This paper focuses on the factors that are likely to play a role in individual learning outcomes from group discussions, and it includes a comparison featuring test-enhanced learning. A between-groups design (N = 98) was used to examine the learning effects of feedback if provided to discussion groups, and to examine whether group discussions…

Controversy continues to surround parenting by lesbian and gay (LG) adults and outcomes for their children. As sexual minority parents increasingly adopt children, longitudinal research about child development, parenting, and family relationships is crucial for informing such debates. In the psychological literature, family systems theory contends…

The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program has been preparing students who are first generation. college-going students from subgroups traditionally underrepresented in higher education, and students from lower socioeconomic families for college and careers since 1980. The present study investigated the success of middle school…

This mixed methods action research study explored how students reacted to using literature circles to enhance their knowledge and understanding of reading nonfiction text as compared to students using guided reading. This study showed a minimal improvement for students participating in the literature circle group in overall understanding of…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a reading intervention program, Responsiveness to Intervention (RTI), among monolingual and bilingual elementary aged students. Minimal research has been dedicated to children who identify as English Language Learners (ELL) and their response to reading intervention programs compared to…

The aim of the present research was to compare the use of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) as an examination method against the oral examination (OE) method. MCQs are widely used and their importance seems likely to grow, due to their inherent suitability for electronic assessment. However, MCQs are influenced by the tendency of examinees to guess…

To help EFL learners realize the use of nominals and clauses in practicing productive skills of academic writing in English writing tests, experiments have been exploited using the tasks similar to those of internet-based test of English as a foreign language to determine the nominal and clause level information during sentence and paragraph…

This article investigates if online evaluation leads to different results than paper-and-pencil evaluation. Given that most previous studies confound the evaluation mode (online versus paper) with the evaluation situation (in class versus after class), we expected that evaluation results would be influenced only by the evaluation situation,…

The main purpose of this study is to improve estimation efficiency in obtaining maximum marginal likelihood estimates of contextual effects in the framework of nonlinear multilevel latent variable model by adopting the Metropolis-Hastings Robbins-Monro algorithm (MH-RM). Results indicate that the MH-RM algorithm can produce estimates and standard…

When learning with abstract and scientific multiple external representations (MERs), low prior knowledge learners are said to have difficulties in using these MERs to achieve conceptual understanding. Yet little is known about what these limitations precisely entail. In order to understand this, we presented 101 learners with low prior knowledge…

Analyzing examinees' responses using cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) has the advantage of providing diagnostic information. To ensure the validity of the results from these models, differential item functioning (DIF) in CDMs needs to be investigated. In this article, the Wald test is proposed to examine DIF in the context of CDMs. This study…

The main purpose of this study is to improve estimation efficiency in obtaining maximum marginal likelihood estimates of contextual effects in the framework of nonlinear multilevel latent variable model by adopting the Metropolis-Hastings Robbins-Monro algorithm (MH-RM; Cai, 2008, 2010a, 2010b). Results indicate that the MH-RM algorithm can…

In the present paper, the application of a parametric bootstrap procedure, as described by van de Schoot, Hoijtink, and Dekovic (2010), will be applied to demonstrate that a direct test of an informative hypothesis offers more informative results compared to testing traditional null hypotheses against catch-all rivals. Also, more power can be…

Many high school and university students return home from global programs and often report they have changed as a result of the experience. Global educators assume the act of participating in global education programs (such as high school study abroad) will open students' eyes to the complexities of another culture because students have been…

This study investigated the effects of three types of pre-reading activities (movie-watching, vocabulary presentation, and pre-reading summarization) on the reading comprehension of 76 elementary-level EFL Iranian learners. The participants were randomly assigned to one control and three experimental conditions and then a pretest was given to…