The current study compared the effects of interteaching and discussion forum activities on quiz and assignment scores in a master's-level asynchronous research methods course. In an alternating-treatments design, six participants engaged in interteaching on half of the weeks and in the discussion forum on alternate weeks. Participants in the…

The current study involved the development, scaling, and validation of a new, brief, strength-based measure of children's ecological support, as rated by their parents. The scaling and validation of the Child and Youth Ecological Assets Scale--Parent Form (C-YEAS-P) took place through two studies. The first study involved 500 parents who were…

Trend scoring constructed response items (i.e. rescoring Time A responses at Time B) gives rise to two-way data that follow a product multinomial distribution rather than the multinomial distribution that is usually assumed. Recent work has shown that the difference in sampling model can have profound negative effects on statistics usually used to…

Despite the popularity of traditional fit index cutoffs like RMSEA [less than or equal to] 0.06 and CFI [greater than or equal to] 0.95, several studies have noted issues with overgeneralizing traditional cutoffs. Computational methods have been proposed to avoid overgeneralization by deriving cutoffs specifically tailored to the characteristics…

Birth weight is a robust predictor of valued life course outcomes, emphasizing the importance of prenatal development. But does birth weight act as a proxy for environmental conditions in utero, or do biological processes surrounding birth weight themselves play a role in healthy development? To answer this question, we leverage variation in birth…

Purpose: To gain a better understanding of the assessment practices currently implemented by Quebec physical education teachers regarding reporting and grading. Method: Exploratory mixed-methods study using semistructured interviews (n = 13), interviews to the double (n = 12), and a questionnaire (n = 164) with elementary and high school physical…

Study abroad programs increase a student's exposure to different cultures, traditions, and ways of life. While the benefits of participating in a study abroad program have been well documented, barriers, such as language, culture, and environment, may present themselves to program participants. Participants are introduced to a variety of new…

In this study, we estimated the relationship between two popular measures of teacher effectiveness--teachers' value-added model (VAM) estimates, represented in this study via median growth percentiles (MGPs), and teachers' observational scores, derived from the TAP System for Teacher and Student Advancement. We examined the relationship between…

Is the achievement gap real? Using a mixed-methods approach, this study reframed standardized testing through a Quantitative Critical and Black Critical lens. It interrogated the deficit framing of Black student achievement by asking the following questions: (1) To what extent do the aggregated standardized test scores for Black students in…

The purpose of this quantitative observational study was to identify the differences in high school student test scores on the ACT ELA composite tests and ACT math test for students attending school in union and unified districts in Arizona. Arizona has two options for public high school districts, 9-12 (union) and K-12 (unified). The researcher…

The multidimensional forced-choice (MFC) format is an alternative to rating scales in which participants rank items according to how well the items describe them. Currently, little is known about how to detect careless responding in MFC data. The aim of this study was to adapt a number of indices used for rating scales to the MFC format and…

The purpose of this nonexperimental correlational quantitative research design is to examine if there is a relationship between parents' understanding of summative student score reports and accessing further resources online, while also examining the relationship between parents' comprehension of the summative student score report and other…

State assessment test scores in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics had continued to decline in a southern state in the United States over the last few years. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the difference in middle school ELA and mathematics test scores between students receiving instruction in virtual and…

We examined relationships between measures of adaptive behavior, cognitive ability, and autism symptom severity in 1458 preschool-aged children with autism from the Study to Explore Early Development. While publications commonly describe autistic children as "low-" or "high-functioning" based on cognitive ability, relying…

Traditional validation approaches fail to account for the ways oppressive systems (e.g. racism, radical nationalism) impact the test design and development process. To disrupt this legacy of white supremacy, we illustrate how justice-oriented, antiracist validation (JAV) framework can be applied to construct articulation and validation, data…