Professional Summary
Amota is an international doctoral student advised by Dr Ben Kelcey (Professor of Quantitative Methods) at the College of Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services at the University of Cincinnati. Amota is interested in causal evaluation and machine learning in education and behavioral science. His research focuses on the design and analysis of individual and cluster randomized trials, methods for fully and partially nested multisite clustered randomized trials, optimal allocation, and power analysis. These are research areas that are well developed and relatively straightforward in natural science and pharmaceutical fields but young and complex in social sciences where there are contextual and latent factors to capture. Amota is currently exploring ways to apply Machine Learning (neural networks, explainable boosting, etc.) in multilevel and high-dimensional data structures in education and psychotherapy settings. He is also interested in developing user-friendly R packages and R ShinyApps to make sophisticated quantitative methodologies more accessible to social science researchers. Amota has presented his scholarly work at various national research conferences, including the 2022 and 2023 American Evaluation Association (AEA), American Educational Research Association (AERA), and the American Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management annual meetings. Finally, Amota is also working with Australian researchers on QuantCrit, the integration of quantitative methods and critical inquiry approaches.
Education
Bachelor of Economics: University of Queensland Australia,
Master's of Public Administration (MPA): University of Hawaii USA,
Research Support
Grant: #1760884 Investigators:PIs: Benjamin Kelcey, Nianbo Dong National Science Foundation (NSF) Designing Multisite Mediation Studies to Track Teacher Development Processes in Mathematics Role:Collaborator $499,996.00 Completed Type:Grant
Grant: #1552535 Investigators:PIs: Benjamin Kelcey National Science Foundation (NSF) Multilevel Mediation Models to Study the Impact of Teacher Development on Student Achievement in Mathematics. Role:Contributor $679,105.00
Publications
Peer Reviewed Publications
Bai, F., Xie, Y., Kelcey, B., Ataneka, A., McLean, L., Dong, N., & Phelps, G. (2024. ) Design Parameter Values for Planning Mediation Studies With Teacher and Student Mathematics Outcomes, .Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, ,
Ataneka, A., Bai, F., Xie, Y., Kelcey, B., McLean, L., Dong, N., & Phelps, G. Design Parameter Values for Planning Mediation Studies With Teacher and Student Literacy Outcomes, .Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, ,
Other Publications
Ataneka, A., Kelcey, B., Dong, N., Bulus, M., & Bai, F. (2023. ) Power-Up Shiny App User Guide 0.9 .https://www.causalevaluation.org/power-analysis.html,
Presentations
Invited Presentations
Bai, F., Ataneka, A., Kelcey, B., & Xie, Y (2023. ) Designing Adequately Powered Multilevel Studies Cluster Randomized Trials to Detect Main Effects, Moderation, and Mediation .University of Connecticut, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA. Workshop. .
Colloquium
Ataneka, A., Xie, Y., Bai, F., Kelcey, B., & Dong, N. (04-2024). Design Parameter Values for Planning Mediation Studies With Teacher and Student Mathematics Outcomes. . Spring Conference, Louisville, Kentucky. Conference. Level:Regional
Ataneka, A., Xie, Y., Bai, F., Kelcey, B., & Dong, N. (10-2022). Design Parameter Values for Planning Mediation Studies With Teacher and Student Mathematics Outcomes. . American Evaluation Association , Indianapolis. Conference. Level:National
Paper Presentations
Ataneka, A., Xie, Y., Bai, F., Kelcey, B., & Dong, N. (05-2023. ) Design Parameter Values for Planning Mediation Studies With Teacher and Student Mathematics Outcomes. .Chicago. Conference. Level:National
Ataneka, A., (2017. ) Examining the Efficiency of Public Elementary Schools in the State of Hawaii: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis .California. Conference. Level:National
Bai, F., Xie, Y., Kelcey, B., Ataneka, A., McLean, L., Dong, N., & Phelps, G. (10-2023. ) Design Parameter Values for Multilevel Mediation Studies of Teacher Development. .Connecticut. Conference.
Ataneka, A., Xie, Y., Bai, F., Kelcey, B., & Dong, N. (09-2023. ) Design Parameter Values for Multilevel Mediation Studies of Teacher Development. .Arlington Virginia . Conference. Level:National
Symposium
Ataneka, A., Cox, K., Kelcey, B., Bai, F., Luce, Hannah., (10-2022. ) Detecting Moderation Effects in Cluster Randomized Trials with Partially Nested Data .Washington DC. Conference. Level:International
Ataneka, A., (Discussant) (11-2022. ) Principles of Estimation, Inference & Design in Partially Nested Regression Discontinuity Studies .New Orleans, Louisiana. Conference.