This work presents a methodological critique and secondary analysis of a large scale societal experiment, performed by Kellaghan, that studied the educational and psychological effects of the introduction of standardized achievement/ability testing in elementary schools in Ireland. (Author/PN)

Beginning with the planning stages of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), careful attention has been given to the design of efficient probability sampling methods for the selection of class-age respondents and the assignment of test packages. With these methods, it is possible for NAEP researchers to make relatively precise…

Efficient methods of using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data files are discussed. One error in the NAEP SPSS file is discussed, and another error (which may be system-dependent) is mentioned. In addition, purely mathematical methods are used to address the…

The first and second International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement Science Studies examined and compared science achievement in 19 and 26 countries, respectively. This paper considered 10 technical issues that arose in these 2 studies of science education and achievement. The issues discussed were the: (1) need for the…

Identifies important criteria for assessing the quality of educational research and applies these 20 identified criteria to 2 recent international comparative studies in education, the Second International Science Study and the first International Assessment of Educational Progress. The major types of criteria are utility, propriety, and accuracy.…

The purpose of this study was to improve both statistical and judgmental methods for detecting potentially biased test items in an attempt to examine the agreement between the results obtained with these methods. If greater agreement between methods can be achieved, test items can be more effectively screened using judgmental methods prior to…

The increasing use of educational performance or outcome measurements for a range of policy purposes points to new procedures for adjusting data for population composition. The purposes include: program formulation, budget resource allocation, grant-in-aid designs, performance incentive payments, consumer information for school selection, and…

In 1959, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the University of Pittsburgh selected a stratified random probability sample of all secondary schools (public, parochial, and private) in the United States, tested all their students in grades 9-12 with a two-day battery of aptitude tests, information tests, tests of ability and achievement,…

Recent investigations of the extent to which students with disabilities are allowed to participate in major national data collections used in measurement-driven education reform suggest that 40 to 50 percent of students with disabilities are typically excluded from major assessments, although they are included to a greater degree in assessments…

School effectiveness indices (SEIs), based on regressing test performance onto earlier test performance and a socioeconomic status measure, were obtained for eight subject-grade combinations from 485 South Carolina elementary schools. The analysis involved school means based on longitudinally matched student data. Reading and mathematics…