A short form of the 60-item computer-based orthographic processing assessment (long-form COPA or COPA-LF) was developed. The COPA-LF consists of five skills, including rapid perception, access, differentiation, correction, and arrangement. Thirty items from the COPA-LF were selected for the short-form COPA (COPA-SF) based on cognitive diagnostic…

The Computer-based Orthographic Processing Assessment (COPA) is a newly developed assessment to measure orthographic processing skills, including rapid perception, access, differentiation, correction, and arrangement. In this study, cognitive diagnostic models were used to test if the dimensionality of the COPA conforms to theoretical expectation,…

Parent-teacher relationship (PTR) quality is linked to child and family-school functioning and may be especially important in the school adjustment of autistic children. However, measurement of PTR quality has been limited by inconsistency in the use of measures, a paucity of two-informant measurement, and limited psychometric consideration. We…

Measuring program outcomes is required for documenting effectiveness of interventions with youths participating in programs funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Children, Youth, and Families at Risk (CYFAR) initiative. The California CYFAR program provided programming for youths aged 5-8, which necessitated the development of an…

Assessing students' emerging literacy skills is crucial for identifying areas where a child may be falling behind and can lead directly to an increased chance of reading success. The Waterford Assessment of Core Skills (WACS), a computerized adaptive test of early literacy for students in prekindergarten through 2nd grade, addresses this need.…

The predictive validity and accuracy of an oral reading fluency (ORF) measure for a statewide assessment in English language arts was examined for second-grade native English speakers (NESs) and English learners (ELs) with varying levels of English proficiency. In addition to comparing ELs with native English speakers, the impact of English…

Student achievement to reward or sanction schools. These unadjusted accountability indicators do not account for differences in student or school characteristics that contribute to variations in assessment results. Since the "Coleman Report" (1966), a guiding principle in accountability design has been that educational outcomes data…

American educators and researchers have spent decades attempting to determine the most effective middle level school configuration. Although various models have been conceptualized in order to resolve one of our most extensive educational reform movements, a recent nationwide increase in K-8 schools suggest interested parties have accepted the K-8…

With the recently passed Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004), federal law encourages monitoring student progress and gauging responsiveness to instruction. The Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF; Mather, Hammill, Allen, & Roberts, 2004) is a group-administered test that holds promise for monitoring student progress.…

The main goal of this report is to present evidence on the predictive validity of an English language arts (ELA) performance assessment (PA) administered in Grades 2-9 in a large urban school district. To account for the hierarchical structure of the data (students are nested within schools), we employed hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to…