School climate is an essential ingredient of student well-being and academic success. Although it has been studied extensively, only a few well-validated instruments are available for the assessment of school climate. The aim of this study was to assess the factor validity and measurement invariance of the Socio-educational Environment…

The societal demand for graduates with expertise in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) stands in contrast with prevalent issues of diminished interest among high school students in STEM subjects and low completion rates in STEM academic programs. In the Flemish educational context, heterogeneity in STEM preparedness of…

Instruments for assessing secondary students' conceptual understanding of core concepts in biology are needed by educational practitioners and researchers alike. Most instruments available for secondary biology (years 9 to 12) focus only on highly specific biological concepts instead of multiple core concepts. This study describes the development…

Although algebra often functions as a gatekeeper to higher-level mathematics courses and higher education admissions, few quality measures exist for assessing conceptual understanding. This study explored the technical adequacy of three procedural and two conceptual algebra screening measures. We administered three rounds of assessments throughout…

Implicit theory has been relatively well-studied in the areas of intelligence and personality but remains less investigated in mental health. This article aims to analyze the psychometric properties of the Implicit Thoughts, Emotion, and Behavior Questionnaire (ITEB-Q; Schleider & Weisz, 2016a). We tested its factorial validity, measurement…

Grit is theoretically defined as the combination of perseverance and passion for long term goals. Both of these constructs are likely to be relevant for our understanding of how language acquisition occurs and for explaining between-person differences in the rate of language acquisition. Despite this relevance, there are methodological and…

What type of items, keyed positively or negatively, makes social-emotional skill or personality scales more valid? The present study examines the different criterion validities of true- and false-keyed items, before and after correction for acquiescence. The sample included 12,987 children and adolescents from 425 schools of the State of São Paulo…

This study highlights the role and importance of advanced, machine learning-driven predictive models in enhancing the accuracy and timeliness of identifying students at-risk of negative academic outcomes in data-driven Early Warning Systems (EWS). K-12 school districts have, at best, 13 years to prepare students for adulthood and success. They…

Test development is a complicated process that demands examining various factors, one of them being writing items of varying difficulty. It is important to use items of a different range of difficulty to ensure that the test results accurately indicate the test-taker's abilities. Therefore, the factors affecting item difficulty should be defined,…

In a sample of high school students (preliminary study: N = 224; main study: N = 235 and 194 at two time points in the beginning and the end of the school year), we developed and tested a self-report measure of attitudes toward creativity. Exploratory factor analyses identified and replicated one factor of positive attitudes toward…

Noncognitive constructs such as self-efficacy, social awareness, and academic engagement are widely acknowledged as critical components of human capital, but systematic data collection on such skills in school systems is complicated by conceptual ambiguities, measurement challenges and resource constraints. This study addresses this issue by…

Objective: This study developed and tested new measures of youth perceptions of parental active efforts to track their activities during adolescence and college. Participants and Methods: Between March and October 2016, a sample of 314 college students aged 18-25 completed a survey including their perceptions of their parent's active tracking…

Introduction: We report predictive validity of the newly defined Student Risk Screening Scale -- Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE 9, with 9 items) when used for the first time by middle and high school teachers from 43 schools. Methods: The sample included 11,773 middle school-aged students representing four geographic regions, and 7,244…

Implementation of AB 705 in fall 2019 required California community colleges to use high school grade point average (HSGPA) as the main measure of placement and maximize the likelihood of students being placed into transfer-level English and math courses. Since that time, research has shown that with the vast increase in access to transfer-level…

Through this study we compared different informants and different behavior screening tools that are available to screen for behavioral and emotional risk. We examined screening results from 100 students from a high school with a high achiever's magnet program in the Southeastern United States (school demographics: 71% female and 79% black,…