Legislation leading to the mandating of accountability testing in schools was chronicled between the publication of "A Nation at Risk" (1983) to the conclusion of No Child Left Behind (2016). Involvement in education by the federal government increased throughout the educational legislation during this time period. The Omnibus Trade and…

Taking a test often leads to enhanced later memory for the tested information, a phenomenon known as the "testing effect". This memory advantage has been reliably demonstrated with recall tests but not multiple choice tests. One potential explanation for this finding is that multiple choice tests do not rely on retrieval processes to the same…

The city of New Orleans has embarked on an historic experiment reinventing its schools--once considered among the worst in the country--from a centralized, single district model of education to a two district model in which both the Recovery School District (RSD) and the preexisting Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) both operate direct run and…

In DIF studies, a Type I error refers to the mistake of identifying non-DIF items as DIF items, and a Type I error rate refers to the proportion of Type I errors in a simulation study. The possibility of making a Type I error in DIF studies is always present and high possibility of making such an error can weaken the validity of the assessment.…

The purpose of this investigation was to develop an instrument that has scores that are valid and reliable for measuring students' attitudes toward fitness testing. A second purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes of secondary students toward fitness testing. A review of literature, an elicitation study, and a pilot study were…

This mixed-methods case study focuses on the third through fifth grade classrooms at a public elementary school in a Midwestern urban school district where the Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessment is being implemented. According to the school district, the goals of these tests are: to show…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of high-stakes testing under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act on school culture. Individual interviews and focus groups were conducted with first grade through sixth grade teachers and principals from two of Nebo School District's schools located in Utah. Their responses were categorized…