Statistical Tests, Tests of Significance, and Tests of a Hypothesis Using Excel

Microsoft’s spreadsheet program Excel has many statistical functions and routines. Over the years there have been criticisms about the inaccuracies of these functions and routines (see McCullough 1998, 1999). This article reviews some of these statistical methods used to test for differences between two samples. In practice, the analysis is done by a software program and often with the actual method used unknown. The user has to select the method and variations to be used, without full knowledge of just what calculations are used. Usually there is no convenient trace back to textbook explanations. This article describes the Excel algorithm and gives textbook related explanations to bolster Microsoft’s Help explanations

Lived experiences of students in the online learning environment as it relates to acts of academic dishonesty: a Western United States community college study

2014 Summer.Academic dishonesty has been an issue in education for many years (McCabe, 2001). As online education becomes more prevalent, the belief among faculty is that more acts of academic dishonesty are occurring in online courses rather than in face to face or on campus courses (Burke, 1997). However, little is known about how students understand and discuss acts of academic dishonesty in the online learning environment. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of students at a Western United States Community College as it relates to acts of academic dishonesty in the online learning environment. The research question that formed the basis of this study was: What are the lived experiences of community college students at a Western United States Community College as they relate to acts of academic dishonesty in an online course? The research method for this study was interpretative phenomenological analysis, IPA. Seven participants were interviewed. Through the analysis of the interviews the following themes emerged addressing the research question: 1. Online Learning is Convenient Yet Less Beneficial 2. Diverse Experiences with Acts of Academic Dishonesty 3. Academic Dishonesty Means Cheating 4. Heard About Academic Dishonesty in High School 5. Reasons Given for Committing Acts of Academic Dishonesty 6. Student Engagement Determined Acts of Academic Dishonest

The Impact of Teacher Termination on the Level of Stress of Elementary Principals

Considering the key position principals hold and the impact that this has on all aspects of school life, it was reasonable to argue that better understanding of the problems and stresses they face would shed more light on the complex nature and dynamics of stress. Walter Gmelch maintained that sources of stress for the school principal were divided into four broad categories: role-based, taskbased, boundary-spanning, and conflict-mediating. Public and political pressure to improve student performance coupled with the arduous task of removing tenured incompetent teachers poses pressing problems for school principals. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the relationship between teacher termination and its effect on the levels of stress of principals. If there was increased stress associated with teacher termination, was the stress more significant than other stressors associated with the principalship? This qualitative study was conducted in one of the largest school districts in the state and in the nation. The Administrative Stress Index questionnaire was administered to selected principals and follow-up interviews were conducted, tape recorded, and transcribed. Principals in this study clearly indicated that a central difficulty for them, as administrators, was the excessive amount of time needed to assist and support teachers who were less than effective. The interviews also indicated that the experienced principals were more critical of the events that occurred out of their locus of control and therefore increased the level of boundary-spanning stress. The less experienced principals continued to struggle with the issue of career termination and its\u27 impact on the person and on task-based stress. It was recommended that school districts recognize the stress associated with termination by providing comprehensive training programs for principals in stress maintenance. Colleges and universities who prepare educators should introduce a distance-learning program in stress management for school administrators. Further study was recommended on this topic as it related to middle-school and high-school principals

Molecular dynamics calculation of mean square displacement in alkali metals and rare gas solids and comparison with lattice dynamics

Molec ul ar dynamics calculations of the mean sq ua re displacement have been carried out for the alkali metals Na, K and Cs and for an fcc nearest neighbour Lennard-Jones model applicable to rare gas solids. The computations for the alkalis were done for several temperatures for temperature vol ume a swell as for the the ze r 0 pressure ze ro zero pressure volume corresponding to each temperature. In the fcc case, results were obtained for a wide range of both the temperature and density. Lattice dynamics calculations of the harmonic and the lowe s t order anharmonic (cubic and quartic) contributions to the mean square displacement were performed for the same potential models as in the molecular dynamics calculations. The Brillouin zone sums arising in the harmonic and the quartic terms were computed for very large numbers of points in q-space, and were extrapolated to obtain results ful converged with respect to the number of points in the Brillouin zone.An excellent agreement between the lattice dynamics results was observed molecular dynamics and in the case of all the alkali metals, e~ept for the zero pressure case of CSt where the difference is about 15 % near the melting temperature. It was concluded that for the alkalis, the lowest order perturbation theory works well even at temperat ures close to the melting temperat ure. For the fcc nearest neighbour model it was found that the number of particles (256) used for the molecular dynamics calculations, produces a result which is somewhere between 10 and 20 % smaller than the value converged with respect to the number of particles. However, the general temperature dependence of the mean square displacement is the same in molecular dynamics and lattice dynamics for all temperatures at the highest densities examined, while at higher volumes and high temperatures the results diverge. This indicates the importance of the higher order (eg. ~* ) perturbation theory contributions in these cases

Impact of Backbone fluorination on -conjugated polymers in organic photovoltaic devices: a review

Solution-processed bulk heterojunction solar cells have experienced a remarkable acceleration in performances in the last two decades, reaching power conversion efficiencies above 10%. This impressive progress is the outcome of a simultaneous development of more advanced device architectures and of optimized semiconducting polymers. Several chemical approaches have been developed to fine-tune the optoelectronics and structural polymer parameters required to reach high efficiencies. Fluorination of the conjugated polymer backbone has appeared recently to be an especially promising approach for the development of efficient semiconducting polymers. As a matter of fact, most currently best-performing semiconducting polymers are using fluorine atoms in their conjugated backbone. In this review, we attempt to give an up-to-date overview of the latest results achieved on fluorinated polymers for solar cells and to highlight general polymer properties’ evolution trends related to the fluorination of their conjugated backbone

Electron-Energy and –Angular Distributions in the Double Photoionization of Helium

Photoelectron spectra of helium have been measured at different angles and at various energies above the double-ionization threshold up to 120 eV to investigate the behavior of the energy and angular distributions, of shake-off electrons. Both energy and angular distributions clearly show a U-shaped profile which turns to a flat curve near threshold pointing to a uniform intensity distribution over the kinetic energy for all angles in this excitation energy regime. Our results for the angular-distribution asymmetry parameter indicate qualitative agreement with theoretical predictions but fail to provide them quantitatively

Impact of Backbone fluorination on -conjugated polymers in organic photovoltaic devices: a review

Solution-processed bulk heterojunction solar cells have experienced a remarkable acceleration in performances in the last two decades, reaching power conversion efficiencies above 10%. This impressive progress is the outcome of a simultaneous development of more advanced device architectures and of optimized semiconducting polymers. Several chemical approaches have been developed to fine-tune the optoelectronics and structural polymer parameters required to reach high efficiencies. Fluorination of the conjugated polymer backbone has appeared recently to be an especially promising approach for the development of efficient semiconducting polymers. As a matter of fact, most currently best-performing semiconducting polymers are using fluorine atoms in their conjugated backbone. In this review, we attempt to give an up-to-date overview of the latest results achieved on fluorinated polymers for solar cells and to highlight general polymer properties’ evolution trends related to the fluorination of their conjugated backbone

Vibrational-State-Dependent Decay of the CO C(1s) Excitation

Molecular ionization and ionic fragmentation of core excited CO valence and Rydberg states are studied by partial-ion-yield spectroscopy at vibrational resolution. The vibrational intensities of the Rydberg excitations differ significantly depending on the ionization and/or fragmentation channel. The observed intensity variations are explained by nondissociative excited final ionic states of the subsequent molecular Auger decay. The vibrational levels of these final states become selectively depopulated due to interaction with dissociative decay channels leading to ionic fragmentation