This qualitative case study examined the contribution a year-long professional development in the science of reading had on 10 first-grade teachers' knowledge of how reading develops and their instructional practices. Data for this research study was collected through a longitudinal interview process, from pre- and post-knowledge inventory…

Fewer than half of students demonstrated proficiency on Michigan state-administered summative assessments at the end of third grade at a rural, Title I school in Michigan. The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare reading fluency gains between grade levels (i.e., kindergarten, first, and second grades) in an effort to better understand…

Background: Because a fundamental understanding of rate and accumulation principles is important for engineering students across all subdisciplines, a method is needed to assess their understanding of these principles. Purpose/Hypothesis: This article discusses the development of the Rate and Accumulation Concept Inventory (RACI) instrument and…

Developmental assessment scales are important tools for determining developmental delays and planning preventive interventions. One broad assessment scale used to evaluate child development is the Battelle Developmental Inventories (BDIs). The BDI-2 has a standardized version in English with good psychometric properties and a translated version in…

This article aims to introduce shame and guilt from social psychology into second language acquisition (SLA), to validate their psychometric measurement, and to examine their effects on second language (L2) learners' motivation and language achievements. In Study 1, the prevalence of shame and guilt reactions in L2 settings was explored. Moreover,…

Progress monitoring has been adopted as an integral part of multi-tiered support systems. Oral reading fluency (ORF) is the most established assessment for progress-monitoring purposes. To generate valid trend lines or slopes, ORF passages must be of equivalent difficulty. Recently, however, evidence indicates that ORF passages are not equivalent,…

A growing body of research indicates that noncognitive factors are important predictors of students' academic and life success (e.g., Garcia, The need to address noncognitive skills in the education policy agenda (Briefing Paper No. 386), http://files.eric.ed.gov.bibliotheek.ehb.be/fulltext/ED558126.pdf, 2014). Despite this evidence base, there are few…

The aim of this study is to determine whether items from the mathematics section of the 2012 Level Determination Exam indicate item bias according to gender and school type. In particular, the process of item bias has been determined using the Delphi technique and focus group interviews. A two-stage mixed method research has been used for the…

Currently, there is significant interest being directed towards the development of STEM education to meet economic and societal demands. While economic concerns can be a powerful driving force in advancing the STEM agenda, care must be taken that such economic imperative does not promote research approaches that overemphasize pragmatic application…

Oral communication has been identified as an important skill by higher education institutions and by the workforce community. Despite its importance, minimal research has been conducted around the development of tasks to measure oral communication skills and behaviors. The purpose of this preliminary study is to evaluate the different factors…

This study aimed (a) to create a digital rhythmic ability evaluation tool (DRAET) that could record, compare, and appraise coordinated motions of subjects' body parts, using accelerometer sensors with various music rhythms, and (b) to certify and validate the DRAET, compared with an accepted rhythmic ability evaluation methodology (i.e., the…

In musical instrument training, piano has been taught as a compulsory instrument in all departments of Music Education. It is thought that as a major instrument, piano plays a crucial role in music education. Without question, it is highly vital to raise individuals' awareness of learning styles towards learning piano in effort to practice piano…

We have developed and validated a new Interpersonal Communication Competence Inventory (ICCI) for college students. Study 1 describes the development of the ICCI and results of an exploratory factor analysis of data from 1336 Chinese students, which identified a four-factor model with reasonable internal consistency. Study 2 describes results of a…

This project aimed to develop a valid and reliable scale measuring Chinese preservice physical education teachers' beliefs about the physical education profession (PPET-BPEP). The domains and items were created from a conceptual analysis of the previous literature and PPETs' responses to an open-ended survey. Six experts in the field of physical…

Meeting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce demands require students to have positive attitudes and persist through the STEM pipeline. There is limited research on reliable and valid instruments that measures non-cognitive skills towards all STEM fields. Tools that have been developed have mostly used traditional…