Educators need recommendations to improve screening practices without limiting students' instructional opportunities. Repurposing previous years' state test scores has shown promise in identifying at-risk students within multitiered systems of support. However, researchers have not directly compared the diagnostic accuracy of previous years' state…

Monitoring educational development in the early years of schooling is vital if practitioners, and policy makers, are to support students' learning, but the assessment of student achievement in developing countries can be a logistical headache. Maurice Walker reports on an innovative approach to assessment using tablets that is addressing that.

This study examined the academic performance and preference of students with disabilities for two types of test administration conditions, computer-based testing (CBT) and pencil-and-paper testing (PPT). Data from a large-scale assessment program were used to examine differences between CBT and PPT academic performance for third to eleventh grade…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Integrated Data Systems Link Schools and Communities: Researchers Combine School and Non-School Data to Inform Interventions and Policy (Patti Hartigan);…

This paper reviews the concept of high-stakes assessment against a background of postmodernism, and argues that the inaccessibility of cognitive processes is only one part of the problem of reading assessment: even greater challenges are posed by a postmodern analysis, in which an incredulity toward metanarratives leads to a series of six…

Three studies investigated the effectiveness of the Computer Assisted Reading Diagnosis, a diagnostic system based on "rauding" theory (a collection of theories, constructs, and equations developed to describe, explain, predict and control the ability to comprehend relatively easy sentences) and a causal model of reading achievement.…

Developed jointly by OECD member countries through the OECD's Directorate for Education, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) aims to measure how far students approaching the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills essential for full participation in the knowledge society. The assessment is…

A study evaluated the effect software for self-assessment and management of reading practice had on reading achievement and motivation in two primary schools in Aberdeen, Scotland. The program utilized was The Accelerated Reader (AR) which was designed to enable curriculum based assessment of reading comprehension within the classroom. Students…

A case study is presented of a second-grader whose parents receive a report that her reading and mathematics achievement is far below grade level, based on a newly implemented computer-based assessment and intervention program. Discussion concerns her previous grades, assessment results, the constructivist theory-based curriculum, and legal…