Parent engagement in early behavioral intervention is essential to achieving meaningful intervention outcomes. However, parents may experience multiple barriers to engagement. The Parent-coaching Assessment, Individualization, and Response to Stressors (PAIRS) was developed to help practitioners assess families' barriers and facilitators,…

Several experts in the area of postsecondary student evaluations of courses have concluded that they are stable or reliable measures as well as being measures that provide ways of making valid inferences regarding teacher effectiveness. Often these experts have offered these conclusions without supporting evidence. Surprisingly, a thorough review…

The purpose of this study was to (a) evaluate and discuss strengths and weaknesses in the current system of identifying gifted students and (b) investigate the effectiveness of using the Naglieri Nonverbal Abilities Test to identify underrepresented and gifted minority students in grades one through five in Central Mississippi. The study consisted…

The SAS Educational Value-Added Assessment System (SAS[R] EVAAS[R]) is the most widely used value-added system in the country. It is also self-proclaimed as "the most robust and reliable" system available, with its greatest benefit to help educators improve their teaching practices. This study critically examined the effects of SAS[R] EVAAS[R] as…

Background: Coaches and physical educators must obtain valid data relating to the contribution of each of their players in order to assess their level of performance in team sport competition. This information must also be collected and used in real game situations to be more valid. Developed initially for a physical education class context, the…

One can not help but notice that the education community's professional fear-mongers focus heavily on PISA (Program of International Student Assessment) and rarely mention TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) or PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Study) in their discussion of the state of education in the United…

The inclusion of young children with disabilities has remained a function of the Head Start program since its inception in the 1960s when the United States Congress mandated that children with disabilities comprise 10% of the Head Start enrollment (Zigler & Styfco, 2000). Standardized, norm-referenced tests used to identify children with…

The military utilizes tests extensively and should be aware of current testing problems. A conference composed of members from the business, educational, and military communities, both foreign and domestic, was held and these major issues addressed: (1) The Development of Training Requirements; (2) Personnel Assignment Using Interest Inventories;…

This paper discusses the effectiveness of the Rehabilitation Success Rate (RSR) in measuring outcomes of workplace-based occupational rehabilitation services. The RSR is a ratio of the number of employees eligible for a rehabilitation program and the number of eligible employees successfully rehabilitated in one year. Two pilot studies involving…

The report provides detailed information about the methods and instruments used to evaluate school readiness initiatives, discusses important considerations in selecting instruments, and provides resources and recommendations that may be helpful to those who are designing and implementing school readiness evaluations. Study results indicate that…

This article describes the findings of studies conducted on a large-scale, classroom-based performance assessment of literacy for the early grades designed to provide information that is useful for reporting, as well as teaching. Technical studies found the assessment to be a promising instrument that is reliable and valid. Follow-up studies of…

Suggests that not only can scholastic achievement be boosted to a significant degree, but that it can be boosted by those students whom most educators believe have the least chance for school improvement, namely, EOP students. (Author/AM)

Reports on an ongoing evaluation of the Vermont portfolio assessment program. Indicates that the positive news about the instructional effects of the assessment program are in contrast with the empirical findings about the quality of the data the program has yielded. (SLD)

Adult performance level (APL) methodology, results, and conclusions are summarized. Taking exception to functional literacy accounting for an individuals level of income, education, and job status, the author questions the utilitarian value of an APL curriculum. (Author)

PLANA is a training program for subject matter analysis and construction of instructional objectives. This evaluation compared the performance of PLANA-trained and control-group teachers as to their precision in defining teaching objectives and their corresponding instructional tasks and test items. (BW)