Background: Childhood overweight is a condition that is prevalent within our society, affecting more and more children each year. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between child overweight and educational outcomes. Methods: Data are reported for 13,680 children in third grade from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a…

Objective: This study investigates how the academic skills of children diagnosed with ADHD are perceived by teachers, parents, and the children themselves. Method: The authors analyze data collected for third graders in spring 2002 in the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey. They use linear regressions to estimate…

The new "Mathematics Framework for California Public Schools" identifies complex instructional activities and student performance, and requires new assessment methods to reveal that performance. One of the goals of the California Assessment Collaborative (CAC) is to study the effects of local assessment development and implementation…

Alternative mathematical items administered as prototypes at the spring 1989 Field Trials of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) are evaluated for differential item functioning (DIF) and differential speededness. Results for Algebra Placement (AP) and Student Produced Response (SPR) items are presented and contrasted with results obtained on two…

A new test theory for performance-based assessment is proposed. Criteria for "good" performance-based items, ways of measuring cognitive complexity, methods for determining maturity levels of understanding, and scaling systems are discussed. A performance-based task completed by 51 ninth and tenth graders in June 1993 was studied.…

The American College Testing Program is developing a new program, Work Keys, a system to develop and assess employability skills. It consists of four components: (1) a systematic process for profiling job skill requirements; (2) assessments that measure learners' job skill levels; (3) procedures and formats for conveying assessment results so they…

This booklet describes information for teachers based on the findings of the third Assessment of Achievement Programme (AAP), a major research program funded by the Scottish Office Education Department. The AAP contained written tasks used with (n=7,648) pupils at three levels: primary 4 (P4), primary 7 (P7), and secondary 2 (S2). This booklet is…

Designed to provide information to articulation planners and present an indicator of total enrollment, this report presents data on the flow of students from Hart Union High School District to College of the Canyons (CoC), in California. The first section provides data for 1990-91 and 1991-92 on the number of Hart graduates and the percent by…

This digest discusses how well authentic mathematics assessment tests can be expected to meet the needs of mathematics instruction that focuses on conceptual insights and analytical skills. In the new mathematics curriculum, situational lessons or real-life problems attempt to include dimensions of thinking and reasoning, individual or small-group…

In the field of educational assessment, many changes are going on that are designed to make measurement or assessment meaningful to both teachers and learners. Conditions that support assessment development and research are identified. The need for developing assessments for teachers and learners is being supported by research on unintended…

Problem solving has become a focus of mathematics programs in Australia in recent years, necessitating the assessment of students' problem-solving abilities. This manual provides a problem-solving assessment and teaching resource package containing four elements: (1) profiles assessment items; (2) profiles diagnostic forms for recording individual…

Education researchers have long been concerned with finding the appropriate method for correlational analysis of hierarchical data. In recent years, the alternative of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) has come into extensive use. HLM users typically center some or all student-level predictors either at the grand mean or at the school means. This…

Calculators were used in the 1990 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade public school and private school students and in the Trial State Assessment of 8th-grade public school students. Before they were tested, all of the students were trained briefly in how to use the equipment. NAEP collected information…

The California Assessment Program (CAP) administers tests to all public school students at certain grade levels, compiles the results, and provides information that allows educators to judge the effectiveness of their programs and make improvements. This sampler describes the types of assessment that CAP proposes to respond to the needed changes…

The differential effects of language proficiency on standardized test performance of elementary school students (grades 4 through 6 are examined for the San Diego (California) Unified School District. Ethnicity is examined as a mediating variable circumscribing the relationship between language proficiency and test performance. Test performance is…