As states consider non-academic measures of school quality for their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act, few are choosing to focus on the school climate in which students learn. That's not a surprise, given concerns about the validity and usefulness of existing climate surveys. However, the authors argue, a recent study…

School districts and states across the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic Region and the country as a whole have been modifying their teacher evaluation systems to identify more effective and less effective teachers and provide better feedback to improve instructional practice. The new systems typically include components related to…

Teacher self-efficacy has predominantly been explored using quantitative instruments such as Likert scales-based questionnaires. Several researchers have questioned these methods, suggesting they offer only a limited view of the concept. This paper considers their claim by exploring the self-efficacy of UK secondary science teachers participating…

Purpose: This study described the use of dog parks in several diverse locations and explored the contribution dog parks made to physical activity of the dog owners. Method: The Systematic Observation of Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) tool was used to count the number and characteristics of people using parks. Observations were…

Classroom assessment is an essential part of education. The study investigated teachers' perceptions of classroom assessment and their current classroom assessments practices in secondary science in Bangladesh. Specifically, the study sought to gain an understanding of to what extent teachers use different classroom assessment strategies to…

Peer review is a powerful method to enhance teaching in higher education. Peers, however, may not be the most relevant people in evaluating teaching success; as the most important stakeholders in learning, students' evaluations need to be heard. Whilst some efforts to capture "the student voice" are simplistic and may foster consumerist…

Recent research on multiple measures of teaching effectiveness has redefined the role of in-classroom observations in teacher evaluation systems. In particular, most states now mandate that teachers are observed on multiple occasions during the school year, and it is increasingly common that multiple raters are utilized across the different rating…

Exercise physiology courses have transitioned to competency based, forcing Universities to rethink assessment to ensure students are competent to practice. This study built on earlier research to explore rater cognition, capturing factors that contribute to assessor decision making about students' competency. The aims were to determine the source…

Research Findings: This study builds on prior work related to the assessment of young dual language learners (DLLs). The purposes of the study were to (a) determine whether latent subgroups of preschool DLLs would replicate those found previously and (b) examine the validity of GOLD® by Teaching Strategies with empirically derived subgroups.…

The present study aimed to represent the innovative assessments that support students' learning in STEM education through using the integrative framework for Cognitive Diagnostic Modeling (CDM). This framework is based on three components, cognition, observation, and interpretation (National Research Council, 2001). Specifically, this dissertation…

A key question facing teacher evaluation systems is how to combine multiple measures of complex constructs into composite indicators of performance. We use data from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) study to investigate the measurement properties of composite indicators obtained under various conjunctive, disjunctive (or complementary),…

The field of early autism research is in dire need of outcome measures that adequately reflect subtle changes in core autistic behaviors. This article compares the ability of a newly developed measure, the Brief Observation of Social Communication Change (BOSCC), and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) to detect changes in core…

This research provides evidence that the flipped classroom instructional format increases student final exam performance, relative to the traditional instructional format, in a large lecture principles of economics course. The authors find that the flipped classroom directly improves performance by 0.2 to 0.7 standardized deviations, depending on…

Despite growing calls for more accountability of teacher education programs (TEPs), there is little consensus about how to evaluate them. This study investigates the potential for using observational ratings of program completers to evaluate TEPs. Drawing on statewide data on almost 9,500 program completers, representing 44 providers (183…

The aim of this article is to study teachers' attitudes toward assessment of students' learning and their assessment practices in Georgia's general educational institutions. Georgia is a country in the South Caucasus with a population of 4.5 million people, with 2300 general educational institutions and about 559,400 students. The research…