Despite the substantial shifts in education to align classroom instruction and assessment to common academic standards, traditional grading practices remain largely associated with longstanding beliefs and practices. Research suggests that traditional grading may be an inequitable practice that inaccurately communicates student learning (Plourde,…

In physics education research (PER), concept inventories (CIs) have become standard instruments for assessing students' learning throughout instruction. To promote widespread use of concept inventories, previous studies have developed an approach to split a full length CI into short versions of CIs. This research extends the existing method to…

Federal law requires that all students, including students with disabilities, participate in state assessments used for accountability purposes. It also requires states to assess students in several content areas, including science. Most students with disabilities take the general science assessment with or without accommodations, but a few…

This content analysis examined internationally focused scholarship published from 1997 to 2009 in two counseling journals published in the United States (US), namely "The Counseling Psychologist" ("TCP") and the "Journal of Counseling Psychology" ("JCP"). Both demographic and content criteria, including…

The form and function of a collaborative assessment known as a "Buddy Quiz" is presented. The assessment is conducted in three successive phases over a contiguous 45-60 min class period. A portion of each quiz is completed in collaboration with one or two peers and a portion is completed without collaboration. The quiz is primarily…

The topic of "teacher professionalism" is one of the most crucial ones in quality education research. It has a potential to generate results that could inform and hence enhance the practice in classrooms. Thus, research in this field needs reliable instruments to measure the professional knowledge of our teachers to be able to generate…

For thousands of years before the invention of reliable clocks, humans measured their days by the motion of the sun. Astronomically, one day was the length of time it took for the sun to return to the same position in the sky. With the advent of precise mechanical chronometers such as Harrison's timekeepers (Sobel and Andrewes 1998), which ran at…

Assessing technological literacy in the USA will require a large expenditure of resources. While these important initiatives are taking place, it is useful to analyze existing archival data to get a sense of students' understanding of technology. Such archival data exists from the entries submitted to the Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVisions competition…

Background: School-based risk behavior surveys traditionally have been administered via paper-and-pencil. This study assessed the feasibility of conducting in-class online surveys in US high schools. Methods: A paper-and-pencil questionnaire assessing computer availability and perceptions of online surveys was mailed to a nationally representative…

The federal government announced in late 2011 that as an alternative to waiting for Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the U.S. Secretary of Education would consider requests from states to waive certain requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The opportunity to request waivers…

The history of mathematics is an important component in the learning of mathematics. This study examines how pre-service teachers view the role of history of mathematics in the high school curriculum. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used. Results showed significant changes in beliefs about how the history of mathematics should be…

Background: The relationship between outcomes, such as student learning, student motivation, and continued participation in activity, remains an important research focus within physical education. In particular, research has shown that secondary students exhibit behaviors indicative of low levels of motivation. Thus, there is a need for teachers…

Asked to review the four articles that appear in this special issue of "Educational Psychologist," these authors discuss the articles in alphabetical order, describe their major arguments, analyze strengths and weaknesses from their perspective, and provide some considerations. The analysis section about each article brings their…

There is a growing national recognition that teachers and teaching are at the heart of successful educational reform. However, few tools exist for measuring classroom instruction. The primary purpose of this article is to describe methods we developed to measure and study teaching, specifically while teachers were using a multimedia intervention…

The "Condition of Education" summarizes important developments and trends in education using the latest available data. For the 2009 edition, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) prepared this supplemental report to take a closer look at U.S. student performance on international assessments. This special analysis examines…