The State of New York Agriculture Science Education secondary program is required to have a certification exam for students to assess their agriculture science education experience as a Regent's requirement towards graduation. This paper focuses on the procedure used to develop and validate two content sub-test questions within a…

Assessing student learning often promotes anxiety among students--and among teachers--not only because they worry about the results but because the items tested do not seem to reflect what students have learned. When assessment is student centered, however, it can promote learning and even motivation. Student-centered assessment shares many…

A digital native is an individual born between 1981 and 2001, and children born after 2001 are called millennials. Educators are expected to meet the needs of today's technologically savvy students. Some researchers assert that an academic "moral panic" is taking place that lacks the empirical and theoretical knowledge to support…

Over two decades, national assessments in Ghana have revealed generally poor performances across curriculum-based tests for primary school (Grades 1-6). Various reform agendas have been applied to the education system, sometimes with isolated success, but the overall performances remained stable and low. Surveying teacher mentors in schools…

In the fall of 2008 Westside Community Schools - District 66, in Omaha, Nebraska implemented a one-to-one notebook computer take home model for all eighth-grade students. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a required yearlong one-to-one notebook computer program supported by high-speed Internet connectivity at school on (a)…

The goal of Head Start is to develop the cognitive and social-emotional skills of children from low-income backgrounds to prepare them to succeed in kindergarten and beyond. Houston Independent School District (HISD) collaborates with four federally-funded Head Start agencies: AVANCE, Gulf Coast Community Services Association (GCCSA), Harris…

Professional stories that live within multiple retellings throughout one's career can, when the teller analyzes them, be useful in unearthing influential pedagogical assumptions. The author retells a classroom story, examines unacknowledged fears rooted within the story's elements, and uses a five-point framework for analyzing related assumptions…

Score equating based on small samples of examinees is often inaccurate for the examinee populations. We conducted a series of resampling studies to investigate the accuracy of five methods of equating in a common-item design. The methods were chained equipercentile equating of smoothed distributions, chained linear equating, chained mean equating,…

Due to the demands placed on schools to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) on state standardized tests, many districts are looking at afterschool programs to help bridge the gap in achievement for students who are at-risk for failing to master standards. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect an afterschool program had on…

This was a study of differential item functioning (DIF) for grades 4, 7, and 10 reading and mathematics items from state criterion-referenced tests. The tests were composed of multiple-choice and constructed-response items. Gender DIF was investigated using POLYSIBTEST and a Rasch procedure. The Rasch procedure flagged more items for DIF than did…

Many universities are moving to greater use of standards-based assessment to support effective student learning. Implementing a standards-based approach includes involving academic staff in writing descriptions of standards for assessment tasks both to guide the marking process and clarify staff expectations for students. However, recent research…

Evaluators use their eyes to see what is there, whether it is intended or not. But they use their test instruments to measure what is intended, whether it is there or not. Evaluators have been broadening their repertoire of instruments for years: curriculum-embedded tests, observer checklists, audiotape recorders, videotape recorders, unobtrusive…

With the increased emphasis on informational text with Common Core State Standards and the difficulty many students have with this type of text, this study examined the effects of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) on informational text comprehension and metacognitive awareness of fifth grade students. Participating students included a…

This paper aims to explore the practice of continuous assessment at Unity University College and Addis Ababa University. It has also investigated constraints instructors say they have been facing in implementing continuous assessment. Students' attitudes about the practice of this assessment mode towards their course achievements were explored.…

We investigated the latent factor structure of the "Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Kindergarteners" in Spanish ("PALS español K"). Participants included 590 Spanish-speaking, public-school kindergarteners from five states. Three theoretically-guided factor structures were measured and tested with one half of our…