The educational achievement and attainment of young people in the United States has been a long-standing issue of concern. While analyses of long-term trend data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that students in the United States have made gains in reading and mathematics over the past few decades, a sizeable…

This paper addresses four issues in the design and execution of behavioral observation in classrooms. These four issues relate to the consequences of using different observation intervals, schedules of observation, student sampling methods, and definitions of on-task and off-task behavior for reliability, means, and correlations of time on-task…

The consequences of using alternative measures of time and achievement are examined in an observational study of 18 elementary school classes. The extent to which choice of the same model linking time and learning for all students was implicated in the inconsistent results is examined. (Author/GK)

How various methodological decisions may influence studies of the effect of time-on-task on achievement are examined. Subjects were students in grades 2-5 in 18 classes taught by 12 teachers in a rural Maryland school district. All students were pre-tested in February 1978 in reading, language arts, math and social studies using the Comprehensive…

The instability of aptitude-learning relations over time is examined. Four tenth grade classes were taught an imaginary science for four days. Achievement and aptitude measures were obtained. Results indicated aptitude-achievement instability over time, as exhibited in different aptitudes being required at different points during instruction.…

The effect of incarceration on the academic growth of learning disabled juvenile delinquents, as well as the relationship between rate of achievement during incarceration and tenure in the institution, were investigated. Results showed that incarceration did increase academic achievement but that a negative relationship existed between tenure and…

The validity of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS) and problems associated with inappropriate norms were investigated in eleven senior high schools in Phoenix, Arizona. CTBS validity was assessed in three ways: (1) correlation between test scores and number of courses taken in that subject; (2) correlation between CTBS scores and…

It is unsafe to estimate achievement test norms for fall testing by linear interpolation between norms for the previous spring testing and norms for the following spring. Second grade students were tested in reading and arithmetic in the fall and in the spring to provide pre-test and post-test data for evaluation of academic growth. Three…

The current study is an extension fo the Instructional Dimensions Study (IDS), part of a comprehensive study of compensatory education programs. This study had two purposes: (1) to investigate achievement changes over the summer of 1977 and during the 1978 calendar year for IDS students, and (2) to compare summer gains of compensatory and…

A longitudinal study was initiated in the Tuscon Unified School District (TUSD) to follow the achievement of seventh and ninth grade Title I students: (1) to investigate the suitability and difficulty of the Total Reading Test of the Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT) and the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills (CTBS); (2) to compare the gains in…