Critically examining common statistical approaches and their strengths and weaknesses is an important step in advancing recreation and leisure sciences. To continue this critical examination and to inform methodological decision making, this study compared three approaches to determine how alternative approaches may result in contradictory…

Closing the achievement gap in public education is a worthy goal that has been included as a top priority in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (2002). This study analyzed the most salient predictors at the student and school levels to identify their long-term impact on mathematics achievement from the elementary grades to high school. The…

The Keys to the White House is a historically-based system for predicting the result of the popular vote in American presidential elections. The Keys system tracks the big picture of how well the party holding the White House has governed and does not shift with events of the campaign. This model gives specificity to the idea that it is…

In a provocative and influential paper, Jesse Rothstein (2010) finds that standard value added models (VAMs) suggest implausible future teacher effects on past student achievement, a finding that obviously cannot be viewed as causal. This is the basis of a falsification test (the Rothstein falsification test) that appears to indicate bias in VAM…

Predicting the future is now in the hands of K12 administrators. While for years districts have collected thousands of pieces of student data, educators have been using them only for data-driven decision-making or formative assessments, which give a "rear-view" perspective only. Now, using predictive analysis--the pulling together of data over…

Research on the predictors of 3 bully status groups (bullies, victims, and bully victims) for school-age children and adolescents was synthesized using meta-analytic procedures. The primary purpose was to determine the relative strength of individual and contextual predictors to identify targets for prevention and intervention. Age and how…

With the economic downturn starting in December 2007 (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009), K-12 school systems, educational non-profits and institutions of higher education have found themselves questioning the degree to which they can rely on outside philanthropic giving to support their activities. Although some research has examined the…

The study investigated the predictive utility of interest profile differentiation, coherence, elevation, congruence, and vocational identity commitment and career maturity (career planning and exploration) on the 10-month interest stability of 292 Swiss eighth-grade students: profile, rank, and level stabilities were assessed. Controlling for…

Research has often found that, when high school grades and SAT scores are used to predict first-year college grade-point average (FGPA) via regression analysis, African-American and Latino students, are, on average, predicted to earn higher FGPAs than they actually do. Under various plausible models, this phenomenon can be explained in terms of…

This primary purpose of the study was to expand the work of Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, and Yoon (2001) by creating and psychometrically testing an instrument designed to measure teachers' perceptions of characteristics of professional development. Elementary teachers (n = 406) from five school districts in Washington State participating in a…

The purpose of this synthesis was to examine the relationship between Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) and statewide achievement tests in reading. A multilevel meta-analysis was used to calculate the correlation coefficient of the population for 27 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Results showed an overall large correlation coefficient…

The Texas Projection Measure (TPM) has grown out of the state's need to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). An examination of the state's method of predicting 8th grade mathematics scores reveals that several factors have been ignored in the process of developing the model, including assumptions in its underlying statistical…

There is little doubt that teacher quality is a key determinant of student achievement, but finding ways to identify and reward the best teachers has proven illusive. This research brief considers the stability of value-added measures of teacher effectiveness over time and the resulting implications for the design and implementation of…

Newton's article (2010) makes three main contributions to the literature. First, it is transatlantic, bringing together literatures that have been dealing with similar problems, using sometimes different methods and certainly with distinctive educational, cultural perspectives. He points out that neither of these literatures has all of the…

The article "Thinking About Linking" by Newton (2010) presents a novel philosophical perspective on the way that educational assessments should be linked. Newton starts by describing the linking framework as it was characterized in various publications and identifies a cross-cultural dimension in the definitions and uses of test…