The authors describe the initial development of the Wagner Assessment Test (WAT), an instrument designed to assess critical thinking, using the 5-faceted view popularized by the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA; G. B. Watson & E. M. Glaser, 1980). The WAT was designed to reduce the degree of successful guessing relative to the…

A sense of direction (SOD) computes the body's facing direction relative to a reference frame grounded in the environment. The authors report on three experiments in which they used a heading-recall task to tap the functioning of a SOD system and then correlated task performance with self-reported SOD as a convergent test of the task's construct…

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities test (ABLA) is a useful tool for choosing appropriate training tasks for persons with developmental disabilities. This test assesses the ease or difficulty with which persons are able to learn six hierarchically positioned discrimination tasks. A visual-visual nonidentity matching prototype task was…

A brief instrument to assess risk of injury was applied retrospectively for 2 years and prospectively for 1 year to all people living in a large ICF/MR. Results suggest that the percentage of people who experienced an injury significantly increased across the levels of increasing risk indicated by the assessment. Furthermore, people who…

The enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has pushed to the forefront the ever-present need to conduct high quality research and translate our research findings to practice by emphasizing evidence-based practices for schools and related settings. Currently, much of the discussion surrounding evidence-based practices has focused on defining…

This study investigated the use of practitioner-implemented structural analyses to determine setting events affecting the disruptive behavior of two male students with EBD in a self-contained classroom. Descriptive measures (PBQ, SEII, and direct observation) and analogue probes were employed and contrasted. An ABA reversal design was used to…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of a collection of prelinguistic skills measured longitudinally in the 2nd year of life to language outcome in the 3rd year in children with typical language development. Method: A collection of prelinguistic skills was assessed in 160 children early (M = 14.31 months; SD =…

In this article, the authors illustrate a step-by-step process of acquiring and integrating information according to the recommendations of evidence-based practices. A case example models the process, leading to specific recommendations regarding instruments and strategies for evidence-based assessment (EBA) of attention-deficit/hyperactivity…

The purpose of this study was to provide teachers, supervisors, and school administrators with a valid scale for measuring teacher attitudes toward low achievers in mathematics: the Teacher Attitudes Toward Low Achievement in Mathematics Scale (TALAM). The development of the instrument was carried out in three phases. Phase 1 consisted of…

The Elementary School Success Profile (ESSP) is a multidimensional instrument for school-based practitioners that assesses the social environmental domains of neighborhood, school, friends, and family, as well as the well-being, behavior, and school performance of students in the third, fourth, and fifth grade. This article presents the…

This article reports on findings obtained from an online survey answered by 97 foreign language department chairs. The Web survey was pilot tested for validity and reliability and obtained a Cronbach's reliability coefficient of .80. The results suggest that student learning outcomes assessment in American undergraduate foreign language education…

This paper reports on a 3-year, NSF-funded research and development project called ACED: Adaptive Content with Evidence-based Diagnosis. The purpose of the project was to design, develop, and evaluate an assessment for learning (AfL) system for diverse students, using Algebra I content related to geometric sequences (i.e., successive numbers…

The U.S. Department of Education has not yet published an official guidance document for using NAEP achievement level scores to confirm state testing results. A review of the literature, however, identified four principles that inform the valid use of NAEP scores in a confirming analysis. The principles address the appropriate NAEP statistics to…

This paper discusses the curriculum and students' and teachers' conceptions of proof. It goes on to discuss university students' difficulties with proving related to understanding and using definitions and theorems, understanding the structure of a proof, knowing how to read and check proofs, knowing and using relevant concepts, bringing…

Many districts and schools across the U. S. have begun to develop and administer assessments to complement state testing systems and provide additional information to monitor curriculum, instruction and schools. In advance of this trend, the Jackson Public Schools (JPS) district has had a district benchmark testing system in place for many years.…