Assessing students' (mis)conceptions is a challenging task for teachers as well as for researchers. While individual assessment, for example through interviews, can provide deep insights into students' thinking, this is very time-consuming and therefore not feasible for whole classes or even larger settings. For those settings, automatically…

This study is a conceptual replication of Ellis' 'Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language: A psychometric study', published in "Studies in Second Language Acquisition" (2005), aiming to establish the importance of including belief statements (hypothesized to increase processing demands) in the design of Elicited…

When examinees perceive a test as low stakes, it is logical to assume that some of them will not put out their maximum effort. This condition makes the validity of the test results more complicated. Although many studies have investigated motivational fluctuation across tests during a testing session, only a small number of studies have…

International surveys are increasingly being used to understand nonacademic outcomes like math and science motivation, and to inform education policy changes within countries. Such instruments assume that the measure works consistently across countries, ethnicities, and languages--that is, they assume measurement invariance. While studies have…

Confidence assessment (CA) involves students stating alongside each of their answers a confidence rating (e.g. 0 low to 10 high) to express how certain they are that their answer is correct. Each student's score is calculated as the sum of the confidence ratings on the items that they answered correctly, minus the sum of the confidence ratings on…

This study addresses how Chinese learners of English as a second language (L2) perceive conversations in English materials as compared to speakers of English as a first language (L1). Data were collected through questionnaires completed by 48 participants (28 L2 English learners in China and 20 L1 English speakers in the UK), eliciting evaluations…

Team teaching is an innovative method to engage the large group and make lectures more interesting. The aim of the study is to evaluate the impact of team teaching in first year biochemistry lecture classes. After obtaining ethical clearance, 150 first year medical undergraduate students participated in the study on a voluntary basis. Topic…

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have the potential to reduce the workload for the second language (L2) teachers and test developers. We propose two AI distractor-generating methods for creating Chinese vocabulary items: semantic similarity and visual similarity. Semantic similarity refers to antonyms and synonyms, while visual similarity…

We examine the effects of computer-based versus paper-based assessment of critical thinking skills, adapted from English (in the U.S.) to Chinese. Using data collected based on a random assignment between the two modes in multiple Chinese colleges, we investigate mode effects from multiple perspectives: mean scores, measurement precision, item…

The purpose of this study was to determine if blended learning effects the academic growth of students. The study used NWEA MAP to determine if RIT scores of students in blended learning schools increased more than schools where blended learning was not a focus. In addition, the study examined the perceptions of students and teachers regarding the…

We describe the development and initial validity assessment of the 20-item BioCalculus Assessment (BCA), with the objective of comparing undergraduate life science students' understanding of calculus concepts in different courses with alternative emphases (with and without focus on biological applications). The development process of the BCA…

We report on a study investigating the influence of context, direction of translation, and function type on undergraduate students' ability to translate between graphical and symbolic representations of mathematical relations. Students from an algebra-based and a calculus-based physics course were asked to solve multiple-choice items in which they…

The concept of variability is central to statistics. In this research report, we review mathematics education research on variability and, based on that review and on feedback from an expert panel, propose a learning progression (LP) for variability. The structure of the proposed LP consists of 5 levels of sophistication in understanding…

Research in the field of second language acquisition indicates that exposure to subtitled movies as comprehensible input generally enhances the acquisition of vocabulary. This paper reports on an experimental study which seeks to explore the effects of using subtitled movies on the vocabulary acquisition of English for Specific Purposes (ESP)…

Summer enrichment and residential programs can provide gifted students with positive social interactions and challenging curricula. However, little research has focused on gifted students' perceptions of the learning environment in such programs. This research project evaluated the psychometric properties and practical applications of the…