This is the fourth report in a series of studies conducted to investigate ACT's fee waiver program. Although the three prior reports in this series provide valuable descriptive information about ACT fee waiver usage and test-day absenteeism among students who use fee waivers, this brief provides information directly from students who registered…

The relationship between shadow education and competition has been discussed and studied widely by educational experts and policy makers in Japan. One major topic has been the role that shadow education plays in social inequality by creating winners and losers. Another is related to competition and students' psychological health; and a third…

Brazil is a country that does not invest enough in basic education, thus leaving a gap in the knowledge of young people studying in public schools and jeopardizing their future. One of the main ways to get into college in Brazil is through the National High School Exam (ENEM), a multiple-choice test administered by the National Institute of…

My personal experience as a teacher in Japan has raised questions about the usefulness of both summative and formative assessment, the possible benefits of non-traditional approaches to classroom instruction, and the influence of assessment measures in the success of Japanese students. For instance, the use of collaborative, inquiry, task or…

ACT® Academy™ was launched in March 2018 as a free online resource to help students improve their academic skills and prepare for the ACT® test. This study provides an early look at ACT Academy usage and its effects on ACT test scores. The authors found that moderate usage (e.g., 6 hours) of ACT Academy's quizzes and practice tests leads to an…

While several scholarship opportunities are available to Myanmar migrants and refugee students in Thailand, many students face difficulties finding affordable and convenient ways to prepare for university entry requirements. To provide lifelong learning opportunities for these marginalized young adults, flexible online learning programs can play a…

Pearson explored the relationship between the use of Sistema COC with learner outcomes like students' achievement in the simulated national assessments. Pearson conducted a study comparing results on the SimENEM, a practice exam, for students in Sistema COC schools with similar students in public and private schools not using Sistema COC. The…

Sistema COC is a learning system for Brazilian private school students attending kindergarten through 12th grade. Its mission is to prepare students for assessments administered by the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP) of the Brazilian Ministry of Education. The most important of these assessments is the Exame Nacional…

Attaining successful outcomes on the SAT can have profound educational and financial consequences for college-bound students. Using archival data from a private tutoring centre, we investigated variables we hypothesised to contribute to SAT score increases. Our analyses revealed significant effects of time on task and rate of SAT homework…

There is a lack of standardized instruction among the different General Educational Development (GED) preparatory programs in the country as a result of different state requirements for taking the GED exams. As such, the purpose of this quantitative non-experimental correlational study is to examine if scores of students on GED Ready Opt and the…

The Advanced Placement Psychology exam is one of the fastest growing exams offered by the College Board. The average percent of change in the number of students taking this exam over the past five years is 12.4%. With 238,962 students taking the exam in 2013, the AP Psychology exam is the sixth largest exam, surpassing AP Biology and AP World…

This essay describes the various problems China faces on account of its exam-centric education system and pedagogy. Along with interviews and focus groups, this study draws on survey responses from 43 Chinese high school students enrolled in the Yunnan Province's No. 10 school. Moreover, this essay explores the policy arguments and key assumptions…

The No Child Left Behind Act emphasized the responsibility of states to improve student academic performance. In one state, students are required to take subject-area tests and master each test to graduate; however, in some schools, many students are failing the English II test administered during students' sophomore year. Two districts have…

This study examined the effectiveness of an ACT intervention course developed for high school juniors at Anderson County High School during the 2011-2012 school year. This study compared the ACT composite test scores of the treatment group to the ACT composite test scores of the control group by using their PLAN scores as a baseline, to determine…

A program at North East High School (NEHS) was started to help improve state test scores. Senior students work with underclassmen in one of the four state test areas: Algebra, English 10, Biology, and Government to help improve scores with hopes of passing the test. State test scores help to determine whether or not a school will meet their Annual…