Balancing assessment of learning outcomes with the expectations of students is a perennial challenge in education. Difficult exams, in which many students perform poorly, exacerbate this problem and can inspire a wide variety of interventions, such as a grading curve. However, addressing poor performance can sometimes distort or inflate grades and…

This paper estimates the causal effects of enrollment in one of five oversubscribed high-quality Los Angeles charter schools using a lottery design. Enrolling in a charter school increased eleventh-grade standardized test scores and enrollment and persistence in four-year colleges substantially, but had no effect on high school GPA. Charter…

We derived an index of high school academic rigor (HSAR) by optimizing the prediction of first-year college GPA (FYGPA) based on high school courses taken, grades, and indicators of advanced coursework. Using a large data set and nominal parameterization of high school course outcomes, the HSAR index capitalizes on differential contributions…

Analytical writing poses particularly challenging, yet often overlooked, language demands that need attention in educational research and practice. In this article, I discuss the Core Analytical Language Skills (CALS) construct and its relevance for school reading and writing. CALS refer to the set of learners' school-relevant language resources…

ACT requested assistance from the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment (Center for Assessment) to investigate declines of scores for states administering the ACT to its 11th grade students in 2018. This request emerged from conversations among state leaders, the Center for Assessment, and ACT in trying to understand the…

In 2013, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), working collaboratively with state education agencies, released a set of criteria for states to use to evaluate and procure high-quality assessments. The English Language Arts (ELA)/Literacy section of the document included nine content-specific criteria to evaluate the alignment of…

As medical schools have changed their curricula to address foundational and clinical sciences in a more integrated fashion, teaching methods such as concept mapping have been incorporated in small group learning settings. Methods that can assess students' ability to apply such integrated knowledge are not as developed, however. The purpose of this…

School systems across the country are transitioning from paper-based testing (PBT) to computer-based testing (CBT). As this technological shift occurs, more research is necessary to understand the practical and performance implications of administering CBTs. Currently, there is a paucity of research using CBTs to examine working memory (WM)…

Since the 1990s, the United States has fallen behind on college completion, slipping from first in the world in 1995 to 10th in 2016. A major factor in the country's low rates of college completion is a lack of true college preparation in the K-12 education system. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the math achievement of 12th…

"INSPIRE" is an Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant funded by the Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. "INSPIRE" provides an innovative integrated K-12 STEM pipeline approach focused on STEM course content and instructional redesign. The INSPIRE model was implemented in Cabarrus County…

This article reports on a principle-based evaluation of eight dedicated extensive reading coursebooks published in mainland China and used in many universities across the country. The aim is to determine the extent to which these coursebooks reflect a core set of nine second language acquisition and extensive reading principles. Our analysis shows…

This study evaluated the benefits of item enhancements applied to science-inquiry items for incorporation into an alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards for high school students. Six items were included in the cognitive lab sessions involving both students with and without disabilities. The enhancements (e.g., use of visuals,…

This paper highlights the current findings and issues regarding the role of computer-adaptive testing in test anxiety. The computer-adaptive test (CAT) proposed by one of the Common Core consortia brings these issues to the forefront. Research has long indicated that test anxiety impairs student performance. More recent research indicates that…

The "cloze" test is one possible investigative instrument for predicting text comprehensibility. Conceptual coding of student replacement of deleted words has been considered to be more valid than exact coding, partly because conceptual coding seemed fairer to poorer readers. This paper reports a quantitative study of 447 Australian…

This study evaluated the efficacy of the Mind Reading interactive computer software to remediate emotion recognition deficits in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Six unmedicated children with ASD and 11 unmedicated non-clinical control subjects participated in the study. The clinical sample used the software for five sessions. The…