To increase opportunities for students to take more advanced math courses in high school, many school districts enroll grade 8 students in Algebra I, a gateway course for advanced math. But students who take Algebra I in grade 8 and skip other math courses, such as grade 8 general math, might miss opportunities to develop the foundational…

This report provides information about an interactive computer game named Say My Name that allows high school and undergraduate students to review individually nomenclature of organic compounds in an engaging and fun way by answering up to 600 questions distributed in three difficulty levels. Responses from students and teachers who have played…

This Data Point uses data from the 2012 administration of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) financial literacy assessment. PISA is an international assessment that measures 15-year-old students' reading, mathematics, and science literacy and, in 2012, general problem solving and financial literacy. PISA is coordinated by the…

Lee Donaghy was concerned that his GCSE students' weak contextual knowledge was letting them down. Inspired by a mixture of cognitive science and the arguments of other teachers expressed in various blogs, he decided to tackle the problem by teaching and testing knowledge more intensively. The result was a rapid improvement in secure factual…

The purpose of this report is to describe the technical qualities of the 2018-2019 operational administration of the English language arts/literacy (ELA/L) and mathematics summative assessments in grades 3 through 8 and high school. The ELA/L assessments focus on reading and comprehending a range of sufficiently complex texts independently and…

The purpose of this report is to describe the technical qualities of the 2018-2019 operational administration of the English language arts/literacy (ELA/L) and mathematics assessments in grades 3 through 8 and high school. New Meridian, in coordination with multiple states and vendors, developed an alternate form of the summative assessment to…

As part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading, students are asked to demonstrate their understanding of words as used in literary and informational texts. This focus on students' understanding of word meaning highlights the importance of vocabulary in reading comprehension. This report provides an overview of…

The purpose of this paper is to describe briefly the development and utility of the "Assessment of Reading Instructional Knowledge-Adults" ("ARIK-A"), the only nationally normed (n?=?468) measure of adult reading instructional knowledge, created to facilitate professional development of adult educators. Developmental data…

In an effort to cure the ills of current grading and reporting systems, many schools and districts across the United States have attempted to implement a standards-based system. The authors recommend four best practices in this area: (1) Get rid of the omnibus grade, which tells teachers little about the content measured or the difficulty level of…

This study aims to examine a) whether vocabulary knowledge, captured in the Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT), is related to the performance on the five types of reading comprehension items tested in TOEFL, i.e., Guessing Vocabulary, Main Idea, Inference, Reference, and Stated Detail; and b) whether EFL learners with different levels of vocabulary…

School communities across the country are working hard to comply with state and federal policies requiring that all students be prepared for success in college. Technological advances and new reporting requirements make data on students and schools more accessible than ever--but more and better data alone are not enough to meet the challenges…

To what extent can young people analyze the pros and cons of a proposal to develop a new source of energy? Construct and test a model or prototype? Use the Internet to find and summarize data and information in order to solve a problem or achieve a goal? The exploding growth in the world of technology and the need to answer questions similar to…

Educators nationwide confront a troubling phenomenon: Increasingly, students leave high school unready for college, as evidenced by high rates of placement into remedial courses and low rates of college completion. Many students also lack either the attitudes or skills essential to succeed in a postsecondary setting, or knowledge of how to apply…

Palmore's Facts on Aging Quiz (FAQ) was used to measure aging knowledge outcomes of 323 practicum students engaged in aging-focused practica at pre- and posttest across 11 universities. Significant improvement in knowledge scores (p = 0.0001) was found for graduates of the enhanced field education programs. Taking aging course work was a…

Within a response to intervention (RTI) framework, students are typically identified as "academically at-risk" if they score below a specified cut-point on a benchmark screener. Students identified as at-risk are provided with an intervention intended to increase achievement. In the following technical report, we describe a process for…