Item response theoretic methods are applied to the measurement of achievement of students from various instructional backgrounds. This extended item response theory (IRT) approach serves as a tool for studying instructional bias, or instructional sensitivity. The model maintains the form of an IRT model, but has parameters that quantify the extent…

This study was conducted to determine whether the symbolic form of achievement test items influences student performance and whether teachers' use of different symbolic forms during instruction influences estimates of student achievement. The analyses conducted to examine these issues used student achievement test data and teacher responses to…

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data for 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students in the United States are provided, highlighting trends in science achievement from 1969-70 to 1990, mathematics achievement from 1973 to 1990, reading achievement from 1971 to 1990, and writing achievement from 1984 to 1990. Trends in academic proficiency…

This report presents a summary of information about the use in Massachusetts of open-ended questions in the Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program's biennial assessment of mathematics at grades 4, 8, and 12. These questions appeared in one form of the tests in each grade. One-twelfth of the fourth-graders, one-sixteenth of the…

This study involving 29 students enrolled in an 8-week summer Algebra II class for minority students was undertaken to determine the relationship between the kinds of symbolic forms used in problem-solving instruction and students' problem-solving processes and performance. All subjects were Black or Hispanic and were about to enter grade 11. For…

Results from North Carolina's End-of-Course Testing Program in 1989-90 are presented. Participation, student characteristics, and achievement are summarized, largely in table form, for the following subject areas: (1) Algebra I, (2) Geometry, (3) Algebra II, (4) Biology, (5) Chemistry, (6) Physics, (7) U.S. History, and (8) English I. Background…

The Demonstration Bilingual Enrichment College Preparatory Program at Louis D. Brandeis High School in New York City is designed to address the needs of the "academically more able" student with limited English proficiency. The program supplements the school's existing services for 120 Spanish-dominant students, and offers instructional…

This paper addresses the problem of heterogeneity of samples of learning disabled (LD) children by comparing five different systems for identifying homogeneous subgroups in terms of their ability to predict longitudinal reading and mathematics scores. One hundred and sixty LD children served as subjects. Three of the five subgrouping systems were…

To assist in the development of policies to eliminate the subtle inequities which inhibit the mathematics achievement of many Black youths, it is suggested that the redesign of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessment study Black students' opportunity to learn mathematics. Recommendations for the redesign of…

Twenty-five outstanding middle grade mathematics teachers were selected by the staff of the Middle Grades Mathematics Project (MGMP) at Michigan State University to participate in an Honors Teacher Workshop during the summer of 1987. During the final week of the encounter, 50 colleagues joined the workshop. The participants came from 20 different…

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) aim to improve upon previous computer-aided instruction programs by embedding much of the expert knowledge that good human teachers possess. While ITS research has a practical goal of developing programs that assist students in learning, there is little data on their instructional effectiveness. This paper…

This paper outlines the design of two Comparative Studies of Phase IV of the Individually Guided Education (IGE) Evaluation Project. More than 2,000 elementary schools in 25 states use the IGE system. The Evaluation Project was designed to gain a comprehensive view of the system's operation and effectiveness. Phase IV investigated pupil outcomes,…

Using a cross-cultural perspective, researchers studied the "math avoidance syndrome," which has reached crisis proportions among American Indians, at two elementary schools on Utah's Northern Ute Reservation and Wisconsin's Oneida Indian Reservation in 1980. Researchers gathered data by observing math instruction at the schools and by…

The self-serving effect (SSE), often depicted as a bias, is the tendency to accept responsibility for one's own successes but not one's own failures. Two studies of Australian fifth graders (n=226, n=559) were further analyzed to investigate individual differences in SSE. The Sydney Attribution Scale measured students' perceptions of the causes of…

In response to state mandates, the Hawaii Department of Education (HDE) began reporting on the current achievement status and progress of students scoring in the lowest three stanines of the Stanford Achievement Tests (SAT). The Longitudinal Student Achievement Monitoring (LSAM) process is described and evaluated; it was established to monitor low…