The Every Student Succeeds Act grants states new flexibility to create more balanced assessment systems with a greater role for formative assessment. Drawing on lessons learned over three decades of research and reform, we argue that state and local leaders should take the lead in designing new assessments guided by two core principles: First,…

Studies of infant looking times over the past 50 years have provided profound insights about cognitive development, but their dependent measures and analytic techniques are quite limited. In the context of infants' attention to discrete sequential events, we show how a Bayesian data analysis approach can be combined with a rational cognitive…

Use of multivariate analysis (e.g., multivariate analysis of variance) is common when normally distributed outcomes are collected in intervention research. However, when mixed responses--a set of normal and binary outcomes--are collected, standard multivariate analyses are no longer suitable. While mixed responses are often obtained in…

The authors propose a general modeling framework called the general monotone model (GeMM), which allows one to model psychological phenomena that manifest as nonlinear relations in behavior data without the need for making (overly) precise assumptions about functional form. Using both simulated and real data, the authors illustrate that GeMM…

Attributional style models of depression in adults (Abramson et al. 1989, 1978) have been adapted for use with children; however, most applications do not consider that children's understanding of causal relations may be qualitatively different from that of adults. If children's causal attributions depend on children's level of cognitive…

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a content analysis model for assessing students' cognitive learning in asynchronous online discussions. It adopted a fully mixed methods design, in which qualitative and quantitative methods were employed sequentially for data analysis and interpretation. Specifically, the design was a…

Labeling image collections is a tedious task, especially when multiple labels have to be chosen for each image. On the other hand, the explosion of Internet content has provided cheap access to almost unlimited amounts of data, albeit with a lower quality of annotations. In this dissertation we introduce a new framework that extends…

Increasing working memory (WM) capacity is often cited as a major influence on children's development and yet WM capacity is difficult to examine independently of long-term knowledge. A computational model of children's nonword repetition (NWR) performance is presented that independently manipulates long-term knowledge and WM capacity to determine…

The present study evaluates the relationship between social learning and developmental theories in the prediction of changes in cognitive behavior. (Author)

The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the relationship between the stages of cognitive development proposed by L.S. Vygotsky and by J. Piaget. (Author)

Critiques Lawrence Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Instrument and evaluates reliability and validity data available on the instrument. Concludes that available data do not support the reliability and validity of the instrument and that further research is necessary. Available from: Department of Social Science Education, University of Georgia, Athens,…

Measuring cognitive achievement gains in project evaluation is dealt with. This guide provides those concerned with project evaluation with the basic tools for conducting technically sound, interpretable evaluation studies. Exotic designs are avoided and five basic models which appear feasible to implement in real-world settings are focused on.…

This longitudinal study with 62 children and adolescents examined the validity of the consolidation/transition model in the context of moral reasoning development. Results of standard statistical and Bayesian techniques supported the hypotheses regarding cyclical patterns of change and predictors of stage transition, and demonstrated the utility…

Examined analytic methods for describing children's social risk. Found that the individual-risk-variables approach provided better overall prediction of developmental outcomes at a particular age. The risk-factor approach provided good prediction of developmental trajectories with moderate to large sample sizes. The risk-index was useful for…

Suggests ways to use dynamic systems analysis to illuminate the pluralistic and multidimensional model described by Larivee, Normandeau, and Parent (2000). Issues discussed include the characteristics of developmental transitions, such as hysteresis; nature of growth processes, such as hierarchical development or predator-prey interactions; and…