A critical aspect of the development of culturally relevant classroom assessments is the design of tasks that affirm students' racial and ethnic identities and community cultural practices. This paper describes the process we followed to build a shared understanding of what culturally relevant assessments are, to pursue ways of bringing more…

This paper presents research that examined teacher talk about moderation of English, mathematics and science assessment across Years 4, 6 and 8 as part of a broader inquiry into the use of scaled exemplars to support consistency of teacher judgement. The paper draws on Dorothy E Smith's sociological work, including the process of mapping textual…

Recent research has demonstrated an intersectional approach to the study of differential item functioning (DIF). This approach expands DIF to account for the interactions between what have traditionally been treated as separate grouping variables. In this paper, we compare traditional and intersectional DIF analyses using data from a state testing…

In this study, the researcher used the quantitative descriptive methodology to explore and more clearly describe teachers' knowledge of dyslexia to improve dyslexia referral and evaluation practices for students on at-risk campuses. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine what English-language arts teachers who teach kindergarten,…

Processes of classroom emotional transmission have been identified whereby the emotions expressed by an individual are induced in others, with particular attention paid to how this unfolds among teachers and their students. However, there is still much to be clarified about how teachers' and students' emotions transmit in the classroom, including…

This qualitative study works to understand how secondary level literacy teachers conceptualize effective teaching practices. Concepts such as success and effectiveness are difficult to define, but they are nonetheless used in concrete ways to make decisions about teachers' performance. In this study, literacy teachers themselves explain what it…

The "Examining Implementation and Outcomes of the Project On-Track High-Dosage Literacy Tutoring Program" study describes the characteristics of students who participated in a full year of Project On-Track, a high-dosage, small-group literacy tutoring program for students in grade 1-3. Its online adaptive program, Amplify Reading, groups…

As some argue that the system of enacting classroom-level student activist work around literacy assessment isn't worthwhile, this article considers that system and the status quo, largely defined by the standardized testing enterprise. The focus is on the value of everyday, classroom-level advocacy work around assessment--also known as…

The Smarter Balanced Assessment System consists of three components: (1) interim assessments designed to support teaching and learning throughout the year; (2) a suite of tools and resources in Tools for Teachers that support classroom-based formative assessment practices; and (3) end-of-year summative assessments designed for accountability…

This qualitative descriptive study aimed to explore how English as a Second Language (ESL) and Language Arts teachers describe how they use morphology structure instructional strategies to support ESL students' vocabulary development in the United States. This research study's theoretical foundation focused on the seven-step process pre-teaching…

In test equating, one critical equating property is the group invariance property which indicates that the equating function used to convert performance on each alternate form to the reporting scale should be the same for various subgroups. To mitigate the impact of disrupted learning on the item parameters during the COVID-19 pandemic, a…

Researchers draw on the American Instructional Resources Survey (AIRS) and interviews with 45 English language arts (ELA) and math teachers to examine the prevalence of different types of benchmark assessments and explore educators' perceptions about the extent to which benchmark assessments align with other components of their schools'…

This book addresses a problem that affects the work of all educators: how traditional methods of assessment undermine the capacity of schools to serve students with diverse cultural and social backgrounds and identities. Anchored in a commonsense notion of validity, this book explains how current K-12 assessment practices are grounded in the…

Recent research provides evidence that an intersectional approach to defining reference and focal groups results in a higher percentage of comparisons flagged for potential DIF. The study presented here examined the generalizability of this pattern across methods for examining DIF. While the level of DIF detection differed among the four methods…

In this study we evaluated the stability of item parameters and student scores, using the pre-equated (pre-pandemic) parameters from Spring 2019 and post-equated (post-pandemic) parameters from Spring 2021 in two calibration and equating designs related to item parameter treatment: re-estimating all anchor parameters (Design 1) and holding the…