Understanding teacher learning, and relations between that learning and practice, has become a research priority in the quest for quality. Managerial policy discourses that commodify teachers as academic capital encourage institutions to adopt linear models of professional learning and development (PLD) as auditable value-adding, yet this…

Testing organizations are faced with increasing demand to provide subscores in addition to the total test score. However, psychometricians argue that most subscores do not have added value to be worth reporting. To have added value, subscores need to meet a number of criteria: they should be reliable, distinctive, and distinct from each other and…

It is widely believed that the teacher is one of the most important factors influencing a student's success at school. In many countries, teachers' salaries and promotion prospects are determined by their students' performance. Value-added models (VAMs) are increasingly used to measure teacher effectiveness to reward or penalize teachers. The aim…

The present study examined the reliability of the reading, listening, speaking, and writing section scores for the TOEFL iBT® test and their interrelationship in order to collect empirical evidence to support, respectively, the "generalization" inference and the "explanation" inference in the TOEFL iBT validity argument…

Within the scope of educational testing and assessment, setting standards and creating guidelines as a code of practice provide more prolific and sustainable outcomes. In this sense, internationally accepted and regionally accredited principles are suggested for standardization in language testing and assessment practices. Herein, ILTA guidelines…

From 2004/05 to 2014/15, the number of English learner students in bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) programs in Texas increased by 47 percent. In the Houston Independent School District (ISD)--the largest district in Texas and the seventh largest in the United States--30 percent of students are English learner students, and 92…

Teacher value-added measures (VAM) are designed to provide information regarding teachers' causal impact on the academic growth of students while controlling for exogenous variables. While some researchers contend VAMs successfully and authentically measure teacher causality on learning, others suggest VAMs cannot adequately control for exogenous…

In 2013, the Austin Independent School District began administering a voluntary online exit survey to all professional and administrative employees leaving the district. Responses and respondent characteristics are described for 2014. This is a research brief of a full report (published separately). [For the full report, see ED626497.]

In 2013, the Austin Independent School District began administering a voluntary online exit survey to all professional and administrative employees leaving the district. Responses and respondent characteristics are described for 2014. A separate research brief also was published. [For the research brief, see ED626496.]

This study investigates the value of reporting the reading, listening, speaking, and writing section scores for the "TOEFL iBT"® test, focusing on 4 related aspects of the psychometric quality of the TOEFL iBT section scores: reliability of the section scores, dimensionality of the test, presence of distinct score profiles, and the…