Many low-income young people are not reaching important milestones for success (for example, completing a program or graduating from school on time). But the social-service organizations and schools that serve them often struggle to identify who is at more or less risk. These institutions often either over- or underestimate risk, missing…

Dynamic assessment methods, initially developed by Feuerstein in the 1970s, have been recommended as being more equitable for identifying the academic abilities of students who may not perform well on traditional assessments due to these learners' cultural, linguistic, or economic differences from the population for whom the traditional measures…

Recently, the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) completed a study to connect the scale of the North Carolina State End of Grade (EOG) Testing Program used for North Carolina's mathematics and reading assessments with NWEA's Rausch Interval Unit (RIT) scale. Information from the state assessments was used in a study to establish…

We use unique administrative data from a leading Italian university to estimate whether the use of admission tests and conditional progression schemes are effective strategies to select high-performing students. Previous work, which has been predominantly correlational, has focused on the effect of selectivity policies on widening university…

Personality patterns did not improve prediction from aptitude and achievement variables in the weight determination sample and in cross-validation actually cancelled out predictability from traditional measures. Prediction of college grades from high school grades and aptitude tests was, on the other hand. both accurate and consistent. (Author)

This paper deals with two fundamental problems that are embedded in the evaluation of school practices: (1) attributing value to outcome measures, and (2) attributing outcomes to particular practices. Ways of generating evidence regarding the value of an outcome are discussed, particularly longitudinal research that clarifies the causal relations…

Used the Kindergarten Performance Profile to analyze the relationship of classroom skills in the fall and spring of kindergarten to second-grade achievement. Results indicated kindergarten work skills were significantly related to achievement for both boys and girls. Kindergarten social skills were related to achievement scores for girls only.…

Mounting pressure in the policy arena to improve teacher productivity either by improving signals that predict teacher performance or through creating incentive contracts based on performance--has spurred two related questions: Are there important determinants of teacher productivity that are not captured by teacher credentials but that can be…

The Kentucky Career Ladder Commission has funded a special project on "expected student achievement," to study the evaluation of teachers while avoiding the indefensible use of standardized student achievement tests. As proposed, the plan uses student achievement as one aspect of evaluation. The problem is in determining the degree to…

This study explored the relationship between classification achievements and mathematics scores. A series of 16 items which included many of the traditional tasks used in Piagetian examinations of intellectual function, were used in group presentations. Ten of these tasks required concrete operations including class inclusion, additive…

Latent abilities of dental students were analyzed as causes and professional achievements as effects, with preadmission performances as indicators of latent abilities. The results demonstrate that structural analysis focuses on the direct impact of the quality of dental school education. (Author/MLW)