This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable multiple-choice achievement test for the subject area of ecology. The study was conducted within the framework of exploratory sequential design based on mixed research methods, and the study group consisted of a total of 250 middle school students studying at the sixth and seventh grade level. In…

The purpose of this study was to examine the overall level of student achievement on the 2012 Kansas History-Government Assessment in Grades 6, 8, and high school, with major emphasis on the subject area of economics. It explored four specific research questions in order to: (1) determine the level of student knowledge of assessed economic…

We expect that word knowledge accumulates gradually. This article draws on earlier approaches to assessing depth, but focuses on one dimension: richness of semantic knowledge. We present results from a study in which three distinct item types were developed at three levels of depth: knowledge of common usage patterns, knowledge of broad topical…

In the transition years, Grades 7 to 9, the shift from natural numbers to rational numbers and the associated multiplicative concepts prove challenging for many learners. The new concepts, operations and notation must be mastered if the student is to thereafter rise to meet the challenges of algebra and more advanced and powerful mathematics. The…

The purpose of this study was to develop general outcome measures (GOM) in mathematics so that teachers could focus their instruction on needed prerequisite skills. We describe in detail, the manner in which content-related evidence was established and then present a number of statistical analyses conducted to evaluate the technical adequacy of…