The number of countries that regularly participate in international large-scale assessments has increased sharply over the past 15 years, with the share of countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment growing from one-fifth of countries in 2000 to over one-third of countries in 2015. What accounts for this…

The study investigated the use of concept mapping teaching method on secondary school students' academic achievement in biology. Two hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The design of the study was quasi-experimental design with 122 Senior Secondary students selected purposively from two senior secondary schools in…

Previously, a small scale, interview-based, 3-year longitudinal study (ages 11-14) in one school had suggested a learning progression related to the concept of a substance. This article presents the results of a large-scale, cross-sectional study which used Rasch modeling to test the hypothesis of the learning progression. Data were collected from…

This article reviews Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners ("ACCESS for ELLs"[R]), which is a large-scale, high-stakes, standards-based, and criterion-referenced English language proficiency test administered in the USA annually to more than 840,000 English Language Learners (ELLs), in…

The use of constructed response (CR) items or performance tasks to assess test takers' ability has grown tremendously over the past decade. Examples of CR items in psychological and educational measurement range from essays, works of art, and admissions interviews. However, unlike multiple-choice (MC) items that have predetermined options, CR…

Washington's 2008 Strategic Master Plan for Higher Education called for creating "multiple pathways from high school to college or workforce training" --through greater use of dual credit and concurrent high school and college enrollment options. The most prevalent of these in Washington are Running Start, which accounts for 12,500 FTE;…

Learning about statistics is a lot like learning about science: the learning is more meaningful if you can actively explore. This seventh installment of "Explorations in Statistics" explores regression, a technique that estimates the nature of the relationship between two things for which we may only surmise a mechanistic or predictive…

Measuring a teacher's effectiveness in quantifiable ways is a logical step in a society driven by the SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely objectives) that pervade modern management. The idea of using student performance on standardized tests to judge a teacher's effectiveness picked up steam after the Obama…

We examined the volunteer service contribution of older adults (N = 100) to volunteer role development and agency attachment. Informed by a developmental regulation framework and socio-emotional selectivity theory, we tested a twofold hypothesis for the premise that greater role development and agency attachment would be experienced by (1) older…

Tests, as learning events, can enhance subsequent recall more than do additional study opportunities, even without feedback. Such advantages of testing tend to appear, however, only at long retention intervals and/or when criterion tests stress recall, rather than recognition, processes. We propose that the interaction of the benefits of testing…

While studying the consequences of violent and non-violent protests, the current literature is mostly mute on the question of why some ethnic collectivities prefer violent political action over non-violence. This question is especially interesting as recent empirical studies reveal functional effectiveness of non-violent tactics vis-a-vis violent…

When administering tests across grades, vertical scaling is often employed to place scores from different tests on a common overall scale so that test-takers' progress can be tracked. In order to be able to link the results across grades, however, common items are needed that are included in both test forms. In the literature there seems to be no…

Part representation is not only critical to object perception but also plays a key role in a number of basic visual cognition functions, such as figure-ground segregation, allocation of attention, and memory for shapes. Yet, virtually nothing is known about the development of part representation. If parts are fundamental components of object shape…

Despite pressures to narrow the curriculum and focus only on testing, there are teachers who continue to work social justice issues into their elementary lessons through the subject of social studies. These teachers speak of education as an instrument for the public good. In this day and age, it can be hard to find teachers with such…

The online survey is a popular tool for taking the pulse of an alumni body. However, response rates for these surveys have been declining over the years, making them potentially less useful. Are there easy ways to increase these rates? The author has conducted a number of experiments to try to find that out. He discusses surveys that explored…