Prompts play a crucial role in eliciting accurate outputs from large language models (LLMs). This study examines the effectiveness of an automatic prompt engineering (APE) framework for automatic scoring in educational measurement. We collected constructed-response data from 930 students across 11 items and used human scores as the true labels. A…

Communicating national qualification standards clearly to learners and their teachers is crucial to raising standards. If people do not know what they must do to get the grade, then the qualification is providing poor information about what is considered valuable learning. Assessment scores (and grades) need to convey meaning about learners'…

Improving students' views of experimental physics is often an important goal of undergraduate physics laboratory courses. However, traditional lab courses typically include highly guided activities that often do not require or encourage students to engage in the authentic process of experimental physics. Alternatively, open-ended activities in lab…

Purpose: Developmental assessment is part of a comprehensive autism evaluation. During in-person evaluations, developmental assessment is completed via direct testing by an examiner. In telehealth evaluations, developmental assessment relies on caregiver-report instruments. This study examined correspondence between caregiver report and direct…

In October 2023, the California Department of Education released test scores for all students in Grades 3-8 and 11 for the 2022-23 school year. These results represent an opportunity to analyze whether and to what extent student learning has rebounded after the dramatic declines in scores resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related school…

Regression factor score predictors have the maximum factor score determinacy, that is, the maximum correlation with the corresponding factor, but they do not have the same inter-correlations as the factors. As it might be useful to compute factor score predictors that have the same inter-correlations as the factors, correlation-preserving factor…

In this study a standardized effect size was created for use with the SIBTEST procedure. Using this standardized effect size, a single set of heuristics was developed that are appropriate for data fitting different item response models (e.g., 2-parameter logistic, 3-parameter logistic). The standardized effect size rescales the raw beta-uni value…

Teacher quality is a key factor in improving student academic achievement. As such, educational policymakers strive to design systems to hire the most effective teachers. This paper examines the effects of a national policy reform in Colombia that established a merit-based teacher-hiring system intended to enhance teacher quality and improve…

In every culture and era, education is considered the most fundamental reality and rule that societies prioritize and deem essential. Throughout the process spanning thousands of years, from the emergence of writing to the present day, education has undergone various forms and formats of change. Education has been a continuous guide for shaping,…

Purpose: Although the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pipeline has been the most common policy framework to understand why ethnoracial disparities are some of the most glaring, few studies have empirically assessed whether the relationship between early academic preparation, such as for standardized tests, grades, and coursework,…

In latent growth curve modeling (LGCM), overall fit indices have garnered increased disputation for model selection, and model fit evaluation based on the mean structure has becoming popularity. The present study developed a versatile fit index, named Weighted Root Mean Squared Errors (WRMSE), based on individual case residuals (ICRs) with the aim…

Sleep problems are prevalent among individuals with Rett syndrome. We aimed to investigate sleep problems in individuals with Rett syndrome and their caregivers. A total of 29 participants diagnosed with Rett syndrome and their respective 29 caregivers were included. The Children Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality…

Academia and education advocates have reported a concern about the elimination of art and music education classes from high school curriculums in the United States. Studies using mean SAT test scores from 1984 and 1994 versions of the SAT test indicated participants who had art and music education classes had higher verbal and mathematical SAT…

College student employment has become an important aspect of life for many students pursuing higher education. Student employment programs provide students with the opportunity to earn income while learning skills that contribute to their personal and professional development. The impact of student employment on student development and the overall…

In many large-scale testing programs, examinees are frequently categorized into different performance levels. These classifications are then used to make high-stakes decisions about examinees in contexts such as in licensure, certification, and educational assessments. Numerous approaches to estimating the consistency and accuracy of this…