Using data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 assessment of fourth-grade students in 32 countries, a series of mean comparisons and regression analyses were conducted to determine (1) the gender gap in students' self-concept in mathematics; (2) to what extent student achievement, student gender, and…

The aim of this study was to explore the differential relationships between students' science performance and their ICT availability, ICT use, and attitudes toward ICT based on the data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 across the countries and regions including South/ Latin America, Europe, and Asia and Pacific.…

The teaching guides that complement textbooks have key importance in the assessment of competence in problem solving, because these materials contain the assessment tools that teachers frequently use to quantify the achievements of their students. In this paper, we set two aims: to analyze which curriculum contents are given priority in the…

Course design is critical to online student engagement and retention. This study focused on the development and validation of an online course design elements (OCDE) instrument with 38 Likert-type scale items in five subscales: (a) overview, (b) content presentation, (c) interaction and communication, (d) assessment and evaluation, and (e) learner…

Adoption of evidence based instructional practices is not widespread in American institutions of higher education. This is due in part to reforms focusing on individual teaching practices rather than conditions for system reform. Since measurement of organizational conditions is critical for widespread change, we developed and validated the Survey…

This research examines the difficulty pattern of assertive communication scale instrument items containing spiritual values. The research and development design applies ADDIE work procedures (Analysis, Design, Development or Production, Implementation or delivery and Evaluation). The participants of the item development and item difficulty test…

The demand for creativity in sports has attracted great interest, looking for factors that predict and release children's creative behavior. Our aim was to determine the effects of motor skills and creative thinking on sports creativity, according to gender and age. 198 children (7.71 ± 1.39 years) were recruited. They completed three motor skills…

Curriculum-based measurement of oral reading fluency (CBM-R) is widely used across the United States as a strong indicator of comprehension and overall reading achievement, but has several limitations including errors in administration and large standard errors of measurement. The purpose of this study is to compare scoring methods and passage…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) had mixed effects on the nation's educational ecosystem. NCLB succeeded in shifting the focus from inputs to outcomes, shining a light on performance of different student subgroups, and using reporting requirements to spur development of more-robust education data systems. But NCLB included several…

Formally describing and assessing the difficulty of learning and teaching material is important for quality assurance in university teaching, for aligning teaching and learning activities, and for easing communications among stakeholders such as teachers and students. This paper proposes a novel taxonomy to describe and quantify the difficulty…

The majority of studies about mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT) have been conducted in the US, with little research on MKT being performed in the Middle East. Accordingly, this study contributed to the cross-national MKT literature by translating, adapting, and validating a novel US teacher knowledge instrument for use in Kuwait. Both…

The quality of verbal feedback teachers provide to students in the instrumental music classroom is directly related to students' real-time performance and execution of rehearsed music. The purpose of the first study (see Chapter 2) was to examine the quality of pre-service music educators' verbal feedback in the context of secondary-level…

High-stakes testing and accountability are words that those in education hear every day. Students, teachers, administrators, parents, districts, and states are impacted by these tests and their results. This mixed-methods study is aimed to examine the perceived time spent related to high-stakes testing. This study also aims to examine the…

The "My Children's Future Scale" (MCFS) measures the support provided by parents for their children's careers. The aim of this study was to adapt the MCFS to Turkish and examine its psychometric characteristics in a study conducted in the Turkish context. Participants consisted of 280 parents (190 mothers and 90 fathers). The factor…

A key concern of washback research in language testing is with the value of test preparation for facilitating learning and improving test performance. Although test takers may draw on a wide range of preparation activities, the majority of research studies examining test preparation have taken place in classroom settings, leaving self-access…