There is well-documented evidence that online retention rates are lower than face-to-face retention rates. However, most past research on online retention focuses on student characteristics, with little knowledge existing on the impact of course type. This study uses a matched sample of 2,330 students at a large urban community college to analyze…

This study investigated whether the linguistic complexity of items leads to gender differential item functioning (DIF) on mathematics assessments. Two forms of a mathematics test were developed. The first form consisted of algebra items based on mathematical expressions, terms, and equations. In the second form, the same items were written as word…

When teachers and school librarians choose picture books for multilingual children, they often base their choice on an evaluation of linguistic comprehensibility, content familiarity and cultural appropriateness. This means that postmodern picture books may be excluded. This paper presents a case study of multilingual children's encounter with a…

Engagement is a worthwhile psychological construct to examine in the context of online training and video games. In this context, previous research suggests that the more engaged a person is, the more likely they are to experience overall positive affect while performing at a high level. This research builds on theories of engagement, Flow Theory,…

The relationship between teacher union officials and central office administrators' descriptions of the level of importance and the level of difficulty when negotiating Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) language into a teachers' union collective bargaining agreement was examined. Relationships were investigated using the New York State…

This study utilized confirmatory factor analyses and latent change score analyses to model individual and developmental differences in a longitudinal study of children's writing. Participants were 158 children who completed a writing sample each year from 1st through 4th grade. At all four time points, a four-factor model of writing provided…

The purpose of this dissertation is to study students' competencies in generating scientific explanations within the domain of complex systems, an interdisciplinary area in which students tend to have difficulties. While considering students' developing explanations of how complex systems work, I investigate the role of prior knowledge…

In 1997, based on the amendments to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), all states were faced with a statutory requirement to develop and implement alternate assessments for students with disabilities unable to participate in the statewide large-scale assessment. States were given the challenge of creating, implementing, and…

The Many-Facet Rasch (MFR) Model is traditionally used to evaluate the quality of ratings on constructed response assessments; however, it can also be used to evaluate the quality of judgments from panel-based standard setting procedures. The current study illustrates the use of the MFR Model by examining the quality of ratings obtained from a…

This paper reports the results of a research about the strategies and difficulties developed by university students in the process of modeling and simulating of random phenomena in an environment of a spreadsheet. The results indicate that students had difficulties to identify key components of the problems, which are crucial to formulate a…

Impairments in cognitive control generating deviant adaptive cognition have been proposed to account for the strong preference for repetitive behavior in autism. We examined if this preference reflects intentional deficits rather than problems in task execution in the broader autism phenotype using the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ). Participants…

General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and General Certificate of Education (GCE) grading standards are determined by Awarding Bodies using procedures that adhere to the Code of Practice published by the regulator, Ofqual. Grade boundary marks (cut scores) are set using subject experts' (senior examiners) judgement of the quality of…

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been used widely to engage learners in academic discourse for knowledge construction. Due to the features of the task environment, one of the main problems caused by the medium is information overload (IO). Yet the literature is unclear about the impact of IO on student learning. This study therefore…

This study examined opportunities for participation and learning for "struggling" readers in a sixth grade science classroom. Literacy practices, language differences, activity structures, and the social and cultural identities and associated practices and everyday funds of knowledge of both "struggling" and nonstruggling…

Many studies have been conducted to evaluate the performance of DIF detection methods, when two groups have different ability distributions. Such studies typically have demonstrated factors that are associated with inflation of Type I error rates in DIF detection, such as mean ability differences. However, no study has examined how the direction…