In the United States high school students may take college level courses that count for credit in both high school and college, often called dual enrollment. Students may take courses at their high school from certified instructors or at a local college. We investigate possible differences between these two groups of students using student level…

Performance in primary education can be measured in terms of different variables, like enrolment rate, attendance rate, or levels of learning achievement of students. Thus, for an analysis of the comparative performance of units, like country, state, or district, we need an aggregate measure or an index developed from these variables. In…

This case study examines the research process used to assess the intermediate effects of a community-based college preparation program in a fast growth, high needs exurban school district in Texas. Because it was not possible to randomly assign participants to treatment or control conditions, a nonexperimental design using propensity score…

This case study considers how a non-equivalent control group design was used in a PhD study examining the impact of a multiple intelligence teaching approach on student engagement and learning. Two groups of second year undergraduate nursing students undertook the study: a treatment group (n = 26) and a control group (n = 18). The intervention for…

We present a case study of the process through which a methodology was developed and applied to a quasi-experimental research study that employed propensity score matching. Methodological decisions are discussed and summarized, including an explanation of the approaches selected for each step in the study as well as rationales for these…

This mixed-methods explanatory study focused on analyzing the impact that National School Lunch Program eligibility had on (a) scholastic performance; (b) Appraisal of the Academic Influences Inventory results; and (c) the rates of absenteeism, tardiness, and disciplinary referrals within large groups of American Indian and White students in…

[Slides] presented at the annual conference of the National Council on Measurement in Education, 2011, New Orleans.

This is a keynote presentation given at AERA on developing a validity agenda for growth models in a large scale (e.g., state) setting. The emphasis of this presentation was to indicate that growth models and the validity agenda designed to provide evidence in supporting the claims to be made need to be personalized to meet the local or…

The main goal of this study was to illustrate and provide some direction for dealing with the complexities of propensity score matching within different multilevel contexts. Special attention is given to how procedures typically applied in a non-hierarchical setting may be modified to properly reduce the expected bias in the estimated treatment…

Presented at the Annual Meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in 2010. The focus of the research is to investigate the effect of applying the Sinharay & Holland (2007) midi-test idea for building anchor tests to an on-going testing program with a series of versions of the test and comparing these results to the more…

[Slides] presented at the Annual Meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in San Diego, CA in April 2009. This presentation discusses a methodology for directly connecting evidence-centered assessment design (ECD) to score interpretation and use through the development of Achievement level descriptors.

There is substantial variability in the degree to which the SAT and high school grade point average (HSGPA) predict first-year college performance at different institutions. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of multilevel modeling as a tool to uncover institutional characteristics that are associated with this variability. In a model that…

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in New Orleans, LA in April 2011. The current study examined the differential validity of the SAT for predicting cumulative GPA through the second-year of college by college major, as well as the differential prediction of cumulative GPA by college major among…

[Slides] presented at the Annual Meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME) in San Diego, CA in April 2009. This presentation describes how the vehicles for gathering student evidence--task models and test specifications--are developed.

Presented at the College Board National Forum in Washington, D.C., October 2010. This presentation examines the recent national validity evidence that supports the use of SAT Writing in college admissions and English placement. Additionally it includes information on the College Board's free online Admitted Class Evaluation Service (ACES) system,…