Graphics education has been a central component in the engineering course of study. As technology advances, so have the methods in which graphics are expressed and practiced. Though the of media of graphics education have evolved, the concepts of the field remain relatively consistent. Tools are needed to measure students' comprehension,…

This study investigated the interaction of disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning in a team-taught, first-year, interdisciplinary sustainability course. We surveyed (pre/post) both STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and non-STEM majors (N = 241), assessing attitudes and content knowledge. Responses were analyzed using…

Background: Economists are making increasing use of measures of student achievement obtained through large-scale survey assessments such as NAEP, TIMSS, and PISA. The construction of these measures, employing plausible value (PV) methodology, is quite different from that of the more familiar test scores associated with assessments such as the SAT…

Energy is a core concept in the teaching of science. Therefore, it is important to know how students' thinking about energy develops so that elementary, middle, and high school students can be appropriately supported in their understanding of energy. This study tests the validity of a proposed theoretical model of students' growth of understanding…

Students' attitude towards science (SAS) is often a subject of investigation in science education research. Survey of rating scale is commonly used in the study of SAS. The present study illustrates how Rasch analysis can be used to provide psychometric information of SAS rating scales. The analyses were conducted on a 20-item SAS scale used in an…

This manual contains information about the American College Test (ACT) Plan® program. The principal focus of this manual is to document the Plan program's technical adequacy in light of its intended purposes. This manual supersedes the 2011 edition. The content of this manual responds to requirements of the testing industry as established in the…

This article reports the relative effect of Smart and Mainstream schooling on students' attitudes towards science which was measured using ATSSA(M)--the Malay version of the Germann's (1988) Attitudes Towards Science in School Assessment (ATSSA) instrument. The participants comprised 775 Form 3 (15-year-old) students from two Smart Schools and two…

This article illustrates the use of an explanatory item response modeling (EIRM) approach in the context of measuring group differences in science achievement. The distinction between item response models and EIRMs, recently elaborated by De Boeck and Wilson (2004), is presented within the statistical framework of generalized linear mixed models.…