This case study introduces the use of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) publicly available data for linear regression. Our case uses an example of exploring the relationship between Advanced Placement (AP) course-taking, while in high school, on student science, technology, engineering, and mathematics grades upon enrolment to…

The main goal of this study was to illustrate and provide some direction for dealing with the complexities of propensity score matching within different multilevel contexts. Special attention is given to how procedures typically applied in a non-hierarchical setting may be modified to properly reduce the expected bias in the estimated treatment…

On 9/13/12, the Workshop on Developing Assessments to Meet the Goals of the 2012 Framework for K-12 Science Education was held at the National Academies of Science. The workshop was organized and led by the NRC Committee on Developing Assessments of Science Proficiency in K-12 (co-chaired by James Pellegrino and Mark Wilson) and targeted to state…

For educational achievement tests that employ multiple-choice (MC) items and aim to reliably classify students into performance categories, it is critical to design MC items that are capable of discriminating student performance according to the stated achievement levels. This is accomplished, in part, by clearly understanding how item design…

[Slides] presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2009. This study investigated the presence of a general rise in high school grades without a corresponding rise in SAT scores, as well as different grading criteria between schools, as shown by differential relationships between AP course grades and exam scores. These…