept? We investigated relations among academic self-concept, social self-concept, and academic achievement.