This article examines whether the way that PISA models item outcomes in mathematics affects the validity of its country rankings. As an alternative to PISA methodology a two-parameter model is applied to PISA mathematics item data from Canada and Finland for the year 2012. In the estimation procedure item difficulty and dispersion parameters are…

Context: Competency-based education requires strong planning and a vehicle to deliver and track students' progress across their undergraduate programs. Clinical presentations (CPs) are proposed as 1 method to deliver a competency-based curriculum in a Canadian undergraduate athletic therapy program. Objective: Validation of 253 CPs. Setting:…

Purpose: Students' use of blogging tools in learning environments is increasing across the world. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature by examining the effects of relevant factors that engender satisfaction and positive impacts of the technology for learning. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional survey was used to…

Background: A potential problem of low-stakes large-scale assessments such as the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is low test-taking engagement. The present study pursued two goals in order to better understand conditioning factors of test-taking disengagement: First, a model-based approach was used to…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the adequacy of three cognitive models, one developed by content experts and two generated from student verbal reports for explaining examinee performance on a grade 3 diagnostic mathematics test. For this study, the items were developed to directly measure the attributes in the cognitive model. The…

The purpose of this research was to analyze the experience of post-secondary first time online students combining time spent in the classroom-workshop with online course access, and their interactions with instructors. In the following discussion, and following the Cleveland et al. [1] model, a comparison between the categories "student's…

One of the key requirements of the Common Core State Standards for Reading is that all students must be able to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity as they progress through school. By the time they complete the core, students must be able to read and comprehend independently and proficiently the kinds of complex texts commonly found…