Statewide testing with college admissions exams dates to 2001, when Colorado and Illinois introduced the practice. Such testing expanded in subsequent years, and beginning in 2017--2018, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allowed states to use a college admissions exam to meet accountability requirements for high schools. Some see this option…

Using data on secondary school social studies teachers (n = 6,702) from the Survey of the Status of Social Studies (S4), a multilevel model, and an Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis, this study examined the associations of state testing policy and school characteristics on secondary social studies teachers' instructional autonomy as it relates…

This study investigates whether a common set of student attitudes and behavioral tendencies can account for academic achievement across different, especially high-performing, countries via analysis of the PISA 2009 international data set. The 13 countries examined are 5 of the top-performing Eastern countries/systems, namely Shanghai China, South…

With increased emphasis on accountability, the use of low-stakes test data to make high-stakes decisions about program effectiveness is on the rise. In order to make valid inferences about what students know and can do, it is crucial to understand the consequences of low and high stakes in testing contexts. As a result, with a sample comprised of…

This explorative study describes time use and time management behaviour of ethnic minority and ethnic majority students as possible explanations for the poorer study results of ethnic minority students compared to those of majority students. We used a diary approach in a small sample to examine students' daily time use in both a lecture week…

This study investigated the relationships between when a test is administered and the amount of test-taking effort exhibited by examinees. Three time-related variables were investigated: the time of year the test was administered, the day of the week the test event occurred, and the time of day that the test event occurred. Mean effort did not…

This dissertation examined perceptions of superintendents, principals and teachers about South Carolina's Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test or the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards testing program. A systemic sample of 729 superintendents, principals, and teachers were selected to participate in the study. A survey was emailed to the…

The present study, designed as a pilot study to provide an empirical basis for modifying the PEP testing program, investigated the possibility that teachers could accurately evaluate learning progress without formal testing. (Author)

One hundred twenty college freshmen in the lowest 20% of their classes participated in a study of the relationships between scores on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test and the Cooperative English Test and varying levels of standing on ACT English and Social Studies and SAT Verbal Tests, by race and gender, controlling for high school grade-point…

Achievement test scores and measures of district and pupil characteristics were analyzed for all California school districts. Achievement test scores were found to be highly correlated among each other. The best single predictor of achievement scores was a measure of family poverty. Scholastic aptitude scores were not used as predictors.…

Over the past five years the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has used the results of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) to rate public school performance on the School Accountability Report (SAR). The public often considers the school ratings as indicative of the school's quality. There appears to be a lack of quantitative…

Five years of state test results for Pennsylvania are examined, focusing on differences among elementary schools in which a majority of students do not master basic learning skills. Data are provided for 1,505 elementary schools in about 500 districts. The largest learning problems occur in about 10% of the schools; these schools have been…

Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Physics, and Ecology assessment instruments were administered to approximately 1,800 nine year old and 1,800 seventeen year old Massachusetts students. The 9 year old students exceeded the performance of a national and international sampling of students. They equaled the performance of a sampling of students from…

The Massachusetts Statewide Educational Assessment in Consumer Education covers six content areas: borrowing, buying, investing, planning, protecting, and sharing. Nine year old and seventeen year old students were selected from various kinds of communities, six regions of the state, and from varying family occupational backgrounds. Both male and…

This paper reports on regression based methods for identifying exemplary schools. A distinction is made between schools which are maintaining an exceptional level of achievement and those which are improving their achievement in an extraordinary way. More schools were found which consistently exceeded expectations and fewer schools were found…