This paper reports on a set of three recent experiments utilizing large-scale speech models to assess the oral reading fluency (ORF) of students in Ghana. While ORF is a well-established measure of foundational literacy, assessing it typically requires one-on-one sessions between a student and a trained rater, a process that is time-consuming and…

The standard methodology for many large-scale assessments in education involves regressing latent variables on numerous contextual variables to estimate proficiency distributions. To reduce the number of contextual variables used in the regression and improve estimation, we propose and evaluate principal component analysis on the covariance matrix…

There have been significant advances in science and technology in recent years. Therefore, all countries need qualified people who can take on the challenges of life today and compete in the international arena. This has led countries to adopt new approaches to education. STEM education is one of the latest examples of those approaches. This study…

Item response theory (IRT) is a statistical paradigm for developing educational tests and assessing students. IRT, however, currently lacks an established graphical method for examining model fit for the three-parameter logistic model, the most flexible and popular IRT model in educational testing. A method is presented here to do this. The graph,…

English language learners (ELLs) and their teachers, schools, and communities face increasingly high-stakes consequences due to test score gaps between ELLs and non-ELLs. It is essential that the field of educational assessment continue to investigate the meaning of these test score gaps. This article discusses the findings of an exploratory study…

This is a preliminary report on research into computational errors made by six- and seven-year-olds. (Author/MK)

With the theory that social and personal values influence the conduct of evaluation studies in education, the author discusses the impact of two major sources of such values--contextual factors, including political, social and organizational influences; and the terminology, models, and personal values of evaluators. Alternative purposes for an…

Data from 32 state assessments in mathematics (conducted in 1984 and earlier) are analyzed in this document. The high degree of variability across the states is stressed, with some of the points of variation in the test development, administration, and analysis process noted. Information is then presented on topics on which students are doing well…

An index identifying factors leading to unusual response patterns by students, the modified caution index, was computed for the reading comprehension and study skills items of Booklet 5 from the 1979 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading achievement survey given to the 9-, 13- and 17-year-old samples. The analyses focused on…

Techniques to identify the degree to which a response pattern is unusual and the pattern's relationship to examinee background are presented. Sato's caution index and modified caution index use clusters of items for comparisons of observed performance outcomes and do not require the use of item response theory. Correlation between the indices was…

Data from the Stanford Test of Academic Skills Level I, administered to 10,910 tenth graders in Hawaii in Fall, 1985, are analyzed. The purposes of this report are to provide information on the effectiveness of the mathematics program in the high school, including the identification of deficiency areas and recommendations for improving…

Using responses of 123 elementary school teachers, a battery of performance-assessment tasks designed to generate responses to reading tests was evaluated from task development and scoring perspectives. More than one dozen types of errors were identified. Practical outcomes of the study and improvement of task development and scoring are…