Objective: The ability to form a strong therapeutic alliance is considered a foundational skill across psychotherapies. Patient-rated measures of the alliance are now being used to make judgments about a therapist's tendency to build alliances with their patients. However, whether a patient-rated alliance measure provides a useful index of a…

This study analyses peer assessment through many facet Rasch model (MFRM). The research was performed with 91 undergraduate students and with lecturer teaching the course. The research data were collected with holistic rubric employed by 6 peers and the lecturer in rating the projects prepared by 85 students taking the course. This study analyses…

Early childhood educators play a critical role in preparing students for success later in their school experience. The instructional techniques, emotional supports, and assessment approaches for early childhood settings are different from classroom settings in later grades. How can states and districts develop evaluation systems that are tuned to…

We estimated the invariance of educational achievement (EA) and learning attitudes (LA) measures across nations. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was used to estimate the invariance of educational achievement and learning attitudes across 55 nations (Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] 2006 data, N = 354,203). The…

Three UK studies on the relationship between a purpose-built instrument to assess the importance and development of 15 "soft skills" are reported. "Study 1" (N = 444) identified strong latent components underlying these soft skills, such that differences "between-skills" were over-shadowed by differences…

Redistributing highly effective teachers from low- to high-need schools is an education policy tool that is at the center of several major current policy initiatives. The underlying assumption is that teacher productivity is portable across different schools settings. Using elementary and secondary school data from North Carolina and Florida, this…

This paper takes a close look at India's literacy rate by exploring whether the officially "literate" can read and at what level. In a large sample, aged 7+, drawn from four Hindi-speaking states, two methods were used to measure literacy. One was the standard Census Method (CM) which relies on self-reporting and the other was a Reading…

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) was first launched in 1997 as a periodic longitudinal study of program performance. Successive nationally representative samples of Head Start children, their families, classrooms, and programs provide descriptive information on the population served; staff qualifications, credentials,…

Examined the development of self-evaluative biases by having children at 3 age levels (5-6, 7-8, and 9-10 years) evaluate themselves or another child when given social or temporal comparison feedback. Found that there was greater bias for general ability evaluations by older children and greater bias for specific performance evaluations by younger…

In the 20 years since the federal report on education "A Nation at Risk" appeared, much has been written on test scores of students in the United States versus their counterparts elsewhere. One of the issues is whether their scores are in fact inferior, or merely a statistical difference due to their universal schooling philosophy. Since…

The study examined basic counting competencies, difficulties, skill progressions, and variation among 36 moderately retarded and 64 mildly retarded students (ages 5-14). Quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated deficiencies in basic counting competencies and systematic oral- and object-counting errors. Striking individual differences in…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were significant differences in the academic achievement of children attending three different types of school: a model "open" school, a comparable "traditional" school, and a traditional school with a student population from a higher socioeconomic area. Data based on…

The conceptual basis for using individual expectancy scores as a means for determining the success of instruction is presented. An expected gain score is computed for each student, based on a pretest score. The assumption is made that without a change in the learning environment the student will continue to gain at his previous average rate. The…

This report is based on the assessment of ICT (information and communication technology) literacy conducted in October 2005. It describes the development of a computer-based tool for assessing ICT literacy among school students and the application of that tool with a nationally representative sample of approximately 7,400 students from Years 6 and…

Bloom has argued that most students, not just a few, should be able to do top quality school work if given appropriate instruction. Mastery learning, which includes frequent diagnostic testing followed by remedial instruction, has been proposed as an effective strategy for increasing pupil achievement. In this study, teachers used a mastery…