Over the last three decades, the study of test preparation and test washback has emerged as an indispensable area of inquiry in language assessment. Yet, how test takers' motivation and perceptions of test design and content might mediate test preparation has not been given sufficient attention. Taking the general English module of a high stakes…

Tracking students' learning states to provide tailored learner support is a critical element of an adaptive learning system. This study explores how an automatic assessment is capable of tracking learners' cognitive and emotional states during virtual reality (VR)-based representational-flexibility training. This VR-based training program aims to…

The primary goal of this research was to investigate AOU students' conceptions of the quality of online experience through the learning management system in supporting their classroom tutorials. A 32-item questionnaire was administered to a randomly selected sample (205) of Elementary Education students at the AOU Jordan Branch. On one hand, the…

Evaluation professionals need to be nimble and innovative in their approaches in order to be relevant and provide useful evidence to decision-makers, stakeholders, and society in the crowded public policy landscape. In this article, we offer serious games as a method that can be employed by evaluators to address three persisting challenges in…

The Phonics Screening Check (PSC) was introduced in England in 2012 for Year 1 children (aged 5 and 6). There have been criticisms of the check in relation to its reliability and appropriateness as an assessment for early reading, although advocates of the check see it as a valuable tool in securing progress in early reading. This mixed methods…

Does language development drive language change? A common account of language change attributes the regularity of certain patterns to children's learning biases. The present study examines these predictions for change-in-progress in the use of "must" in Toronto English. Historically, modal verbs like "must" start with root…

Collaboration is a complex skill, comprised of multiple subskills, that is of growing interest to policy makers, educators and researchers. Several definitions and frameworks have been described in the literature to support assessment of collaboration; however, the inherent structure of the construct still needs better definition. In 2015, the…

Previous studies examined the association between motivational characteristics and language learning achievement, but considerably less is known about young language learners' task-specific motivation in assessment contexts. Our study investigated the task motivation of young learners of English when completing computer-administered integrated…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how working in culturally diverse teams influences team-level cultural intelligence (CQ) development and how team-level CQ influences performance. The use of culturally diverse work teams continues to grow within organizations, however, their relationships with team-level CQ are not well…

Using data from the 2015-16 round of the Private School Universe Survey, I examine the types of private schools that decide to participate in school voucher programs in seven locations: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Louisiana, D.C., and North Carolina. Regression analysis indicates that more specialized private schools tend to be less…

The present study was conducted to find out preschool teachers' and principals' opinions on the problems of the Turkish education system as well as their opinions on potential solutions. The sample of the study was preschool teachers' and principals' from Alanya, a district of the province of Antalya, Turkey. In the study group, there were 89…

Retrieving studied materials often enhances subsequent learning of new materials (Pastötter & Bäuml, 2014). However, retrieval has also been shown to impair new learning (Finn & Roediger, 2013). In this article, we attempted to determine when retrieval enhances and when it impairs new learning. We argue that testing impairs new learning…

This paper argues that play should be central to children's lives throughout early childhood, including their time in school. First, it charts the history of early childhood education in Scotland through four stages: (1) pioneer of kindergarten; (2) early adopter of formal education; (3) promise of a recalibration through Curriculum for…

This study concerned an action research project undertaken within a mainstream 11-18 secondary school with a high proportion of pupil premium students in the north of England. Pupil premium is a grant given by the government to schools in England to decrease the attainment gap for the most disadvantaged children, whether by income or by family…

In the field of mathematics education, it is common for studies to use test scores to examine racial and socio-economic achievement gaps. The results of such studies have influenced mathematics teachers to address issues of equitable access and achievement as part of closing existing gaps (Gutierrez & Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, 2011). However,…