Get a deeper understanding of teaching functions, 9-12 with our concise and comprehensive Go-To Guide. Based on "Developing Essential Understanding of Functions 9-12" and "Putting Essential Understanding of Functions into Practice 9-12," this summary distills the key concepts and ideas into a quick-reference guide that's…

To understand misconceptions with rational numbers (i.e., fractions, decimals, and percentages), we administered an assessment of rational numbers to 331 undergraduate students from a 4-year university. The assessment included 41 items categorized as measuring foundational understanding, calculations, or word problems. We coded each student's…

The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Research for Education series represents a further effort by IEA to capitalize on it's unique datasets, so as to provide powerful information for policymakers and researchers. Each report focuses on a specific topic and is produced by a dedicated team of leading…

"U.S. Performance on the 2015 TIMSS Advanced Mathematics and Physics Assessments: A Closer Look" expands upon the results described in NCES' [National Center for Education Statistics'] initial "Highlights" report on TIMSS Advanced. This new report provides in-depth analyses that (1) examine the demographics, school…

In online educational systems we can easily collect and analyze extensive data about student learning. Current practice, however, focuses only on some aspects of these data, particularly on correctness of students answers. When a student answers incorrectly, the submitted wrong answer can give us valuable information. We provide an overview of…

This article describes how a free, web-based intelligent tutoring system, (ASSISTment), was used to create online error analysis items for preservice elementary and secondary mathematics teachers. The online error analysis items challenged preservice teachers to analyze, diagnose, and provide targeted instructional remediation intended to help…

Evidence from recent research suggests that in the UK the public perception of errors in national examinations is that they are simply mistakes; events that are preventable. This perception predominates over the more sophisticated technical view that errors arise from many sources and create an inevitable variability in assessment outcomes. The…

This study focuses on teacher learning of student thinking through grading homework, assessing and analyzing misconceptions. The data were collected from 10 teachers at fifth-eighth grade levels in the USA. The results show that assessing and analyzing misconceptions from grading homework is an important approach to acquiring knowledge of…

Mathematics and science are important for success in school, but learning mathematics and science can be a difficult task to some students. Efforts to improve students' learning of school mathematics and science have led to reform efforts in curriculum and instruction over the past decades (e.g., National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM],…

We report a study of 10-14 year old children's use of additive strategies while solving ratio and proportion tasks. Rasch methodology was used to develop a diagnostic instrument that reveals children's misconceptions. Two versions of this instrument, one with "models" thought to facilitate proportional reasoning and one without were…

Inappropriate assessment procedures result in the misdiagnosis, misidentification, and misplacement of many African American students in special education. This article discusses poor teacher judgment, lack of cultural awareness among teachers, cultural discontinuity between home and school, and bias inherent in current tests used in special…

This chapter provides an overview of statistical issues arising in work on educational assessment and school accountability, organized around some of the most consequential misunderstandings. The article proceeds via a series of nine vignettes describing misunderstandings of statistical uncertainty in educational assessment and school…