Influencing major education policies in the US such as school vouchers and charter schools, market theory assumes that organizational autonomy, parental choice, and competition between schools improve the quality of education. However, whether those policies can influence the instructional core of schools is not well understood. Comparing private…

Concept-based teaching is presumably more effective than popular procedure-based instruction in helping students develop conceptual understanding, an important conceptual base for mathematics teaching reforms in many countries. This study examined the extent to which this assumption is true by controlling the influences of student socioeconomic…

Purpose: Automatic speech analysis (ASA) and automatic speech recognition systems are increasingly being used in the treatment of speech sound disorders (SSDs). When utilized as a home practice tool or in the absence of the clinician, the ASA system has the potential to facilitate treatment gains. However, the feedback accuracy of such systems…

Although scholars have examined the effects of global tests on national and regional educational governance, few researchers have studied their impact on education in the Arabian Gulf. This research fills the knowledge gap by studying the international spectacle of PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS results in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) -- two…

Independent schools are, for the most part, exempt from mandatory participation in standardized tests designed for state and federal comparisons, nor are they required to take part in comparative international assessments. The anxiety in the broader culture, however, is driving a growing interest among independent school parents (and prospective…

The authors evaluated the effects of P-SELL, a science curricular and professional development intervention for fifth-grade students with a focus on English language learners (ELLs). Using a randomized controlled trial design with 33 treatment and 33 control schools across three school districts in one state, we found significant and meaningfully…

Why has large-scale standardised testing attracted such a bad press? Why has pedagogic benefit to be derived from test results been downplayed? The paper investigates this question by first surveying the pros and cons of testing in the literature, and goes on to examine educators' responses to standardised, large-scale tests in a sample of low…

This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequality in educational scores and their evolution over time in four European countries. Using Programme for International Student Assessment data from the 2000 and the 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequality decreased in Germany and Spain (two "decentralised" schooling…

Many articles and reports have reviewed, researched, and commented on international assessments from the perspective of exploring what is relevant for the United States' education systems. Researchers make claims about whether the top-performing systems have transferable practices or policies that could be applied to the United States. However,…

Analysis of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised protocols for identified gifted, high IQ, and average children (total N=599 and ages 5-16) identified a four-factor solution for the gifted sample (Perceptual Organization, Verbal Comprehension, Acquisition of Knowledge, and Spatial Memory). Results suggested gifted children process…

Compared Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (SB:FE) in identification and assessment of 48 intellectually gifted students. Findings suggest that scores of SB:FE and WISC-R, while both measuring 'g' factor, produce varying scores for gifted; many children currently in…

Compared the Revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (Revised) for 53 rural children. The PPVT-R was highly correlated with WISC-R scale and subtest scores. Examination of a subsample of developmentally handicapped students revealed substantial reduction in correlational relationships. (JAC)

This study concerns the "highly qualified teacher" provisions of the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA," 2002), as reauthorized, and other policies at the federal, state and local levels, which have aimed to elevate the content knowledge of teachers. This examination of "Praxis II" score trends…

A study evaluated comparatively the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI) Interactive Test and Advantage Learning Systems' STAR Reading Computer-Adaptive Standardized Test. Due to the different methods used for collecting and calculating norm-referenced scores in the two tests, scale score measures of reading performance were used for the comparative…

Criticizes the William Bennett/Emily Feistritzer "Report Card on American Education 1993" for misrepresenting the "crisis" condition of U.S. education. State rankings of SAT scores flatten data and exaggerate differences. Bennett also ignores influence of limited English proficiency, poverty, and percentage of test-takers on…