There is increasing interest in using factor scores in structural equation models and there have been numerous methodological papers on the topic. Nevertheless, sum scores, which are computed from adding up item responses, continue to be ubiquitous in practice. It is therefore important to compare simulation results involving factor scores to…

There is considerable variability in the literacy assessments taken in Kindergarten through second grade, across schools and between multilingual learners and other students, and within students over time. This makes it difficult to study changes in students' acquisition of ELA skills in these formative years, or to evaluate policies and practices…

Self-knowledge is an important element of metacognition. It encompasses understanding one's own strengths and weaknesses and includes belief and self-assessment of one's capacity to perform a task. Cognitive skills comprise a range of mental processes, such as attention, memory, problem solving, systems thinking, abstract thinking, and critical…

Schools no longer have a choice between providing students with either college or career readiness; they are now accountable for guiding students through the achievement of both (Malin, Bragg, & Hackmann, 2017). This requirement includes those who participate in a career and technical education (CTE) sequence of courses, defined as a program…

Instructional labs are widely seen as a unique, albeit expensive, way to teach scientific content. We measured the effectiveness of introductory lab courses at achieving this educational goal across nine different lab courses at three very different institutions. These institutions and courses encompassed a broad range of student populations and…

Students' performances in introductory programming courses show large variation across students. There may be many reasons for these variations, such as methods of teaching, teacher competence in the subject, students' coding backgrounds and abilities, students' self-discipline, the teaching environment, and the resources available to students,…