This study focuses on creating a reliable and valid instrument to measure high school students' perceptions of academic challenge. The research is divided into four phases: qualitative analysis, item development, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and validation. Initial data from college students' retrospective views and high school students'…

The College-Level Examination Program® (CLEP®) is a computer-based prior-learning assessment that allows examinees the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of knowledge and skills necessary to earn postsecondary course credit in higher education. Currently, there are 33 exams in five subject areas: composition and literature, world languages,…

A classroom's social environment and student dispositions towards social interaction together exert a substantial influence on academic outcomes. The strength of this effect is highlighted by research showing the positive effect of cooperative learning on student achievement, but can also be seen in the contribution that student social…

Online higher education institutions are presented with the concern of how to obtain valid results when administering student learning outcomes (SLO) assessments remotely. Traditionally, there has been a great reliance on unproctored Internet test administration (UIT) due to increased flexibility and reduced costs; however, a number of validity…

This paper reports the development of a fixed-choice test for the assessment of basic knowledge in psychology, for use with undergraduate as well as graduate students. Test content is selected based on a core concepts approach and includes a sample of concepts which are indexed most frequently in common introductory psychology textbooks. In a…

As engagement with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) increases in after-school programs (ASPs), it is important to examine the impact of this engagement on students' academic achievement, STEM participation, and affinity toward STEM. Results of these examinations can offer insights into both best practices that could be…

This study tested the degree to which subscales of the "LASSI for Learning Online" (LLO) (Weinstein & Palmer, 2006), a measure of learning strategies and study skills, predict student success in the form of passing grades, using a combination of large training (N = 4,409) and cross-validation (N = 3,203) samples. Discriminant function analysis…

Survey data are widely used in higher education for purposes such as assessment and strategic planning. One of the most common ways of using surveys has been to assess student learning outcomes by means of proxy questions on a survey, assuming that students who engage in specific behaviors (called engagement) have learned more during college than…

The validity of student ratings of instruction as assessed by the Student Instructional Report are reported in two studies. The first investigated correlations between ratings and achievement in 72 sections of seven courses in an attempt to answer the question: Do students learn more from teachers they rate as more effective? The second study…

The relationship between student reported achievements (SRA) and student ratings of their corresponding course and teacher was investigated, from responses to the Instructor and Course Evaluation Questionnaire. The SRA consisted of 10 commonly accepted concepts of cognitive and individual development; their average was used as a measure of…

The aim of the 2018 International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) conference was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive…

High school sophomores' (N=1,717) self-reported coursework and grade information for 26 courses was collected as part of a fall 1991 Preliminary American College Test Plus (P-ACT+) administration. Students were from 55 high schools. The accuracy with which students reported courses taken and grades earned was investigated by comparing this…

This study was undertaken to examine the relationship between self-reported and pre-post measures of academic growth. Self-reported and pre-post measures were obtained in three areas, simple cognitive, complex cognitive and attitudinal. The subjects were 162 graduate students enrolled in six different graduate courses. Partial correlations…

Two studies on the relationship between taking a commercial coaching course and performance on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) are reported. In both studies, one on repeating examinees and another on first-time examinees, differences in scores favoring coached examinees were found on the science knowledge and problems subtests.…

A meta-analysis of the literature findings on student evaluations of teaching are described. This research supports the validity of student ratings as measures of teaching effectiveness. Teachers whose students do well on achievement measures tend to receive higher instructional ratings than teachers whose students do poorly. Correlational effect…