Timely diagnostic feedback is helpful for students and teachers, enabling them to adjust their learning and teaching plans according to a current diagnosis. Motivated by the practical concern that the simultaneity estimation strategy currently adopted by longitudinal learning diagnosis models does not provide timely diagnostic feedback, this study…

The purpose of this study is to test the validity of scores on the Homework Purpose Scale using 681 rural and 306 urban high school students. First, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on the rural sample. The results reveal that the Homework Purpose Scale comprises three separate yet related factors, including Learning-Oriented Reasons,…

Responding to the scarcity of suitable measures of teacher knowledge, this article reports on a novel assessment approach to measuring teacher knowledge of teaching mathematics. The new approach uses teachers' ability to analyze teaching as a proxy for their teaching knowledge. Video clips of classroom instruction, which respondents were asked to…

The first of two experiments on direct evaluation procedures involved students' judgments of how well they understood terms and concepts presented in a course. In the second, responses to short examination-type questions were obtained. In both, a class comprehension index was sufficiently sensitive to detect differences due to instruction.…

The development and validation of the Teacher Beliefs Survey (TBS) is described. The TBS, an instrument for assessing the beliefs of teachers related to constructivist and traditional approaches to teaching and learning, contains 21 items in three hypothetical constructs. Elementary teachers, preservice (n = 61) and in-service (n = 137),…

In the process of fitting a quantitative synthesis model, the assumption of homogeneous effect size variation is assessed via omnibus test statistics. Graphical representations of data on techniques for teaching composition skills are used to help determine the extent to which sample estimates deviate from modeled population estimates. (TJH)

Using various Latin square and incomplete Latin square formats, the Fields test formats provide a novel way of presenting tests to students using machine scoreable answer sheets that can be item analyzed. Items can be constructed to help students acquire knowledge or to measure the attainment of course objectives. (SLD)

The interaction of mental ability and of two different instructional methods was investigated for a second grade linear metric curriculum unit. Mental ability was positively correlated with achievement under the guided discovery method, but essentially uncorrelated for the self paced mastery learning method. (Author/JKS)

The factorial validity and reliability of the newly developed Teacher Effectiveness Survey was examined in a sample of 390 principals. Results indicate that the instrument consists of three subscales (Instruction, Leadership, and Interpersonal/Professional), each measuring a different facet of a teacher's abilities. (SLD)