Foreign language educators have developed measures to assess the proficiency of U.S. high school learners. Most have compared language learners to clearly defined criteria for proficiency in the language (criterion-referenced assessment) or to the performance of other monolingual English speakers (norm-referenced assessment). In this study, the…

This study examined the relationships between enabling structures, academic optimism, and student achievement to determine whether academic optimism served as a mediator between the two. Student achievement was measured using both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced tests. Findings indicated a relationship between academic optimism, enabling…

In five experiments, we consistently found that items included in summaries were better remembered than items omitted from summaries. We did not, however, find evidence that summary writing was better than merely restudying the text. These patterns held with shorter and longer texts, when the text was present or absent during the summary writing,…

To better understand dimensions of text complexity and their effect on the comprehension of adolescents, 103 high school seniors were randomly assigned to 4 groups. Each group read versions of the same 2 informational passages and answered comprehension test items targeting factual recall and inferences of causal content. Group A passages had a…

This study describes how criterion-referenced feedback was produced from English language, mathematics and natural sciences monitoring assessments. The assessments were designed for grades 8 to 11 to give an overall indication of curriculum-standards attained in a given subject over the course of a year (N = 1113). The Rasch Item Map method was…

Because listening has received little attention and the validation of ability scales describing multidimensional skills is always challenging, this study applied a multistage, criterion-referenced approach that used a framework of aligned audio passages and listening tasks to explore the validity of the ACTFL and related listening proficiency…

The purpose of this study was to determine if selected factors influenced the ability of students in school-based agricultural education programs to generate a correct hypothesis when troubleshooting small gasoline engines. Variables of interest included students' cognitive style, age, GPA, and content knowledge in small gasoline engines. Kirton's…

The purpose of this casual-comparative study was to assess the effectiveness of Academy of READING® (AOR) on eighth grade Response to Intervention students using third nine-week benchmark scaled score and Criterion Reference Competency Test scaled score. The data collected from a public middle-school in rural Georgia revealed how student…

Universal behavioral screening is a major part of positive behavioral support and response to intervention systems. Program-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) focuses on establishing social, emotional, and behavioral competence through promotion of a small set of behavioral expectations that are agreed upon, taught, and…

By far, the most frequently used method of validating (the interpretation and use of) automated essay scores has been to compare them with scores awarded by human raters. Although this practice is questionable, human-machine agreement is still often regarded as the "gold standard." Our objective was to refine this model and apply it to…

In adolescence research, the treatment of measurement reliability is often fragmented, and it is not always clear how different reliability coefficients are related. We show that generalizability theory (G-theory) is a comprehensive framework of measurement reliability, encompassing all other reliability methods (e.g., Pearson "r,"…

In the formation education that is carried out within the scope of undergraduate and non-thesis graduate programs within the same university, different criteria are used to evaluate students' success. In this study, classification accuracy of letter grades that are generated to evaluate students' success using relative and absolute criteria and…

Two studies using similar methods in two states investigated the long-term predictive utility of two single-skill early numeracy Curriculum Based Measures (CBMs) and the degree to which they can adequately predict high-stakes test scores. Data were drawn from kindergarten and first-grade students. State standardized assessment data from the…

This study examined the relationship between ninth-grade students' use of connectives (temporal, causal, adversative, and additive) in functional writing and performance on standards-based/criterion-referenced measures of reading and writing. Specifically, structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques were used to examine the relationship between…

The purpose of this study was to compare transformational and instructional leadership theories, examine the unique impact that school leaders have on student achievement, and determine which specific leadership practices are associated with increased student achievement. The sample for this study consisted of 590 teachers in 37 elementary schools…