Reports on the development of a 12-item Likert-type measure of collective efficacy in schools designed to assess the extent to which a faculty believes in its conjoint capacity to influence student learning positively. A total of 452 teachers in 47 schools completed a 21-item scale later refined to 12 items. Discusses internal consistency and…

Where do those in schools start sorting the wheat from the chaff, genuine growth potions offering long-term improvement from the elixirs, short-term opportunism and/or unrealistic expectations? The current and growing emphasis on evidence informed policy and practice is as good a place as any. The purpose of this article is to take up the issues…

We conducted 2 studies to assess and enhance levels of graduate preparation. In Study 1, 248 undergraduates and 28 graduate students completed a new measure of graduate preparation, the Grad Prep Quiz. Results documented the psychometric utility and the predictive validity of the measure, with graduate students scoring significantly higher on this…

Preferential-looking studies suggest that by 2 months of age, infants may have knowledge about some object properties, such as solidity. Manual search studies of toddlers examining these same concepts, however, have failed to provide evidence for the same understanding. Investigators have recently attempted to reconcile this disparity but failed…

Although there have been numerous studies investigating the predictive validity of early assessment, observed predictive validity coefficients across studies are not stable. A validity generalization study was conducted in order to answer the question of whether the relationship between early assessment of children and later achievement is…

This study addresses the prediction that dropout from a UK specialized residential treatment program for adolescent sexual abusers can be determined from pre-treatment variables. Participants were 49 adolescents aged 12-16 years, who had sexually abused children, peers/adults or both. Of the variables examined, 25 showed a significant association…

Empirical studies addressing admission to and graduation from a doctoral program focusing on educational leadership are noticeably absent within the professional literature, and this study seeks to fill partially this void through testing specific hypotheses. Archival data were used to conduct a three group discriminant analyses where the…

A study examined the predictive efficiency of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) for adult learners in the University System of Georgia (USGA). Also investigated during the study were the effects of variables such as age, sex, and race on the performance of adult learners on the SAT and in college and the relative academic performance of adult…

Numerous strategies have been used throughout the years to test cultural groups. This paper grew out of the need to find and use standardized tests that would depict accurately the performance of various cultural groups in America. In order to make judgments about performance, it is wise to examine the theoretical structure from which most of the…

This invitational conference was convened to report the principal findings of a six-year study of possible sources of bias in the prediction of job performance. The research was conducted jointly by Educational Testing Service and the U.S. Civil Service Commission, supported by the Ford Foundation. Data were gathered on test and job performance of…

Data from the Canadian Test of English for Scholars and Trainees (CanTEST) are compared to data from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) to establish CanTEST as a valid admissions tool for English-as-a-Second Language college applicants. Data are taken from four groups of examinees who took both tests. (eight references) (LR)

Medicine is a profession with a long history of research and high standards of methodological rigour and evidence-based decision making. These standards are being transferred into medical education. Universities are starting to collect high-quality data on their admissions systems. This has not been a short-term proposition. Medical courses are…

In this technical report, data are presented on the predictive and concurrent relation between various student demographic variables (gender, race/ethnicity, special education status, Title 1 status, English language learning status, and economic disadvantage) and three reading easyCBMs (passage reading fluency, vocabulary, and multiple-choice…

The purpose of this study was to examine technical features of new and existing curriculum-based measures of written expression in terms of writing task, duration, and scoring procedures. Twenty-five third-, 43 fifth-, and 55 seventh-graders completed passage-copying tasks in 1.5 min and picture, narrative, and expository writing prompts in 3-7…

High-school grades are often viewed as an unreliable criterion for college admissions, owing to differences in grading standards across high schools, while standardized tests are seen as methodologically rigorous, providing a more uniform and valid yardstick for assessing student ability and achievement. The present study challenges that…