The purpose of this study was to examine the technical (psychometric) adequacy of office discipline referrals (ODRs) as a behavioral assessment tool for individual student, data-based decision making within a problem-solving model. Participants were 990,908 students in 2,509 elementary schools. Students were grouped into ODR cut points of 0-1,…

Student motivation is a critical issue within all educational fields, including physical education. In regard to physical education, the term motivation is commonly defined as the "ability to energize behavior." Energizing behavior is imperative as student participation and engagement is deemed a critical component to the overall learning and…

This study investigated the childhood autism rating scale (CARS) as a tool for ASD diagnoses for 2-year-old (n = 376) and 4-year-old (n = 230) children referred for possible autism. The cut-off score to distinguish autistic disorder from PDD-NOS was 32 in the 2-year-old sample (consistent with Lord in "J Child Psychol Psychiatry Allied…

Purpose: This study was designed to identify types of complex-sentence meanings (i.e., "content") produced in selected elicitation contexts by typically developing children within 3 different age groups. The research was motivated by the need for additional evidence-based assessments and interventions for children with language disorders. Method:…

This study explores the roles of mentors and proteges as they manage dialectical tensions in a professional environment. Sixty-two first-year teachers in a county school district in the southeastern USA answered a questionnaire about their mentors' empathic and directive listening, playful communication, social attractiveness, and ability to help…

This paper reports on a research project on information and communication technology (ICT)-based dynamic assessment. The project aims to reveal the mathematical potential of students in special education. The focus is on a topic that is generally recognised as rather difficult for weak students: subtraction up to 100 with crossing the ten. The…

This article explores the use of narrative analysis to provide a methodology for student learning research with a sociocultural orientation. The narrative which is the primary focus of this article is drawn from a study in which a series of individual interviews was conducted with a class of senior engineering students. The interview with a…

This article describes practitioner research which shows how self-assessment as a form of assessment for learning can be aligned with all the educational goals of religious education in England, notably the self-assessment of attitudes and values, such as tolerance and respect. The background literature on assessment for learning is described, as…

This study examines whether the assumptions of the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) are useful to evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based stress prevention programme in adolescence to promote appropriate coping behaviour. The TTM assumes three consecutive phases in the adoption of behavioural patterns. Progress throughout the phases is promoted…

Using a longitudinal design, children were given a brief number sense screener (NSB) screener (N = 204) over six time points, from the beginning of kindergarten to the middle of first grade. The NSB is based on research showing the importance of number competence (number, number relations, and number operations) for success in mathematics.…

Students with significant disabilities must participate in large-scale assessments, often using an alternate assessment judged against alternate achievement standards. The development and administration of this type of assessment must necessarily balance meaningful participation with accurate measurement. In this study, generalizability theory is…

In 4 experiments, we investigated the effects of object affordance in reach-to-grasp actions. Participants indicated whether a depicted small or large object was natural or manmade by means of different object-grasping responses (i.e., with a power or a precision grip). We observed that the size of the depicted object affected the grasping…

Aim: Mutations in the "SLC16A2" gene have been implicated in Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome (AHDS), an X-linked learning disability syndrome associated with thyroid function test (TFT) abnormalities. Delayed myelination is a non-specific finding in individuals with learning disability whose genetic basis is often uncertain. The aim of this study…

Purpose: The mean length of children's utterances is a valuable estimate of their early language acquisition. The available normative data lack documentation of language and nonverbal intelligence levels of the samples. This study reports age-referenced mean length of utterance (MLU) data from children with specific language impairment (SLI) and…

This paper addresses the issue of how we might be able to assess productive vocabulary size in second language learners. It discusses some previous attempts to develop measures of this sort, and argues that a fresh approach is needed in order to overcome some persistent problems that dog research in this area. The paper argues that there might be…