This paper reports a post-hoc analysis of the influence of lexical difficulty of cue sentences on performance in an elicited imitation (EI) task to assess oral production skills for 645 child L2 English learners in instructional settings. This formed part of a large-scale investigation into effectiveness of foreign language teaching in Polish…

Being driven by the hypothetico-deductive mode of inquiry, previous studies have tested the effectiveness of theory-driven interventions under controlled experimental conditions to come up with universally applicable generalizations. To make a case in the opposite direction, this data-driven study aims at uncovering techniques and strategies…

Much research has been completed that focused on the role of drafting strategies in first language (L1) writing, but its role in second language (L2) writing is missing. The present study investigated the impact of outlining and free writing strategies on L2 academic writing in terms of overall quality, as well as more specifically in terms of…

This report analyzes the psychometric properties of the revised school-level SEL implementation rubric and the SEL specialists' activity log.

This article describes how using raw data and information from reliable assessments can inform teachers' decisions leading to improved instruction. The primary aim is to use a systems approach to provide evidence of what students know and how they demonstrate mastery. Such evidence can empower teachers to reach all students. The pedagogic…

The Children's Psychological Processing Scale (CPPS), authored by Milton J. Dehn and published by Schoolhouse Educational Services in 2012, is a third-party rating scale that can be administered to teachers who are familiar with children ages 5 to 12. The measure is designed to identify psychological processing deficits in children who are…

This study was designed to explore the impact of the standards movement on the principalship in the province of Alberta, Canada. In 2009 the minister of education approved a set of practice guidelines for school leaders. The "Guidelines" list seven practice standards called leadership competencies. In 2012 a review was conducted to see…

Self-assessment is one of the most usual activities in classroom from all different educational levels. However a high percentage of teachers report not knowing how self-assessment influence students' learning or how to implement it successfully in their classrooms. In this article two different lines of research concerning self-assessment…

This article proposes a generalized distance discriminating method for test with polytomous response (GDD-P). The new method is the polytomous extension of an item response theory (IRT)-based cognitive diagnostic method, which can identify examinees' ideal response patterns (IRPs) based on a generalized distance index. The similarities between…

This article builds on two earlier studies. The first one defined and assessed technological competence among adolescents (Autio & Hansen, 2002). The second, traced three students who had achieved the best results in a measurement of technological competence given 15 years ago (Autio, 2011). This study showed that, in terms of technological…

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) skills are essential to successfully deal with environments that change dynamically and involve a large number of interconnected and partially unknown causal influences. The increasing importance of such skills in the 21st century requires appropriate assessment and intervention methods, which in turn rely on adequate…

Most students are concerned about grades and often have negative attitudes toward testing. Students perceive traditional instructor-written exams as irrelevant and autocratic, leading to lower trust in teaching and evaluation methods and decreased motivation to learn. This paper discusses a new approach, the student-written exam, which is a…

Given that equating/linking applications are now appearing in kinesiology literature, this article provides an overview of the different types of linked test scores: equated, concordant, and predicted. It also addresses the different types of evidence required to determine whether the scores from two different field tests (measuring the same…

Rubrics have been widely recognized by writing teachers for its efficiency in facilitating grading and its potential to be instructive. However, its use and value in oral production assessments still remain to be proven. Thus, this qualitative study was designed to explore the students' perceived uses of rubrics and their actual use of rubrics in…

With the increase in frequency of the use of mixed methods, both in research publications and in externally funded grants there are increasing calls for a set of standards to assess the quality of mixed methods research. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to conduct a multi-phase analysis to create a preliminary rubric to evaluate mixed…