When people read questions like "How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?", many mistakenly answer "2" despite knowing that Noah sailed the ark. This "Moses illusion" occurs when names share semantic features. Two experiments examined whether shared "visual" concepts (facial features)…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factor structure and the measurement invariance of the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) across gender of K-12 school principals (n=6,317) in the USA. Design/methodology/approach: Nine first-order factor models and four second-order factor models were tested using confirmatory…

The purpose of this study was to examine potential validity concerns regarding the use of music festival scores as an element of value-added assessment practices mandated by federal education policy. Nonmusical school and band characteristics of band size, school enrollment, school percentage of minority enrollment, and school percentage of…

In this article, we explain how overly prescriptive, rigid state statutory and regulatory policy frameworks regarding teacher evaluation, tenure and employment decisions outstrip the statistical reliability and validity of proposed measures of teaching effectiveness. We begin with a discussion of the emergence of highly prescriptive state…

The grades K-2 Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) Reading Assessment (FRA) consists of computer-adaptive alphabetic and oral language screening tasks that provide a Probability of Literacy Success (PLS) linked to grade-level performance (i.e., the 40th percentile) on the word reading (in kindergarten) or reading comprehension (in grades…

The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) Reading Assessment (FRA) consists of computer-adaptive reading comprehension and oral language screening tasks that provide measures to track growth over time, as well as a Probability of Literacy Success (PLS) linked to grade-level performance (i.e., the 50th percentile) on the reading comprehension…

From time immemorial human beings have utilized animals for various needs and purposes, which led societies to debate the justification for using animals and to reflect on the way in which animals are treated. These concerns have also resulted in various contemporary studies aimed to reveal interest groups'--as well as the general publics'--views…

Recent research conducted on adults in the United States indicates low ocean literacy (Ocean Project, 2009b, 1999), but there is a dearth of peer-reviewed research on K-12 students' ocean literacy. This paper presents two research studies that examined the ocean and environmental literacy of 464 K-12 students in five states. Like the majority of…

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002), there has been increased interest in using student achievement data (through standardized tests) to evaluate teacher effectiveness. Two U.S. Department of Education secretaries, Secretary Spellings and Secretary Duncan, have expressed interest in growth models and the need to…

The relationships among several suggested indices of school desegregation were examined. The measures were discussed for their utility in the remedy process. Issues involved in the formulation of desegregation indices were related to kinds of information they yielded. Recommendations were made for the properties of an effective index. (Author)

This study examines the relationship between high-stakes school accountability and its effects upon student test scores and school policies. The authors seek to understand the extent to which accountability sanctions and incentives for the poorest-performing schools in Florida explain subsequent changes in school practices and policies as well as…

Correlations and mean score differences between IQs derived from the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT; Bracken & McCallum, 1998) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III; Wechsler, 1991) were compared. Participants were Limited English Proficient (LEP) Mexican-American elementary school students, who…