Over a five year period, a university clinic performed psychological evaluations of 102 adults (including 85 college students) who reported that they were experiencing learning or attention problems. Of 92 persons who completed the evaluation, 40 (43.5%) received no diagnosis, 7 (7.6%) received the diagnosis of ADHD, 29 (31.5%) received the…

In this article, the authors provide their critique on a set of papers that investigated Mathematics Knowledge for Teachers (MKT) assessment and the underlying theory and characteristics of the validity enterprise. Three types of assumptions and inferences--elemental, structural, and ecological--are discussed in these papers. These assumptions…

In this issue of Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, Schilling et al. are explicit about the centrality of assessment design and development and psychometric analysis in validation. Schilling and colleagues, Kane (2004, 2006), other contemporary validity theorists and practitioners, and their predecessors typically discuss…

This study examines program elements related to reductions in drug use and crime among Drug Treatment Courts (DTC) participants as well as theoretical mechanisms--increased social controls and improved perceptions of procedural justice--expected to mediate the effects of DTC on these outcomes. Data are from 157 research participants interviewed…

This study evaluated a "substantively driven" method for scoring NAEP writing assessments automatically. The study used variations of an existing commercial program, e-rater[R], to compare the performance of three approaches to automated essay scoring: a "brute-empirical" approach in which variables are selected and weighted solely according to…

How can one create a system for university admission that is equitable, valid, and representative of the broad range of abilities that students can bring to university settings? Conventional tests of abilities and achievements are narrow and do not measure the full range of abilities relevant to university and life success. In this article I…

It has been argued that extended exposure to naturalistic input provides L2 learners with more of an opportunity to converge of target morphosyntactic competence as compared to classroom-only environments, given that the former provide more positive evidence of less salient linguistic properties than the latter (e.g., Isabelli 2004). Implicitly,…

The persistent gap between the performance of mainstream students and racially and linguistically diverse students--for example, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans--on standardized tests may well signal problems with procedures for the development and use of standardized tests in general, and for their use with culturally…

From 2005 to 2008, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is funding a series of distance education (DE) studies in its Pan Asia Networking (PAN) region. Eight collaborative projects are under way in Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Laos, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The…

The use of standardized testing to evaluate academic achievement is a widely debated topic. Despite controversies, standardized testing is used in all educational levels from elementary school to college entrance examinations. One of the ethnic groups particularly affected by this is the Mexican-origin population. An integrated model (individual,…

Background: A critical issue in academic assessment is the effect of children's language and culture on their measured performance. Research on this topic has rarely focused on science education, because science is commonly (though erroneously) assumed to be "culture free." Students' scientific understandings are influenced by the cultural values,…

NCTM Past President Cathy L. Seeley shares her messages on today's most relevant topics and issues in education. Based on Cathy L. Seeley's award-winning NCTM President's Messages, and including dozens of new messages, this must-have K-12 resource offers straight talk and common sense about some of today's most important, thought-provoking issues…

Mounting pressure in the policy arena to improve teacher productivity either by improving signals that predict teacher performance or through creating incentive contracts based on performance--has spurred two related questions: Are there important determinants of teacher productivity that are not captured by teacher credentials but that can be…

This general achievement trends profile includes information that the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) obtained from states from fall 2008 through April 2009. Included herein are: (1) Bullet points summarizing key findings about achievement trends in that state at three performance…

In the chapters presented in this volume, leading experts describe some of the assessment challenges in greater detail and provide federal recommendations on how to address them. In "College and Work Readiness as a Goal of High Schools: The Role of Standards, Assessments, and Accountability," John Tanner of the Center for Innovative Measures at…