Since its introduction in 2017, NFER has been contracted by Ofqual to develop, deliver and analyse the results of the National Reference Test (NRT) in English and maths. The NRT is administered annually and shows if student performance in English and maths at GCSE level has changed from year to year. The NRT results are based on analysis of data…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of IXL Math online software in raising student achievement on the New York State Math exam, with special focus on effects by student gender, ethnicity and disability status. The study includes an analysis of the relationship between scale scores and time spent using the IXL system, number…

An online four-week summer mathematics bridge program was implemented at a Midwest university with historically low pass rates in College Algebra and Remedial Mathematics. Students who completed the four week program significantly increased their mathematics placement exam scores. These students also had a higher pass rate in their initial college…

Much debate surrounding teacher quality has focused on students' standardized test scores, but recent federal and state initiatives have emphasized the use of multiple measures to evaluate teacher quality, including classroom observations. In this study, we explore differences across school districts in the relationship between student achievement…

Making connections during math instruction is a recommended practice, but may increase the difficulty of the lesson. We used an avatar video instructor to qualitatively examine the role of linking multiple representations for 24 middle school students learning algebra. Students were taught how to solve polynomial multiplication problems, such as…

A challenge in designing tests is ensuring fairness for all test takers. Pupils who are not yet sufficiently proficient in the language of schooling taking a test that was designed for native speakers is unfair, since they will not be able to demonstrate their true abilities (Abedi, J., and C. Lord. 2001. "The Language Factor in Mathematics…

The present study aims to examine the relationship between developmental language deficit and children's creative ability. For this purpose, we compared the performance of preschool children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) on general and mathematic creativity tests with that of typically developing children. The findings demonstrated that…

The aim of the present study is to advocate the use of a participatory action research programme, the Formative Scaffolding Programme (FSP), in mathematics. The FSP's main structure is presented as well as an implementation of a class intervention, with the aim of exploring the FSP test cycle's virtues in a social science class in a Swedish…

The recent introduction of a personal literacy and numeracy test (LANTITE) has been part of tighter accreditation of Initial Teacher Education programs across Australia. This article focuses on pre-service teachers' experiences, beliefs and feelings about the new high-stakes testing regime. The data are drawn from a six-month project intended to…

Students' explanations of their mathematical thinking and conclusions have become a greater part of the assessment landscape in recent years. With a sample of 71 fourth-grade students at risk for mathematics learning disabilities, we investigated the relation between student accuracy in comparing the magnitude of fractions and the quality of…

Response to Intervention (RtI) is a multitiered system of support, designed to improve student learning outcomes and early identification of struggling students. Much attention has been paid to RtI for literacy at the elementary level, but less on RtI for mathematics at the secondary level. The current case study examines one high school's…

"U.S. Performance on the 2015 TIMSS Advanced Mathematics and Physics Assessments: A Closer Look" expands upon the results described in NCES' [National Center for Education Statistics'] initial "Highlights" report on TIMSS Advanced. This new report provides in-depth analyses that (1) examine the demographics, school…

The purpose of this study was to explore differences in teacher perceptions of RTI based on years of teaching experience and educational setting, and the correlation between teacher perceptions and student performance on the third through eighth grade MAAP ELA and mathematics assessments. Data was obtained directly from participants, utilizing a…

We examined Differential Item Functioning (DIF) and the size of cross-cultural performance differences in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 mathematics data before and after application of propensity score matching. The mathematics performance of Indonesian, Turkish, Australian, and Dutch students on released items was…

Statistics anxiety has often been linked to performance in statistics modules for psychology students, despite this no research to date has examined whether attitudes towards statistics can predict whether or not a student chooses to carry on psychology from pre-tertiary to higher education. In this pilot study 41 second year A-level psychology…