One of the most significant and yet often overlooked challenges for university students is decoding what their instructors expect from their assignments. Better understanding those expectations and the vocabulary and grammar needed to achieve them are the motivations behind this investigation. Eleven experienced instructors within an Australian…

This research report presents the results of a study designed by SREB's Research and Accountability team to identify and unpack sources of inequity in K-12 public education. The study examined results from student surveys administered in 2018 to over 7,800 students in 15 states across the United States. Grounded in SREB's research-based Key…

In calibration tasks students assess exemplar texts using criteria against which their own work will be assessed. Typically, these tasks are used in the context of training for peer assessment. Little research has been conducted on the benefits of calibration tasks, such as benchmarking, as learning opportunities in their own right. This paper…

Aim/Purpose: The research work investigated the information seeking process of undergraduates in a specialised university in Nigeria, in the course of a group assignment. Background: Kuhlthau's Information Search Process (ISP) model is used as lens to reveal how students interact with information in the affective, cognitive and physical realms.…

This technical report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the American Instructional Resources Surveys (AIRS) that were administered to principals and teachers in Spring 2021 via RAND's American Educator Panels. The AIRS focused on instructional resources used and supported in English language arts,…

This technical report provides information about the sample, survey instrument, and resultant data for the American Instructional Resources Surveys (AIRS) that were administered to principals and teachers in spring 2020 via RAND's American Educator Panels. The AIRS focused on instructional resources used and supported in English language arts,…

Providing transparent written feedback to doctoral students is essential to the learning process and preparation for the capstone. The purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative exploration of faculty feedback on benchmark written assignments across multiple, online doctoral programs. The Corpus for this analysis included 236 doctoral…

This research explores and tests the effect of an innovative performance feedback practice--feedback supplemented with web-based peer benchmarking--through a lens of social cognitive framework for self-regulated learning. The results suggest that providing performance feedback with references to exemplary peer output is positively associated with…

In this study, we investigated a variety of Reader effects that may influence the validity of ratings assigned to AP® English Literature and Composition essays. Specifically, we investigated whether Readers exhibit changes in their levels of severity and accuracy, and their use of individual scale categories over time. We refer to changes in these…