This paper provides practical guidance for scholars and practitioners looking to develop more rigorous, comprehensive, and inclusive research that could guide proactive efforts to improve access, experiences, and outcomes for college students with disabilities. To do so, we (a) identify critical challenges affecting research and assessment related…

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), in response to recommendations in the Annual Report of the Advisory Council on the Education of Gifted and Talented Students (2015), has produced this document to provide guidance for school districts to more equitably identify and meet the needs of traditionally…

Student growth is one of two essential components of South Dakota's Teacher and Principal Effectiveness Systems. In the state systems, student growth is defined as a positive change in student achievement between two or more points in time. "The South Dakota SLO Handbook" provides support and guidance to public schools and school…

This manual contains information about the American College Test (ACT) Plan® program. The principal focus of this manual is to document the Plan program's technical adequacy in light of its intended purposes. This manual supersedes the 2011 edition. The content of this manual responds to requirements of the testing industry as established in the…

Eighty-seven elementary students in grades four, five, and six, were administered a 30-item multiplication instrument to assess performance in computation across grade levels. An interpretation of student performance using error ratio analysis is provided and the use of this method with groups of students for instructional decision making is…

Educators designing procedures for identifying students as learning disabled are faced with serious technical difficulties. A student with a learning disability is one who "has a severe discrepancey between achievement and intellectual ability" in one or more designated areas. The methods of quantifying achievement, intellectual ability,…

Since research conclusions derived from inappropriate statistical methodologies can lack accuracy, the article describes a technique appropriate to the heterogeneity of special needs groups in which subjects are assigned to fairly homogeneous subgroups. The technique is related to research in reading with this population. (DB)

The paper reviews a series of models designed to reduce bias in the assessment process and describes the intent of each model and their interactive effect in the process of nonbiased educational evaluation. (Author/CL)

Three procedures that help to determine the degree of confidence we can place in any raw score are discussed: computing the standard error of measurement, computing the estimated true score, and constructing confidence intervals. These three procedures are easy to use and require only elementary mathematical skills. (Author/CL)

The 19 chapters of this text on assessment in special education are divided into two parts. Part 1 discusses basic concepts in assessment in special education. Part 2 addresses the special education process by describing steps in the assessment continuum. Individual chapters examine the following topics: (1) an introduction to assessment; (2)…

This article describes soft modeling with partial least squares in a nontechnical manner and suggests its greater use in special education research. This approach allows model building and evaluation in situations with high complexity but without well-articulated theories. (DB)

Discusses how meta-analysis allows clinicians to determine objectively both presence and size of an effect or correlation within the existing literature by pooling the results of various studies and performing statistical analyses. Describes the risks and benefits of applying information obtained from meta-analysis into clinical practice.…

This paper reviews computer software designed for the development, management, and updating of Individual Educational Plans (IEPs) for disabled students. Selection criteria required that the software perform multiple tasks related to the writing of IEPs, be appropriate for use in a medium-sized school district, and be appropriate for a severely…

This paper provides a brief description of meta-analysis geared toward readers with limited statistics experience beyond an introductory course. The advantages and disadvantages of meta-analysis and its application in early childhood special education research are noted. (JDD)

Using data describing entry into preschool among children with special needs, this paper introduces the fundamental statistical quantities of event occurrence--hazard and survivor functions. The paper discusses construction of formal statistical models of event occurrence over time, predictors that can be included in hazard models, and importance…