Although evaluators often use an interrupted time series (ITS) design to test hypotheses about program effects, there are few empirical tests of the design's validity. We take a randomized experiment on an educational topic and compare its effects to those from a comparative ITS (CITS) design that uses the same treatment group as the experiment…

We report an investigation of the validity of teachers' ratings of children's progress in "phonics" as a screener for dyslexia. Seventy-three 6-year-olds from a whole school population were identified as "at risk" of dyslexia according to teacher judgements of slow progression through phonic phases. Six months later, children's attainments in…

Many undergraduate students have difficulty writing mathematical proofs even though this skill is important for the development of future teachers and those who may be involved in instruction or training as a graduate student or supervisor. In addition, research indicates that mathematics majors and secondary education mathematics majors possess…

The current study aimed to test the validity of the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), as compared to the Implicit Association Test (IAT), by assessing the attitudes of Dublin dwellers and rural dwellers toward Dublin and country life. Discrimination between the two groups for the IAT was marginally significant. The IRAP…

People not only use social comparisons to evaluate their abilities, they also engage in dimensional comparisons, comparing their own achievement in different domains. Processes of dimensional comparison have contrasting effects on subject-specific self-concepts: downward dimensional comparisons result in higher self-concept in the…

The present study reports data supporting the construct validity of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test (K-BIT; Kaufman & Kaufman, 1990), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III; Wechsler, 1991), and the Adjustment Scales for Children and Adolescents (ASCA; McDermott, Marston, & Stott, 1993) through convergent…

According to a new study of Milwaukee public schools, student achievement has benefited from voucher-based school competition. A novel method, using geocoding, was proposed for measuring the degree of competition within the city of Milwaukee and, in turn, for determining whether such competition has increased or decreased the achievement of public…

The difference in gain scores produced by traditional pretests and those produced by retrospective pretests when compared to posttest scores on the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument for preservice teachers was investigated in this study. Results indicated that gain scores using the traditional pretest produced significant improvement in…

The Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University conducted a large-scale analysis of the impact of charter schools on student performance. The center's data covered 65-70% of the nation's charter schools. Although results varied by state, 17% of the charter school students have significantly higher math results than …

"How New York City's Charter Schools Affect Achievement" estimates the effects on student achievement of attending a New York City charter school rather than a traditional public school and investigates the characteristics of charter schools associated with the most positive effects on achievement. Because the report relies on an…

To examine the external validity of DSM-IV childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD), 10 children (M = 8.2 yrs) with CDD and 152 gender- and age-matched children with autistic disorder (AD) were compared on 24 variables. The CDD children had a significantly higher rate of epilepsy, significantly less uneven intellectual functioning, and a tendency…

Thirty-six testwise and 41 test-naive high school seniors in British Columbia (Canada) were tested to determine their abilities to apply selected test wiseness principles according to a proposed model of test-taking behavior. To apply the testwiseness strategy, students first needed knowledge of the content tested and test item content. (SLD)

The relationship between cloze and multiple-choice tests as measures of reading comprehension at two grade levels, fifth and eighth, was investigated. The reading passages used in the testing were at difficulty levels either 2 years below, 2 years above, or at the subjects' grade level. The final subject sampling included 708 students from each…

The history of test coaching has shown that positive benefits can be produced from short-term orientation, practice, and drill. Coaching on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) has been especially scrutinized for efficacy and has shown modest program effects, despite the limited scope and duration of such programs. The present investigation expands…