The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) field tests during the spring of 2014 provided an opportunity to investigate the quality of the items, tasks, and associated stimuli. HumRRO conducted several research studies summarized in this report. Quality of test items is integral to the "Theory of Action"…

The IDEA Feedback for Administrators system provides feedback to academic administrators about their performance of relevant administrative responsibilities and their leadership style and interpersonal characteristics. The system is based on a model of reflective practice, which is consistent with The IDEA Center's longstanding approach to…

The first step in the Validity and Reliability Study summarizes the history and purpose of California's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), reviews findings from other QRIS evaluation studies, and describes the approach to validating the system in California. The majority of this report focuses on providing context for the California…

The 6+1 Trait[R] Writing model (Culham 2003) emphasizes writing instruction in which teachers and students analyze writing using a set of characteristics, or "traits," of written work: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation. The Ideas trait includes the main content and message, including…

Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a set of instructional strategies designed to improve the reading comprehension of students with diverse abilities (Klingner and Vaughn 1996). Teachers implement CSR at the classroom level using scaffolded instruction to guide students in the independent use of four comprehension strategies; students apply…

This report examines the results of the field test for the base year of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). The general purposes of the field test were, in anticipation of the base-year full-scale effort, to test instruments, forms, and procedures; to experiment with different approaches to questionnaire content and survey…

The "Personnel Development Program to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities" is authorized under Section 662 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and is known as the Personnel Development Program (PDP). The PDP is administered by the U.S. Department of Education's (ED's) Office of Special…

Character education has become one of the fastest growing reform movements in K-12 education today, partially in response to unacceptable levels of student misbehavior and inadequate endorsement of good character values (Williams 2000). Between 1993 and 2009, 36 states passed laws mandating or recommending some aspect of character education in…

How school-age children spend their time after school is a topic of interest among educators, policymakers, researchers, and parents. Many parents choose to have their children attend after-school programs, which may provide services such as academic instruction, cultural enrichment, safe places to stay, and adult supervision for children. This…

This manual was written to provide technical information regarding the 2002 Series GED (General Educational Development) Tests. Throughout this manual, documentation is provided regarding the development of the GED Tests, data collection activities, as well as reliability and validity evidence. The purpose of this manual is to provide evidence…

Published Lester Attitude toward Death Scale for first time, together with data on its reliability and validity. Notes that scale is different from other fear of death scales in its use of scaled value approach that permits measure of inconsistency in attitudes. (Author)

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys, which take place every three years, have been designed to collect information about 15-year-old students in participating countries. PISA examines how well students are prepared to meet the challenges of the future,…

The purpose of this article is to describe the processes followed to develop an authentic, reliable and valid play-based assessment of communication-related behaviours in young children with severe disabilities. The Daily Multiple Measurement Instrument (DMMI) was developed to be used based on an intervention package of play activities. The…

A statewide random sampling of seven groups of professional educators (N=90) and 30 parents of learning disabled (LD) students were compared for their degree of agreement on the Modified Component Disability Instrument. Professionals included teachers of LD adolescents, remedial reading teachers, school psychologists, speech clinicians, school…

The reliability and validity of the Modified Component Disability Checklist were examined with five secondary learning disabled (LD) teachers, 21 low achieving students, and 21 LD students in grades 7, 8, and 9. During Phase I, teachers matched the component disability to the target behavior; and in Phase II teachers were told to judge each target…