International surveys are increasingly being used to understand nonacademic outcomes like math and science motivation, and to inform education policy changes within countries. Such instruments assume that the measure works consistently across countries, ethnicities, and languages--that is, they assume measurement invariance. While studies have…

Research on assessing English as a foreign language (EFL) development has been growing recently. However, empirical evidence from longitudinal analyses based on substantial samples is still needed. In such settings, tests for measuring language development must meet high standards of test quality such as validity, reliability, and objectivity, as…

This dissertation investigates the inequitable distribution and causal impacts of mathematics teachers' content knowledge for teaching (CKT) on instructional quality and student learning outcomes. Using the rich information in the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project longitudinal database, the study addresses three core research questions:…

Students' responses to Word Dictation curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in writing tend to include a lot of missing values, especially items not reached due to the three-minute test time limit. A large amount of non-ignorable not-reached responses in Word Dictation can be considered using alternative item response theory (IRT) approaches. In…

This manual provides guidance and documentation for users of the longitudinal kindergarten-fourth grade (K-4) data file of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011). It mainly provides information specific to the fourth-grade round of data collection. The first chapter provides an overview of the…

This brief considers the problem of using value-added scores to compare teachers who work in different schools. The author focuses on whether such comparisons can be regarded as fair, or, in statistical language, "unbiased." An unbiased measure does not systematically favor teachers because of the backgrounds of the students they are…

A study by Mullen and Tallent-Runnels (2006) found significance in the differences between online and traditional students' reports of instructors' academic support, instructors' demands, and students' satisfaction. They also recognized that the limitation to their study was their demographic data. In an original report funded by the Alfred P.…

This study compared 4,594 student responses from three different surveys of incoming students at the University of South Florida (USF) with data from Florida's State University System (SUS) admissions files to determine what proportion of error occurs in the survey responses. Specifically, the study investigated the amount of measurement error in…