Languages differ in how they encode causal events, placing greater or lesser emphasis on the agent or patient of the action. Little is known about how these preferences emerge and the relative influence of cognitive biases and language-specific input at different stages in development. In these studies, we investigated the emergence of sentence…

ACT is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help people achieve education and workplace success. To help fulfill that mission, ACT offers school-day testing programs that provide all students with state- or district-funded access to its college readiness and admissions assessment, removing barriers to testing and opening doors to…

Recent investigations into language assessment literacy (LAL) suggest that stakeholder groups might differ in interests, needs, and expectations in assessment practice, resulting in different LAL profiles. This qualitative study furthers this line of research by examining the effect of contextual and experiential factors on the LAL profiles and…

In the 2020-2021 school year, many schools and districts around the country implemented routine COVID-19 testing to proactively detect cases among teachers, students, and staff and stop the spread of the virus. Such testing made it possible for many communities to gain the needed support from teachers and parents to reopen schools and resume…

The spread of academic testing for accountability purposes in multiple countries has obscured at least two historical purposes of academic testing: community ritual and management of the social structure. Testing for accountability is very different from the purpose of academic challenges one can identify in community "examinations" in…

A multiple testing method for examining factorial invariance for latent constructs evaluated by multiple indicators in distinct populations is outlined. The procedure is based on the false discovery rate concept and multiple individual restriction tests and resolves general limitations of a popular factorial invariance testing approach. The…

This study reports on the goal structures of one rural and one urban Grade 11 class in China, based on classroom observations and teacher and student interviews. Classroom observations, conducted over a 6-month period, focused on physical settings and classroom activities. In each class, seven students and the homeroom teacher were interviewed to…

With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, states have increased latitude over school improvement and accountability policies. At the same time, school takeover via state-run turnaround districts has emerged as a prominent education reform. Although policies takeover influence how teachers are prepared, supported, and evaluated, little is…

Seeking help as an important self-regulated learning strategy has been consistently associated with student motivation. Despite the extensive body of research on typically achieving students, no studies have included help seeking in the literature on talented children. The present study explored the help-seeking intentions and beliefs and…

Multimedia computer programmes have been found to facilitate learning in children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, the effectiveness of these resources is limited due to poor design or a lack of consideration of the ASD cognitive profile, particularly at the lower functioning end of the spectrum. This article attempts to tackle the…

This paper draws on an AHRC/ESRC funded, three-year multi-dimensional study of the political, cultural and pedagogical practices of religious education (Project AH/F009135/1). More specifically, it draws on that material to help understand the challenges to a sense of professional identity amongst UK religious education teachers. The empirical…

The main objective of this study was to work toward the development of a number of measures of student learning outcomes (SLOs) in higher education. Specifically, we used data from "Exame Nacional de Desempenho dos Estudantes" (ENADE), a college-exit examination developed and used in Brazil. The fact that Brazil administered the ENADE to…

This brief paper introduces a new approach to assessing the trustworthiness of research comparisons when expressed numerically. The 'number needed to disturb' a research finding would be the number of counterfactual values that can be added to the smallest arm of any comparison before the difference or 'effect' size disappears, minus the number of…

This article considers the construct of fluency in second language assessment and how it might be informed by research in applied linguistics. It briefly describes the way fluency is conceptualized in four language tests, as embodied in their respective assessment criteria, to show where the field is at present. The article then takes into account…

This paper synthesizes recent research on formative assessment to elucidate its core components, then examines some new approaches currently being tried in schools. It considers the evidence for them, as well as the questions and issues they continue to raise, and takes a look at the challenges schools and school systems face in implementing both…