One potentially fruitful application for human capital analytics is to support policies and practices that might reduce undesirable teacher turnover. Teacher turnover can be harmful to student achievement and faculty cohesiveness and can exacerbate teacher shortages. This article describes an attempt to build a human capital analytics tool to help…

Well-designed digital games hold promise as effective learning environments. However, designing games that support both learning and engagement without disrupting flow is quite tricky. In addition to including various game design features (e.g., interactive problem solving, adaptive challenges, and player control of gameplay) to engage players,…

The authors examined the psychometric properties of the Counseling Competencies Scale (CCS; University of Central Florida Counselor Education Faculty, 2009), an instrument designed to assess trainee competencies as measured in their counseling skills, dispositions, and behaviors. There was strong internal consistency for the 4-factor model for…

The criteria for determining the student outcomes that define a school as having "turned around" are not well defined, and the definition of turnaround performance varies across studies. Although current policy initiatives offer guidelines for identifying CLP schools, there is no standard definition or methodology in common usage. This…

"If someone were traveling to our area for the first time during this time of year, what would you tell them to bring to wear? Why?" This question was used to engage students in a guided-inquiry unit about how climate differs from weather. In this lesson, students explored local and national data sets to give "travelers" advice…

Spelling is an important, but often overlooked, component of literacy instruction and development. Although it is related to other aspects of literacy, there are independent theories of spelling development as well as assessment and instructional strategies that align with these theories. This article summarizes the rationale for linking…

The current study evaluated the use of various behavioral measures of running away with regard to (a) the differential utility of interval- versus event-based measures, (b) the differential utility of rate versus duration measures, (c) the utility of correcting for occurrence opportunity, and (d) the influence of unit of analysis (i.e.,…

"Building Institutional Capacity for Data-Informed Decision Making" is the third installment of the Cutting Edge series, which aims to help colleges engage faculty, scale successful interventions, and create a strong culture of evidence through use of data to strengthen their institutional change and student success efforts. Though the…

Colleges and universities invest time, personnel, and money into the process of student evaluations of faculty. These data provide only one measure of evaluating the quality and effectiveness of instruction. This research responded to the lack of emphasis on more effective use of the data for the purpose of improving teaching effectiveness by…

This paper examines (1) the problems of program design and implementation in relation to evaluation design, the confusion between research and evaluation design, and the overemphasis on quantitative data; (2) clarifies misconceptions about these problems and the evaluation process; and (3) suggests ways of avoiding these problems in the future.…

At the Orange County Public School District in Orlando, Florida, assessing reading skills among the youngest students used to be quite a process. Relying on rudimentary products such as paper and pencils, the strategy hinged on the bubble sheets teachers administered to students once a year. After teachers scored the exams, they sent them to the…

One of the most critical needs in Florida's "Reading First" schools is to improve the effectiveness of interventions for struggling readers. For example, during the 2005-2006 school year, only 17% of first grade students who began the year at some level of risk for reading difficulties finished the year with grade level skills on the…

Divided into six chapters, this user's manual accompanies a battery of tests developed by the Educational Progress in Careers (EPIC) project which was organized to develop and validate a system for evaluating career, economic, and community education projects in Florida schools. Chapter 1 presents an action checklist of steps to be followed by…

The Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services (WPRS) program requires states to establish systems for identifying Unemployment Insurance (UI) claimants likely to exhaust their UI benefits and refers them to reemployment services. An evaluation was conducted to assess the reliability of the impact estimates provided in the evaluation of the WPRS…

Anyone who has worked as a teacher or principal in an elementary school understands the value of reliable and valid assessments of early reading progress. In order to implement an effective reading program, schools should have a coordinated plan for using screening, progress monitoring, diagnostics and outcome measures to guide instruction and to…