Assessments of student learning outcomes (SLO) have been widely used in higher education for accreditation, accountability, and strategic planning purposes. Although important to institutions, the assessment results typically bear no consequence for individual students. It is important to clarify the relationship between motivation and test…

While most educators assume that not all students try their best on achievement tests, no current research examines if behaviors associated with low test effort, like rapidly guessing on test items, affect teacher value-added estimates. In this article, we examined the prevalence of rapid guessing to determine if this behavior varied by grade,…

Both community colleges and four-year institutions offer Student Success Courses (SSCs) to promote student engagement (self-regulated learning, SRL) and performance (grades, retention, and graduation). However, little work has been done to examine the holistic impact of SSC interventions or to determine which aspects of course curriculum most…

In much of the world, the issue of accountability and measurement of educational outcomes is highly controversial. Exit testing is part of the movement to ascertain what students have learned and hold institutions and teachers to account. However, compared to the large number of teacher washback studies, learner washback research is lacking…

The present study describes the self-reported learning strategies and study approaches of college and university students with and without dyslexia and examines the relationship of those characteristics with reading ability. Students with (n = 36) and without (n = 66) dyslexia completed tests measuring reading rate, reading comprehension, reading…

Universities and colleges are very interested in understanding the factors that influence their students' academic performance. This paper describes a study that was conducted at a mid-sized public university in the mid-south, USA, to examine this issue. In this study, the 10-scale, Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) (Weinstein et…

Differences between four test-independent components of testwiseness and their relative importance were studied in a quasi-experimental investigation of their effects. The components were: (1) time-using training; (2) error-avoidance training; (3) guessing training; and (4) deductive-reasoning training. Three parallel forms of a 30-item test were…