The field of specific learning disabilities (SLDs) has faced three kinds of challenges. "Constitutional challenges" arise from classification and definitional complexities, identification issues, comorbidity, and ontological debates. "Internal challenges" include the inherent difficulties of scientific thinking that compete…

Cognitive learning complexity identification of assessment questions is an essential task in the domain of education, as it helps both the teacher and the learner to discover the thinking process required to answer a given question. Bloom's Taxonomy cognitive levels are considered as a benchmark standard for the classification of cognitive…

We propose new methods for identifying and classifying aberrant response patterns (ARPs) by means of functional data analysis. These methods take the person response function (PRF) of an individual and compare it with the pattern that would correspond to a generic individual of the same ability according to the item-person response surface. ARPs…

Learners' adaptation to academic trajectory is shaped by several influencing factors that ought to be considered while attempting to design an intervention towards improving academic performance. Emotion is one factor that influences students' academic orientation and performance. Tracking emotions in text by psychologists have long been a subject…

The identification, diagnosis, and categorisation of students who qualified for special education have created long-standing controversy. This article explores Maximilian P. E. Groszmann's measurement practices, which were intended to facilitate instruction in the early twentieth-century United States. In 1900, Groszmann established a private…

The major aim of the current paper is to review and discuss three prevailing approaches to the study of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) since the middle of the twentieth century: Contrastive Analysis (CA, henceforth), Error Analysis (EA) and Interlanguage (IL). It begins with a general overview of how the CA approach was formulated and developed…

English learners (ELs) represent a large and rapidly growing proportion of US public school students. Federal law requires public schools to provide ELs with linguistic supports necessary to equalize their access to instruction with that of native English-speaking students. Most ELs are eventually reclassified and receive instruction within a…

This paper addresses the issues with current systems of categorisation and measurement of linguistic metaphoricity, which have coloured most research into the area to-date. The paper discusses the role of metaphor as a form of creative language and a deviation from more linguistic norms and conventionalities. Two current theories are discussed as…

In this paper we show how we can utilize human-guided machine learning techniques coupled with a learning science practitioner interface (DataShop) to identify potential improvements to existing educational technology. Specifically, we provide an interface for the classification of underlying Knowledge Components (KCs) to better model student…

When education works, it creates productive, innovative citizens eager to contribute to a well-functioning democracy. In contrast, educational failure has lifelong consequences, with some individuals experiencing decades of preventable hardship. Dawn Flanagan and Joel Schneider write in this response that, like Kranzler, Floyd, Benson, Zabowski,…

Across the higher education sector international education has been described as experiencing a "crisis of identity." The recent proliferation of new terms advanced to label "internationalization," it has been suggested, represents little more than "tautology." Here, we address questions posed by de Wit regarding this…

This article explores the role of psychiatry in the sorting of schoolchildren in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from 1920 to 1950. Whereas the role and rise of educational psychology and IQ-testing in the differentiation processes in schooling have been examined through earlier research, the role of psychiatry in the interprofessional collaboration…

In this rejoinder, the authors describe the aim of the original study as an effort to conduct a critical test of an important postulate underlying the Cross-Battery Assessment PSW approach (XBA PSW; Kranzler, Floyd, Benson, Zaboski, & Thibodaux, this issue). The authors used classification agreement analysis to examine the concordance between…

The purpose of this article is to help education practitioners and researchers understand that research about rural education is complicated not only by issues of defining "rural," but also by the often dramatic ways that rural schools differ from each other. We briefly address issues in defining rural and describe rural classification…

To identify factors associated with valid Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnoses from electronic sources in large healthcare systems. We examined 1,272 charts from ASD diagnosed youth <18 years old. Expert reviewers classified diagnoses as confirmed, probable, possible, ruled out, or not enough information. A total of 845 were classified with…