The early development of spatial reasoning skills has been linked to future success in mathematics (Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009), but research to date has mainly focused on the development of these skills within classroom settings rather than at home. The home environment is often the first place students are exposed to, and develop, early…

Mathematical language (or the content-specific words in mathematics) has repeatedly shown to be related to mathematical abilities in preschool and in the early grades of primary education. Research in this field has predominantly focused on young children's quantitative and spatial language. At the same time, recent research has discovered that…

Inference is considered an important factor in comprehension models and has been described as a causal factor in predicting comprehension. To date, specific tests for inference are rare and often rely on specific thematic texts. This reliance on thematic inference may raise some concerns as inference is related to prior text-specific knowledge.…

Over a 6-year period, a sociolinguistic and sociocultural project was undertaken by Alaska Native expert educators and linguists (aka the Yup'ik Expert Group) from the Yup'ik community in the Lower Kuskokwim School District, Central Alaska. The native experts developed their own culturally sustainable, valid, and reliable Kindergarten through…

The English version of the "Math and Me Survey" was developed to measure mathematical attitudes of elementary students. This study was used to translate, validate and examine the attitudes of Spanish students in the second and fourth grades of primary school. The translation-back translation procedure was adopted. A total of 81 students…

Project-based assessment has been used to evaluate coding projects created by students for a long time. Nevertheless, there is a lack of rigorously tested project-based coding rubrics that are developmentally appropriate for early childhood. This study presented the development and testing of a coding rubric to evaluate children's creations with…

In this study, the psychometric properties of the Classroom Observation of Engagement, Disrespectful and Disruptive Behavior (COEDD), a systematic direct observation coding protocol designed to assess common school-based behavioral targets, were examined. Interobserver agreement and criterion-related validity were evaluated in a sample of 155…

Purpose: This study investigates the construct validity and reliability of the Italian version of the Teachers' Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES) developed by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) and contributes to existing research aimed at exploring the elements and variables that influence teachers' self-efficacy levels. Design/methodology/approach: The…

Computational thinking is recognized as a vital skill related to problem-solving in technological and non-technological fields. The existence of different sub-domains related to this skill has been pointed out. Therefore, there is a need for tools that measure these different sub-domains. Because of its structure that includes different skills,…

Classroom teachers are often the primary implementers of universal social-emotional learning (SEL) in U.S. elementary schools with first-hand insight on translating programs into authentic settings and local contexts. This study examined social validity and cultural relevance ratings, indicators of implementation, and feedback from 57 first- and…

Although there is a plethora of tools available to assess children's movement competence (MC), the literature suggests that many have significant limitations (e.g. not being practical for use in many 'real-world' settings). The FMS[superscript 2] assessment tool has recently been developed as a targeted solution to many of the existing barriers…

This study examined the technical adequacy of Picture Word, a type of Writing Curriculum-Based Measurement, with 73 English learners (ELs) with beginning to intermediate English language proficiency in Grades 1, 2, and 3. The ELs in this study attended schools in one midwestern U.S. school district employing an English-only model of instruction…

Purpose: Analysis of narrative language samples is a recommended clinical practice in the assessment of children's language skills, but we know little about how results from such analyses relate to overall oral language ability across the early school years. We examined the relations between language sample metrics from a short narrative retell,…

Reading motivation is multidimensional and a critical contributor to students' reading comprehension skill. Its multidimensionality is problematic, as there is currently no consensus on the dimensions underlying reading motivation, which are being tested through a variety of instruments that lack statistical validation. Our goal was to discuss the…

This article illustrates and differentiates the unique role cognitive interviews and think-aloud interviews play in developing and validating assessments. Specifically, we describe the use of (a) cognitive interviews to gather empirical evidence to support claims about the intended construct being measured and (b) think-aloud interviews to gather…