The aim of the research reported here was to get some idea of the accuracy of grade boundaries (cut-scores) obtained by applying the 'similar items method' described in Bramley & Wilson (2016). In this method experts identify items on the current version of a test that are sufficiently similar to items on previous versions for them to be…

Each year the National Reference Test (NRT) reports the proportions of students achieving at or above three key GCSE grades in English and mathematics. The NRT is therefore uniquely placed as a Key Stage 4 assessment which compares performance directly at ability level, to contribute to the evidence on the impact of disruption to education due to…

Because of concerns about test security, different test forms are typically used across different testing occasions. As a result, equating is necessary in order to get scores from the different test forms that can be used interchangeably. In order to assure the quality of equating, multiple equating methods are often examined. Various equity…

In preparation for online administration of the ACT® test, ACT conducted studies to examine the comparability of scores between online and paper administrations, including a timing study in fall 2013, a mode comparability study in spring 2014, and a second mode comparability study in spring 2015. This report presents major findings from these…

This report provides an overview of the financial health of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)-funded higher education sector in England. The analysis covers financial results for the academic year 2013-14, as submitted to HEFCE in December 2014, as well as the outcomes from the sector's Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC)…

Response to Intervention (RtI) is a framework for collecting and using data to match students to interventions of varying intensity. This study examines the implementation of RtI in Grade 1-3 reading in 13 states during the 2011-12 school year, focusing on 146 schools that were experienced with RtI. Full implementation of the RtI framework in…

One major issue with large-scale assessments is that the respondents might give no responses to many items, resulting in less accurate estimations of both assessed abilities and item parameters. This report studies how the types of items affect the item-level nonresponse rates and how different methods of treating item-level nonresponses have an…

This Statistics in Brief explores teacher autonomy in the classroom during the 2003-04, 2007-08, and 2011-12 school years. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), the Statistics in Brief examines a construct of teacher autonomy based on teachers' responses to six questions regarding…

This paper investigates four methods of linear equating under the common item nonequivalent groups design. Three of the methods are well known: Tucker, Angoff-Levine, and Congeneric-Levine. A fourth method is presented as a variant of the Congeneric-Levine method. Using simulation data generated from the three-parameter logistic IRT model we…

The first operational administration of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) took place during the 2014-2015 school year. In addition to the traditional paper-and-pencil format, the assessments were available for administration on a variety of electronic devices, including desktop computers, laptop computers,…

Created by the U.S. Congress in 2006, the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) represents the first federal initiative targeted directly at state and district efforts to introduce performance measures into educator compensation. TIF responds to a growing body of evidence that existing pay structures do not respond to labor force realities or adequately…

The Student Outcomes Survey is an annual national survey of vocational education and training (VET) students. Since 1995, participants have been asked to rate their satisfaction with different aspects of their training, grouped under three main themes: teaching, assessment, and generic skills and learning experiences. While the composition of the…

The most critical feature of a common-item nonequivalent groups equating design is that the average score difference between the new and old groups can be accurately decomposed into a group ability difference and a form difficulty difference. Two widely used observed-score linear equating methods, the Tucker and the Levine observed-score methods,…

Rater behavior in essay grading can be viewed as a signal-detection task, in that raters attempt to discriminate between latent classes of essays, with the latent classes being defined by a scoring rubric. The present report examines basic aspects of an approach to constructed-response (CR) scoring via a latent-class signal-detection model. The…

This report serves as a quick reference guide for elected officials to compare key education policies and data in their states to the rest of the nation. The first section highlights major state policies for all 50 states in both table and chart formats (see Summary Charts ). The second section provides key state data, such as per-student spending…